Mike Bliley: Alternate Topic 2

The Change in Tone between Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra

            I recognize that the first and second book of the Space Trilogy were written five years apart. I also know that there are “a few years” in between the end of one story and the beginning of the next. However, and maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, it seemed as if there was a stark disconnect between the Ransom in the two novels.

            Ransom in the first novel was timid, almost shy to a point. He barely avoids suffering a nervous breakdown while travelling to Malacandra, simply because of hearing the word sorn and imagining what monstrous creature that could entail. He makes a ballsy escape (at this point, let me express how shocked I am that my spell check accepts the word ballsy), and met up with and befriended the creatures of this planet. Even after learning the language of the inhabitants, and finally feeling relatively secure, Ransom’s demeanor does not change; he still seems cautious, and very calculated. This continues all the way until he gets shipped back to Earth.

            Now fast forward to Perelandra. Ransom all of a sudden appears, and he is vibrant. He is headstrong, and seems completely confident of his abilities and his surroundings. Again, I recognize the lapse of time in both the story’s publication dates and the story itself, but from after putting down one book and immediately starting the next, things felt off. I was honestly waiting for this Ransom to be some kind of doppelganger, because his emotion was just SO wildly different. I figure that, after visiting Malacandra, perhaps Ransom has this “I’ve done this all before, no sweat” kind of mentality. But even then, it just seemed a bit out of place.

            How do you think this change in emotion occurred? Did you see it as pronounced as I did? How do you think those intermittent couple of years treated Ransom?