Full Transcript for That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis, 1945)

00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:23.040 Yeah, which is very, but I mean you can you can kind of see that it's going to be ransom. 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:29.920 Like that feels like the most Yeah, I think the ransom one makes sense because I think it's a progression of his character arc. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:30.160 Yeah. 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:36.480 Whereas the Divine one, I feel like there is no relationship between Lord Feverstone and Divine. 00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:38.879 It's thrown in as a very incidental detail. 00:04:39.120 --> 00:04:39.600 This is the case. 00:04:39.839 --> 00:04:41.040 It could be an entirely different character. 00:04:41.279 --> 00:04:41.759 It could be anyone. 00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:46.079 So we're now I feel like we're going off on a massive tangent that's a good idea. 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:47.759 We should explain what this is about. 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:56.639 I'm gonna let Nikki do that because she's just made me sit here for like 20 minutes while she reread her very extensive notes. 00:04:56.720 --> 00:04:57.519 So you can summarize that. 00:04:57.759 --> 00:04:59.920 All I'm saying is I read this book a really long time ago. 00:05:00.079 --> 00:05:04.319 It took Emma a long time to read it, and then that's an even longer time to start recording this podcast. 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:10.639 But I painted my nails, I replied to all my WhatsApp messages, I did lots of stuff while Nikki was reading her notes, so yeah, off you go. 00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:11.439 Take the floor. 00:05:11.680 --> 00:05:16.399 Okay, so don't talk for too long, because remember that podcast episode where you just monologued for like 15 minutes. 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:18.959 Yes, just let it go, my guys. 00:05:21.279 --> 00:05:39.600 So if so, if you remember from the previous two books that we read and reviewed in this podcast, um there's a man called Ransom who has been uh basically taken by God up into space and he's gone to Mars and Venus and become basically like an instrument of like the divine plan. 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:49.519 But the div but it's it's basically Christianity, but kind of filtered through a slightly sci-fi slash medieval cosmology view where all the plants have different names, and um God is known as Melel Dil. 00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:50.480 Of course. 00:05:50.720 --> 00:06:02.319 Anyway, after after the second book in the trilogy, Ransom has just been to Venus and he has just uh slain one of the two recurring villains of the series who was possessed by a demon. 00:06:02.399 --> 00:06:04.639 Um the main recurring villain, I would say. 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:08.639 Because the two villains are Western and Divine, but Divine doesn't feature in the second book. 00:06:08.879 --> 00:06:09.839 No, you're right, okay, yeah. 00:06:09.920 --> 00:06:10.959 And he also has much more of a role. 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:15.279 Yeah, so he's slain the main recurring villain, um, which is first like narrative problem, I guess. 00:06:18.959 --> 00:06:24.160 And learnt war, and um become effectively kind of like transfigured by his experiences. 00:06:24.399 --> 00:06:25.519 Goes back to Earth. 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:35.199 Then um this book opens with a radical perspective shift because now the main characters are a young academic at a university that's totally not Durham. 00:06:35.360 --> 00:06:35.680 Absolutely. 00:06:36.079 --> 00:06:37.279 And um, where's it actually meant to be? 00:06:37.360 --> 00:06:37.759 Edstow. 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:40.000 Edstow, which doesn't exist Edstow, I think. 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:42.480 Yeah, blasted Northern University. 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:42.879 Yeah. 00:06:43.199 --> 00:06:44.480 Um, which C.S. 00:06:44.560 --> 00:06:58.560 Lewis says in the beginning of in like the preface to the book that uh he didn't make it, mean it to resemble any kind of particular university, but it does very much resemble Durham University in terms of its location and size and the fact that Lewis had a horrible time there, apparently. 00:06:58.879 --> 00:07:07.439 Well, yes, I think it was written after he'd been on sabbatical in Durham, which is kind of funny for me and Nikki because we lived in Durham and studied in Durham for a very long time. 00:07:07.759 --> 00:07:08.639 Durham is lovely. 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:09.920 Yeah, Durham's really nice. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:12.399 I'd say Durham is not accurately represented at this time. 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:21.040 I mean, maybe it maybe it was less nice if it was like still like the mining hub and there's those like smog in the air and things like that, but I can't come on Lewis. 00:07:21.199 --> 00:07:22.959 It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:23.199 Yeah. 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:24.480 I think it's very pretty. 00:07:24.720 --> 00:07:29.680 Yeah, I don't know what was wrong with Lewis, which is um something that I thought repeatedly when reading this book. 00:07:29.759 --> 00:07:38.560 Um I could see that Durham University maybe would sell off its land to investors, which seems to be what Edstone University is doing in this book. 00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:39.120 Yeah. 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:52.319 Build yet another bit of student accommodation or like try to create a new college that's meant to be for post for um undergrads, but then find that um the local residents don't want another undercut undergrad college in the middle of their housing estate. 00:07:52.399 --> 00:08:14.319 So they turn it into a postgraduate college and uh completely dislocate the postgraduate college from its very nice, um it's very its very nice location, which it was forcibly moved to like a decade before, and then move them on just after they did this consultation on like building a new workspace and then just shove them in this place that no one has any ties to in order to move more undergraduates to the city against the will of the residents of the city. 00:08:14.399 --> 00:08:15.279 I'm not bitter. 00:08:15.439

--> 00:08:17.279 I freaking loved Eustonov College. 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:18.560 They did it dirty. 00:08:19.519 --> 00:08:33.039 Didn't Terram also spend like a million pounds on a map of the UK, which was made up of minerals that you would find in different parts of the UK, and they didn't spend that million pounds on stuff for students. 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:34.639 I don't know if it cost a million pounds. 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:35.679 It cost a lot of public art. 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:36.480 I quite like that map. 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:37.679 I thought it was a good bit of public art. 00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:38.799 It was a good bit of public art. 00:08:38.960 --> 00:08:49.039 What was more outrageous was when they spent large quantities of money on like Matises and then put them in the uh university management building, but like upstairs when no one could fucking see them. 00:08:50.320 --> 00:08:51.360 Yeah, that was bad. 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:52.879 Anyway, we love Durham. 00:08:53.200 --> 00:08:54.320 We love Durham, yeah. 00:08:54.480 --> 00:09:00.480 Um but yeah, so uh Mark is a sociologist working, not Durham. 00:09:00.799 --> 00:09:01.440 Yeah, not Durham. 00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:04.480 And then there's his young wife, um Jane. 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:24.720 Jane Matsett, who is an unremarkable, untalented PhD student writing a thesis on John Dunn, John Dunn, and she's going to argue that um his poetry is a triumphant vindication of the body, which Lewis clearly thinks is a really banal and hackneyed uh reading of Dunn, which from what I know of Dunn is like probably true. 00:09:24.960 --> 00:09:26.559 I found this really mean-spirited. 00:09:26.639 --> 00:09:30.559 His portrayal of Jane is in general, in general, very mean-spirited. 00:09:30.639 --> 00:09:30.720 Yeah. 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:33.200 Although I think I've also kind of met that person. 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:34.480 A hundred percent. 00:09:34.639 --> 00:09:39.039 I also kind of enjoyed how obscure that reference was because I've never read any Dunn. 00:09:39.440 --> 00:09:42.399 John Dunn's such a famous poet, he's one of the great metaphysical poets. 00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:48.159 I know who he is, but I wouldn't know that that is a particularly hackneyed interpretation of Dunn. 00:09:48.320 --> 00:09:50.320 And I think Lewis does this throughout the book actually. 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:55.120 He assumes that his readers have quite a high level of knowledge about quite obscure academia. 00:09:55.279 --> 00:09:57.759 Like there's a whole conversation in Latin at one point. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:07.919 Yeah, in all fairness, I think it's a hackneyed interpretation of Dunn, more because, like, so another thing that's true about Jane is that she is brace yourselves, a feminist. 00:10:08.159 --> 00:10:13.039 Whoa! And um feminism is more about being like positive around the body and things like that. 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:24.960 And I think that what what he's doing is he's like channeling a general kind of like slightly cliched view of this whole kind of thought world that dismisses the people in it as like stupid and banal. 00:10:25.120 --> 00:10:30.879 Um, and to be fair, I've met stupid and banal feminists, just sort of like I've met stupid and banal other people too. 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:33.279 But I think he's very unfair on Jane. 00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:39.919 But anyway, it turns out that Jane and Mark are in a sexless marriage because I think Jane is like slightly repulsed by Mark and doesn't even like to kiss him. 00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:42.879 Yeah, I don't I didn't really get why they were together. 00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:44.559 But anyway, we'll get on top of it. 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:46.320 Well, Mark is very career focused. 00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:52.159 Also, Jane wants to be taken seriously by Mark, and Mark just sees it as like a distraction from his work and like just a pretty young thing. 00:10:52.399 --> 00:10:56.399 And they've deliberately not had children because Jane wants to finish her PhD thesis. 00:10:56.720 --> 00:10:59.759 Which, as we all know, is outrageous and completely unacceptable. 00:11:00.080 --> 00:11:04.320 And also, as Lewis has told us, her PhD thesis is very bad. 00:11:04.480 --> 00:11:05.919 So why is she bothering? 00:11:06.159 --> 00:11:06.320 Yeah. 00:11:06.399 --> 00:11:13.440 But anyway, there's this new big like new science kind of organization being set up in Edstow called NICE. 00:11:13.519 --> 00:11:14.480 I can't remember what it sounds for. 00:11:14.639 --> 00:11:17.600 The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments. 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:18.240 Excellent. 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:26.159 And it like specializes in things like uh engineering and infrastructure and the social sciences, but it's also um evil. 00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:31.200 Yeah, well, it also specialises in vivisection racism. 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:34.000 Vivisection, racism, and mad science, yeah. 00:11:34.240 --> 00:11:34.720 It's evil. 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:35.519 It's evil. 00:11:35.679 --> 00:11:36.960 It's the opposite of nice, in fact. 00:11:37.200 --> 00:11:52.159 So anyway, Mark is a social climber and has basically been trying to get into like the pro-nice faction at the university, and then he eventually gets hired by Nice, while Nice persuades the university to trade them, to sell them like this ancient bit of woodland for mysterious reasons. 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:53.360 Plot twist. 00:11:53.519 --> 00:11:56.480 The bit of woodland is where Merlin is buried. 00:11:56.559 --> 00:11:57.840 So this is controversial. 00:11:58.159 --> 00:11:58.879 Yeah, okay, yeah. 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:00.879 So um, this is another layer of the story. 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:03.679 The story is like a really weird collection of things. 00:12:03.840 --> 00:12:20.399 Yes, so Nice's plan is to dig up the body of Merlin and steal his magical power in order to forward their like satanic plans to control

everybody with social science and then eventually achieve immortality for like one person. 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:30.480 Um yeah, and if you thought that it was weird that the Lion The Witch in the Wardrobe featured Father Christmas, which a lot of people do, then it's even weirder that this book features Merlin. 00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:41.440 Yeah, so Mark joins Nice, and it's the sinister organization, and they murder someone and they have a lesbian and a shocking lesbian. 00:12:41.759 --> 00:12:43.600 And basically the deeper more And a gay man. 00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:44.720 And a gay man, yeah. 00:12:45.279 --> 00:12:46.799 Both of whom are evil, importantly. 00:12:47.039 --> 00:12:48.480 And an ex-priest as well. 00:12:48.720 --> 00:12:50.720 Yeah, so all these all these terrible people. 00:12:50.799 --> 00:12:57.360 And as Mark gets deeper into Nice, he gets deeper and deeper into conspiracy, and it turns out they're a really threatening sinister organization. 00:12:57.600 --> 00:13:01.279 He takes much longer to realize it than you think he does in the narrative. 00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:09.039 Like you think, oh, Mark must definitely be on top of the fact there's something really sinister going on, and then he'll say something shockingly naive, like, Mark, how the fuck have you not got this? 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:18.000 Even at the very end of the book, when it gets to the climax, and like he knows that everything's evil, he's been coerced into going to this dinner and he dresses for it and he's like, he's dressing for what would be a very nice dinner. 00:13:18.080 --> 00:13:20.320 It's like Mark, keep your eye on the bull. 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:22.879 Um, Mark is an absolute moron, basically. 00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:23.759 Stupid, isn't it? 00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:24.559 He's incredibly stupid. 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:29.519 I think Jane is meant to come across as kind of stupid, but actually she comes across as much brighter than Mark. 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:30.960 Yeah, like Mark is an idiot. 00:13:31.120 --> 00:13:39.279 Yeah, so while they're getting it, Mark's getting into this conspiracy, Jane is having these like prophetic dreams about all the mad science shit that's going on at the institution. 00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:47.440 And she is sent by a friend to go talk to a bunch of kooks living in an old manor out in the countryside who might be able to help. 00:13:47.600 --> 00:14:00.240 And it turns out that King Kook is um ransom, who is now this like Christ figure who's laid up in bed by his uh symbolic wound to the heel, um, subsisting off bread and wine, aka the Eucharist. 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:01.440 It's not subtle. 00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:11.279 And he's he's directing this small holdout of nice, gentle, slightly oldy worldly people, you know, like a simple but virtuous working-class woman. 00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:18.320 Um Mother Dimble, a woman who's always wanted to have children but could never have children, so she's become a

mother to all. 00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:24.480 Exactly, and um a nice gardener who's that someone's a skeptic is the gardener the skeptic, yeah. 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:31.440 The skeptic that's thinking for a world, an atheist, that's it, but like a good atheist, not like a rabid nice atheist. 00:14:31.679 --> 00:14:35.519 Um nice as in the acronym, not as in another. 00:14:35.919 --> 00:14:36.320 Exactly. 00:14:36.480 --> 00:14:44.960 Um, so it turns out that this they end up recruiting Jane because of her precognizant powers, and they use her powers to get to Merlin first. 00:14:45.120 --> 00:14:59.200 Um, and then uh Ransom kind of calls Merlin to account, uh, tells Merlin that he is the pen dragon, so the man who's in charge of bringing about like ye old England again with the power of God. 00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:00.879 They call this like logres or logres. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:11.279 Yeah, and um then ransom calls down all the powers of heaven, so all of the tutelary spirits of all the different planets, um, known as the Oyasa. 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:16.960 Yes, which is the bit where it links to the other books, and that section is about 10 pages. 00:15:17.279 --> 00:15:18.559 Yeah, it's I agree with that. 00:15:19.200 --> 00:15:22.320 I liked that section, but it was like very short in the context of the whole book. 00:15:22.559 --> 00:15:32.399 So basically they give all their powers to Merlin, and then Merlin goes to Nice, pretending to be an Orthodox priest who can speak the language of the Basque. 00:15:32.559 --> 00:15:33.039 He speaks Basque. 00:15:33.200 --> 00:15:51.360 Yeah, oh sorry, he speaks Basque, who can um So when Nice tries to get to Merlin, Merlin basically mugs a homeless person and steals his clothes, and then Nice mistake the homeless person for Merlin, while whereas Merlin then goes to Ransom's group. 00:15:51.440 --> 00:15:56.399 So they have this homeless person there who's like pretty smart in realizing that something shifty's going on. 00:15:56.559 --> 00:16:18.639 So he's pretending not to speak English, and then Merlin, real Merlin shows up, pretending to be someone who can translate for him, and um then uses the powers of the heaven to confuse everybody's language and inflict them with despair, and then eventually unleash all the animals they had um away for vivisection to come and eat everybody, and then God calls down divine fire and destroys the entire village. 00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:19.200 The end. 00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:20.240 No, actually not the end. 00:16:20.399 --> 00:16:21.600 Then Jane has sex with Mark. 00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:22.559 Yes, that's the end. 00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:24.080 It's a really insane book. 00:16:24.240 --> 00:16:25.039 It's a very weird book. 00:16:26.159 --> 00:16:31.039 And I think, in terms of the plotting, I mean there's a lot that you could talk about with the plotting because it's nuts. 00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:44.799 But the strangest thing about the plotting for me is that

Lewis is trying to, I think, make a point that a lot of modern life is very removed from how human life is meant to be, and it's very artificial, and because of that, it's very boring. 00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:53.840 So he deliberately makes Jane and Mark, his two main characters, very bored through much of the novel, and that is boring to read. 00:16:54.159 --> 00:16:54.639 Yeah. 00:16:55.759 --> 00:16:58.000 I think that's the novel's fundamental flaw. 00:16:58.159 --> 00:17:00.879 You could edit out the middle like 200 pages. 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:03.600 I mean, I don't know if Jane and I don't know if Mark's always bored. 00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:04.720 Mark is made to confuse. 00:17:04.799 --> 00:17:07.759 It seems like, but there are like Q kind of devices there. 00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:15.920 Mark is confused because Nice is a very confusing organization with no clear point because no one really knows what they're doing, and it's all like the rapid emptiness of evil. 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:24.640 Jane is often confused and bored because she has nothing to do, because um most of Ransom's organization basically spend all their time waiting for God to tell them what to do. 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:27.599 And then they do exactly one thing, which is get Merlin. 00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:31.519 Jane is bored because she doesn't have children, so her life is empty. 00:17:31.759 --> 00:17:33.039 Oh, yeah, she's also bored with that. 00:17:33.119 --> 00:17:33.200 Yeah. 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:34.720 But basically, that's the key point. 00:17:35.119 --> 00:17:42.960 But basically, most of the story is like nothing happening for symbolic reasons, which is like fun symbolism, but terrible storytelling. 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:58.480 Although I did enjoy actually, so there's a very large section of the novel where Mark goes to work for Nice and he's in the Nice headquarters building, and he's been given some kind of job, but no one will tell him what his job is or where his office is or what he's meant to be doing. 00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:00.079 We've all been in that job. 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:01.839 Yeah, and he's kind of wandering around. 00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:11.200 And I I started a new job very recently, and I I do know what I'm meant to be doing, I hope, but for the first couple of weeks I didn't because it was quite different to my previous job. 00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:19.599 And also the actual physical building that my new office is located in is literally a maze, and I'm dyspraxic, and I really empathise with Mark in that. 00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:26.240 You were at a scary modern university with a focus on like practical, nice things that Lewis freaking hated. 00:18:26.400 --> 00:18:27.119 Yeah, I was Mark. 00:18:27.440 --> 00:18:28.640 But Emma Emma was Mark. 00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:30.079 Are you now an alcoholic? 00:18:30.160 --> 00:18:31.440 Because Mark also becomes an alcoholic. 00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:32.799 100%, yeah. 00:18:33.519 --> 00:18:35.839 So I did really enjoy that aspect of it. 00:18:36.160 --> 00:18:44.079 So one final layer of this book is that um, so we talked about Logris, which is their name for like Merry, Merry Old England. 00:18:44.240 --> 00:18:47.119 Apparently, this was a word invented by one of the inklings. 00:18:47.279 --> 00:18:47.759 Charles Williams. 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:52.319 To talk about like, yeah, like the spirit of all medieval England, slightly romanticised view of that. 00:18:52.480 --> 00:18:59.440 The other thing that comes up is that um they keep talking about like powers unseen since Numenor. 00:18:59.519 --> 00:18:59.680 Yes. 00:18:59.920 --> 00:19:08.640 Which those of you who have read The Silmarillion will recognise is the name of the Atlantis analogue, uh, which sinks beneath the waves. 00:19:08.799 --> 00:19:18.799 And this in itself comes from another book written by Tolkien, or was was going to be written by Tolkien, which was deliberate retelling of Atlantis using the name Numenor. 00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:36.480 So um, just as Lewis included Tolkien as the protagonist of his previous two novels, um now there's also a bit of like Tolkien fanfiction in this one where it integrates into Tolkien's Legendarium a little bit, which is just continuing like Lewis's sort of little man crush on Tolkien, which is delightful. 00:19:36.720 --> 00:19:39.279 Yeah, I did really enjoy the Numenor details. 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:40.079 That was really fun. 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:44.640 And it's the way it's just thrown into the world, like this is a really established part of mythology. 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:46.559 Numenor just existed. 00:19:47.039 --> 00:19:52.240 I do I do quite appreciate like the inkling sort of inside baseball for of these books. 00:19:52.400 --> 00:19:52.480 Yeah. 00:19:52.799 --> 00:19:59.920 Like it's a book, it's like it's clearly a book that Lewis wrote mostly for his friends rather than um rather than for a wider audience. 00:20:00.160 --> 00:20:08.000 And I I think something's lost in modern publishing where you don't get to just write some kooky book um for yourself and for people who know you. 00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:11.440 Like now it has to actually be a saleable product, which this book would not have been. 00:20:11.680 --> 00:20:15.359 No, this book would never in a million years be published now. 00:20:15.599 --> 00:20:17.519 Um, I mean, I think so. 00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:21.119 I found it very difficult to read for a number of reasons. 00:20:21.279 --> 00:20:23.440 Um firstly, it was very boring. 00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:27.759 Secondly, it was one of the I should say, I didn't find this book boring. 00:20:27.839 --> 00:20:28.880 I actually really enjoyed it. 00:20:29.200 --> 00:20:31.759 Yeah, but But I have a bad taste in books. 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:33.759 Yeah, Nikki is currently reading Dune. 00:20:34.319 --> 00:20:41.039 No, I've I've I've got the I read all of Chapter House Dune now, and um I can't

decide whether I want to read the uh Frank Herbert Sons books. 00:20:41.200 --> 00:20:45.680 Apparently, to understand though, you have to also read all the prequels, and I'm not willing to make that kind of commitment. 00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:48.160 So I'm now reading some Warhammer novel because I have a terrible. 00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:53.200 Well, yes, because Nikki actually quite enjoyed Chapter House Dune, which I think no one has ever done. 00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:55.119 Yeah, the later three books are great. 00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:57.119 I think they're won't be like they're not great. 00:20:57.279 --> 00:20:58.000 They're not great. 00:20:58.160 --> 00:21:03.039 Most people give up after Dune Messiah, but anyway, so we don't I don't know if we can trust Nikki. 00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:10.000 But I found this book very difficult to read because it was very dull on purpose, so I think I was right in finding it dull. 00:21:10.240 --> 00:21:15.200 Um, it was also unconnected from the previous books. 00:21:15.440 --> 00:21:19.519 I think Merlin, for me, I didn't really get why we needed Merlin. 00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:22.640 Um, but there were things that I did like about it. 00:21:22.799 --> 00:21:25.759 Actually, no, sorry, I was going to say the other reason why I found it difficult to read was. 00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:38.400 Well, no, I'm just trying to start with the conversation, but um it was one of the most anti-feminist things I've ever read in my life, and I found that very difficult to get through. 00:21:38.559 --> 00:21:46.880 Um but one of the things that I liked about it was I thought the atmosphere of the book, and maybe perhaps we can talk about this first. 00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:48.799 The atmosphere of the book was fantastic. 00:21:48.960 --> 00:21:50.640 It was so chilling. 00:21:51.119 --> 00:21:53.039 And I think that was very, very well done. 00:21:53.200 --> 00:22:13.759 Because what Lewis is trying to present is I guess he's trying to present, and it's similar to what Tolkien is doing, I think, in The Lord of the Rings, where um Tolkien looks at this industrialised world of Mordor and then the naturalistic world of the Shire, and he looks at maybe what's lost when you have this move to kind of industrialization. 00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:23.839 And I think Lewis is doing something similar where he has the world of like merry old England, which is when we're very in tune with kind of God and nature and the planets. 00:22:24.240 --> 00:22:31.039 And then he has this modern world, which is divorced from emotion and from humanity. 00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:33.839 And I think that's what nice represents. 00:22:34.000 --> 00:22:40.079 And the way that he presents it is actually quite incredible because it's one of the most chilling things I've ever read. 00:22:40.160 --> 00:22:46.960 It's this completely, and this is why I was talking about the idea of being cold earlier, is completely cold. 00:22:47.039 --> 00:22:49.759 Um we're talking about being cold because you weren't getting to sit in your rest. 00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:51.680 No, but that was gonna be my stepway. 00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:55.599 I was physically cold, and this is a very cold book. 00:22:56.880 --> 00:22:59.119 See, using the word cold in two different ways. 00:22:59.759 --> 00:23:00.799 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:23:01.039 --> 00:23:17.680 Um, but the idea of nice, and I think the idea of Mark when he's working for nice being lost as well, is kind of a metaphor for that because nice has no human centre, it's got no moral kind of imperative that you're working towards. 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:33.759 Mark is just wandering, doing this sort of pointless, fake kind of administration, which is ultimately meaningless because what Lewis is trying to create with nice is a world divorced from nature and divorced from God, which for him is meaningless. 00:23:33.920 --> 00:23:38.880 And he does that really, really effectively, and it's really effective horror, I think. 00:23:39.119 --> 00:23:56.000 Yeah, so maybe we should go into this and like one of the things which leaps out to me around this theme is like the way that Lewis portrays this as a matter of um education shaped by old values versus education shaped by new values, kind of polytechnic model of the university. 00:23:56.160 --> 00:23:58.240 Um Durham is not, but anyway. 00:23:58.480 --> 00:23:58.880 No, exactly. 00:23:58.960 --> 00:23:59.680 It's it's kind of weird. 00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:14.640 Like I always heard that I'm not sure if it's true, but I heard that Durham was um founded as a bit of a conservative reaction against the University of London, which was specialising in sciences and stuff, and Durham wanted to do the classic humanist education thing. 00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:17.759 But for Lewis it obviously was a bit of a polytechnic. 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:21.519 I d I don't I don't know, I don't know if that's I mean maybe that's what it looks like from Oxford. 00:24:22.000 --> 00:24:25.279 Umxbridge is a thing. 00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:27.920 But sure. 00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:36.400 But like nicer specialities is all like very kind of post-war sort of new science stuff. 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:45.279 So, for example, there's sociology, which Lewis portrays as like an anti-humanist attempt to just reduce people to social forces and kind of control them. 00:24:45.440 --> 00:24:48.400 Um, there's lots of like technologically based things as well. 00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:55.759 So just for context, our cat is currently climbing all over Nikki and she's sort of wrangling a cat with one hand and they're trying to make a point. 00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:57.599 Cena, do you want to be on the podcast? 00:24:57.839 --> 00:25:00.480 See it, say something to the beautiful listeners. 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:02.400 Zina, do a little meow. 00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:05.920 No, okay, just to wriggle, just to wriggle. 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:06.640 Just a wriggle.

00:25:06.799 --> 00:25:07.359 So what was I saying? 00:25:07.440 --> 00:25:14.880 Oh yeah, so like nice is into um uh there's a little angry huff there as I restrained her. 00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:20.000 Um I think maybe we need to put Xena in a different room. 00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:22.319 I'm sorry, Zina, you're not very good for podcasting. 00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:26.160 We had shampoo her the other day and she feels like a baby alpaca. 00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:27.599 Smells faintly of papaya. 00:25:27.920 --> 00:25:29.119 She's beautiful, she's lovely. 00:25:29.359 --> 00:25:30.000 She hated it. 00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:32.160 Do not wee on anything in anger, please. 00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:32.720 Right. 00:25:32.880 --> 00:25:35.759 Okay, Zina has been ejected from the podcast. 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:38.240 Sorry, our third podcaster is gone. 00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:45.440 Um yeah, so uh they specialise in like modern science, like anti-humanist science. 00:25:45.599 --> 00:26:00.480 So um sociology, reducing things to social forces to control them, um, talks a bit about like eugenics and um that whole kind of like view of the modern scientistic world as just reducing away human dignity, that kind of thing. 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:19.200 Um there's also a guy there who's like really interested in so another thing that comes up is that when they're talking about like the new nice facility that they're building, um, those people are excited about all the stuff that's not actually to do with the production of knowledge, but like all the stuff that's just to do with the activity itself. 00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:33.839 So someone's like an expert in like sanitation engineering, which is it's kind of disgusting and grotesque, and Lewis plays it up as such, but also is like genuinely quite an important bit of engineering to do, um, which maybe is like a point worth coming back to. 00:26:33.920 --> 00:26:44.160 And they also get really excited about what they call the pragmatometer, which is a machine that constantly spits out the policy developments of the centre. 00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:46.799 So you can see the policy coming together in real time. 00:26:46.960 --> 00:26:57.039 So it's all the stuff about like not the actual the actual ends of the activity, but just the activity itself, just like busyness, pointless activity, that sort of thing. 00:26:57.359 --> 00:27:04.480 Yeah, and I think the novel opens, doesn't it, with Mark going to a very long, boring meeting at his college. 00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:13.119 So I think a lot of this novel for me was Lewis's critique of how academia was becoming a bureaucracy and he didn't like it. 00:27:13.359 --> 00:27:29.599 But I think there's a wider historical context at play here as well, because this novel was written, so it's set in 1948, which is interesting, but apparently it was written in 1945 before the end of the Second World War. 00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:33.759 Um, and the novel takes place after the end of the war. 00:27:33.839 --> 00:27:41.599 So Lewis has kind of predicted that the Second World War will end and predicted or hoped, I guess, that the um Allies would be victorious. 00:27:41.839 --> 00:27:45.519 I mean, I think in 1945 it would have been pretty clear which way the wind was blowing. 00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:47.759 Well, maybe that is when the war ended. 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:53.759 Maybe, but I felt like Nice um had real shades of Nazi Germany. 00:27:54.000 --> 00:27:55.599 Like real, real shades of Nazi Germany. 00:27:55.680 --> 00:28:06.720 And you can see where he's got this idea from, because Nice are they have racist policies, they're cruel, they're they're doing a lot of things that I guess were happening in Nazi Germany. 00:28:06.880 --> 00:28:18.720 And it's also got shades of communism in terms of the communism which is seen, I think, in books like 1984, because I guess at the time that's what people were concerned about. 00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:23.119 So we've defeated Nazi Germany, what's the next kind of big bad coming? 00:28:23.359 --> 00:28:24.559 It's communism. 00:28:24.799 --> 00:28:29.200 Yeah, like Jane is she sees herself as like an extreme social democrat and things like that. 00:28:29.519 --> 00:28:29.599 Yeah. 00:28:29.759 --> 00:28:30.000 Yeah. 00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:40.559 So I think I think I think what Lewis is actually doing is he's drawing a contrast between um the pre-modern world or like pre-modernism and um what's known as modernism. 00:28:40.720 --> 00:29:03.839 Modernism is was like a kind of a series of ideological and philosophical kind of movements or moments um which were united around like the scientific control of nature, um, materialism, um, and very like often active or interventionist approaches to government and um society. 00:29:04.160 --> 00:29:12.480 So um the key, I'd say like the the main kinds of embodiments of modernism that you hear cited are um Jane. 00:29:12.720 --> 00:29:23.200 No, no, I mean I mean like in history, are Marxism, uh which takes a social scientific view of the world and society and reduces everything to it, making it like controllable and material. 00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:26.319 I bet that's why he's called the main character Mark. 00:29:26.799 --> 00:29:28.640 Oh, maybe, yeah, that's clever. 00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:44.960 Um also um psychoanalysis, um, because it says that human reason is something that's obscure but also kind of natural, um, and it undercuts all of like the humanistic views of um like human agency and things like that. 00:29:45.039 --> 00:29:49.759 And in fact, this this like critique of human agency is seen as one major aspect of modernism. 00:29:49.839 --> 00:30:02.799 Um, fascism was also a very kind of modernist ideology in the sense that it it tried it tried to evoke some kind of like romantic ideas which were seen as like harking back to pre modern the pre-modern world. 00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:08.240 So things like national spirit and stuff like

that, which weirdly Lewis himself actually cites in this book as a good thing. 00:30:08.400 --> 00:30:12.400 So that's like an ideological inconsistency there, and we might come back to this later if we remember. 00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:30.720 But um, you know, fascism also sought to be like hyper-technological strength of the human will and human agency exerting itself on the world, using scientific technologies to purify the nation through like eugenics and in Nazi Germany the industrialised murder of like millions of people. 00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:47.680 If you went to Italy, where fascism proper like really came about, um, you had the uh what's called like futurist movement in art where um you'd have like this aesthetics of cars and things like that being seen as like the aesthetics of the new age. 00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:52.799 Um, and this is this is the view of the world that's really embodied by Nice. 00:30:53.039 --> 00:31:12.720 And then Lewis is contrasting this with a more traditional model of education, which maybe evokes traditional views of um like humanistic education, um, views of like natural hierarchies that are created in the world by God, with God at the top and everything having its place within this great created sort of chain of being, as they'd call it. 00:31:12.880 --> 00:31:44.240 He talks a bit about one member of um Braxton College, which is Marx College, um being like seemingly at one point seeming like on the right path for the um the progressive elements, the nice people, but then they say went off the rails with like distributivism, and that's a reference to like uh a uh political movement which kind of reacted against modernism, but also against like capitalism as like a form of modernism and sort of renegotiate what private property meant and look back to like medieval models of ownership and things like that. 00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:52.720 So there's this real picture of like a contrast between or a conflict between two eras played out within the institutional structures of the old and the new university. 00:31:53.119 --> 00:31:57.279 Yeah, and I mean I think you see that again and again in Lewis's writings as well. 00:31:57.440 --> 00:32:04.000 Um, so I'm thinking of the discarded image, which I have not read, but I think I I know what it's about. 00:32:04.160 --> 00:32:08.559 Um, but I'm gonna tell you what's in it anyway. 00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:27.119 But the discarded image, I believe, is about the idea of medieval cosmology and the medieval belief that the planets were obviously kind of beings, um, crystal spheres, and there was music between the spheres. 00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:38.240 Um, and Lewis in the discarded image, I think, doesn't say that he believes that this is real, but what he says is that there is beauty in this image and we shouldn't lose it. 00:32:38.880 --> 00:32:44.960 And I think that kind of exemplifies maybe his philosophy, because I don't think he was against scientific advancement. 00:32:45.200 --> 00:32:56.160 I think what he was against was a divorcing of the self from kind of nature in the natural way of being, which doesn't necessarily have to be at odds with a scientific worldview. 00:32:56.319 --> 00:32:56.480 Right. 00:32:56.559 --> 00:33:04.720 And this is why it's important to read this book back through the other two books, where you see actually a scientific worldview but translated into spaceships, you know. 00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:08.079 Yeah, but translated into like a theologically realist worldview as well. 00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:17.200 So ransom goes off into space in the first book and he discovers that it's not just like a horrible impersonal void, but is in fact filled with light and the powers of creation, that sort of thing. 00:33:17.359 --> 00:33:19.119 Um, you have travelled to a discarded image. 00:33:19.359 --> 00:33:19.680 Exactly. 00:33:19.759 --> 00:33:36.000 You have you have travelled to other planets and you find that they're all embedded within a distinctly Christian cosmology, and through all of this, you get the picture of a science integrated into um a pre-modern worldview rather than science being tied to this sort of rapacious modernism represented by nice. 00:33:36.240 --> 00:33:40.559 But if you hadn't read that, you could read this as an anti-science book, which I don't think it ultimately is. 00:33:40.799 --> 00:33:47.680 Yeah, I don't think it is because I don't think that fits with Lewis's overall viewpoint, but you absolutely could read it in that way. 00:33:48.000 --> 00:33:49.119 But I don't think it is that. 00:33:49.359 --> 00:33:52.079 It is, however, an anti-new shit book. 00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:53.200 Yes. 00:33:53.599 --> 00:33:55.759 Um yeah, a hundred percent. 00:33:56.000 --> 00:33:57.839 Um, but I think so. 00:33:57.920 --> 00:34:08.480 George Orwell, actually, who famously obviously wrote 1984, um, reviewed this book, which is quite interesting because George Orwell wrote 1984, I think in 1948. 00:34:08.639 --> 00:34:11.360 So he flipped the numbers around um deliberately. 00:34:11.599 --> 00:34:21.039 But I'll just see if I can find his review because it kind of sums up, I suppose, what I kind of felt about this book. 00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:23.599 So does he say it's Bore? 00:34:24.239 --> 00:34:25.199 No, he doesn't. 00:34:25.440 --> 00:34:33.519 So George Orwell um really, I think actually saw a lot kind of of merit in the book. 00:34:33.760 --> 00:34:43.840 Um so he talked, he talks about how powerful the kind of depiction of nice is in the book and the depiction of that very cold society. 00:34:43.920 --> 00:34:48.559 But then what he says is the book would have been stronger without the supernatural elements. 00:34:48.719 --> 00:34:50.239 Um, and I think that is true. 00:34:50.320 --> 00:34:52.079 Um, I disagree, I strongly disagree with that. 00:34:52.400 --> 00:34:55.840 He goes on to say that the supernatural elements weaken the story. 00:34:56.320 -->

00:35:06.480 Um and also he says that one of the reasons why they weaken that story is because when one is told that the that God and the devil are in conflict, one always knows which side is going to win. 00:35:06.719 --> 00:35:08.639 And I think that is very, very true. 00:35:08.880 --> 00:35:22.159 Um, I think if Lewis had written this book as just a kind of critique of like industrialization, it would have been very powerful if he'd focused on that kind of chilling divorcing of the self from nature. 00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:33.440 Um perhaps not, no, perhaps Orwell is wrong in that I think the theological aspect is sort of fine, but then when you start to throw in stuff like Merlin, I think it jumps the shock a bit. 00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:36.400 Yeah, so I mean, I'm in two minds about this. 00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:40.960 So, firstly, I think that it wouldn't have necessarily been a stronger book without the supernatural elements. 00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:43.119 I think it because I think it would have been a different book. 00:35:43.360 --> 00:35:49.280 Yeah, like the supernatural dimension is so integral to Lewis's understanding of this conflict that's going on. 00:35:49.519 --> 00:36:03.599 I think that there's a risk in like reading it in these secular times and viewing like the spiritual elements as something that's like tacked on superfluously over the top of the material stuff rather than more integrated more deeply into kind of cosmology. 00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:09.119 Like if you took out the supernatural element, it wouldn't be the same story because it wouldn't be set in the same universe, right? 00:36:09.360 --> 00:36:15.039 That's um, and and it wouldn't be giving the same messages that Lewis is trying to isn't trying to give. 00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:20.000 Like God is not just about indicating what side you're on, but he's trying to say something about God specifically. 00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:29.280 But I guess I guess what I mean is I think Lewis's purpose in this book is very similar to Orwell's purpose in 1984. 00:36:29.840 --> 00:36:33.119 And there's a reason why one of those books is a classic. 00:36:33.360 --> 00:36:37.440 Yeah, so you can you can imagine that very different book where it's a much more focused story of the case. 00:36:37.519 --> 00:36:38.400 Yeah, it's 1984. 00:36:38.719 --> 00:36:48.320 Mark, Mark gets in with nice, and you just have this um oh the little window and meowing at the top of the door into the living room. 00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:49.039 She wants to come back in. 00:36:49.199 --> 00:36:50.079 Because she wants to come back in. 00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:50.880 She can't come in. 00:36:51.519 --> 00:36:52.000 Can she come? 00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:54.800 No, she can't come in because she'll climb all over you again. 00:36:55.119 --> 00:36:57.280 I think she just has to stay on the stairs. 00:36:57.440 --> 00:36:58.480 I'm sorry, Zina. 00:36:58.960 --> 00:36:59.679 She wants to come in. 00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:02.880 She does want to come in, but anyway, we need to focus on the podcast, not the cat. 00:37:03.199 --> 00:37:03.840 Yes, okay, sorry. 00:37:04.239 --> 00:37:05.280 We have a very cute cat. 00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:06.559 It's a shame you guys can't see her. 00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:08.480 She is very cute, she only weighs too much. 00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:12.320 She's really small, she's tiny, she's a centimetre bigger than the world's smallest cat in all dimensions. 00:37:12.559 --> 00:37:13.280 She is adorable. 00:37:13.519 --> 00:37:13.840 Yeah. 00:37:14.079 --> 00:37:17.840 Um, but um, yeah, I I can see the book that it could have been. 00:37:17.920 --> 00:37:27.440 Um, and it would have been like a good kind of focused horror story about a man who gets a job in a horrible modern university that's also like a mad science institute. 00:37:27.519 --> 00:37:32.400 Well, it's not really a horror modern university, it's like the mad science institution that takes over the university. 00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:35.119 And it would have been a really it would have been a really fun like thriller. 00:37:35.519 --> 00:37:36.559 It would have been a horror novel. 00:37:36.880 --> 00:37:38.320 Yeah, I think that would have been a brilliant book. 00:37:38.400 --> 00:37:43.840 And I think at the time it was written, it would have been quite sort of zeitgeisty, in fact. 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:52.639 Yeah, I think also like the a superabundance of supernatural elements, so not just like Christianity, but also our theory and myth and things like that. 00:37:52.880 --> 00:37:54.320 I could have done without the Arthurian myth. 00:37:54.480 --> 00:37:56.880 It reads to me is very focused and scassy. 00:37:57.199 --> 00:38:05.679 On the other hand, you can kind of see how like Lewis wants to create a sense of like supernatural abundance. 00:38:05.760 --> 00:38:26.880 Like, it's not just like again, there's this like Christian veneer on things, but he wants us to like, I feel like he wants us to pull back the curtain on like the supernatural heart of the world and realise that it's as rich and colourful and crazed and hodgepodge and mysterious and strange and spontaneous and wonderful and beautiful as like he imagines it to be. 00:38:27.039 --> 00:38:33.440 Like this is the man who said that he like felt the urge to pray at the altar of Pan when he went to like the Pantheon or something. 00:38:33.679 --> 00:38:41.760 Yeah, and I think he was also a man who said that even though he was a Christian, he preferred the imagery from kind of ancient religions because it was more interesting. 00:38:42.000 --> 00:38:57.920 Yeah, and like recovering our Syrian myth, which is part of like Britain's folkloric tradition, and shoving it into the novel and integrating it within his wide cosmology like that, does give it this sense of like freewheeling sort of creativity and spontaneity. 00:38:58.239 --> 00:39:10.000 I do think they may be reading it now where everything's

kind of been fortnighted a bit, it also feels a bit like, and now of your favourite bits of British mythology all come together in one kind of book. 00:39:10.159 --> 00:39:16.880 So maybe like the way that our culture has shifted or our media shifted kind of undermines that a bit more now than it might have done originally. 00:39:16.960 --> 00:39:20.960 But I can I can sort of appreciate it, and I actually I came to enjoy it. 00:39:21.280 --> 00:39:29.679 I think people might have always read it as um a bit random because I think that's what Orwell was maybe getting at in his review. 00:39:29.840 --> 00:39:32.400 Um, but let's talk about the characters for a second. 00:39:32.639 --> 00:39:41.119 So, and specifically Mark and Jane, because I think they are the book is so tightly about them, actually, everyone else feels like a real side character. 00:39:41.360 --> 00:39:44.960 Yeah, which again is not great in a sequel, like the final book of a trilogy. 00:39:45.280 --> 00:39:47.039 No, and we've never met these people before. 00:39:47.199 --> 00:39:50.239 But Mark, I actually thought is a good character. 00:39:50.400 --> 00:39:57.519 And the reason why I think Mark is a good character is because Mark is a social climber, that's his whole thing. 00:39:57.599 --> 00:39:59.920 He wants to get in with the inner circle. 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:01.840 He doesn't really care what the inner circle is. 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:05.199 Sometimes that's an inner circle of like crazed vivisectionists. 00:40:05.360 --> 00:40:06.559 He wants to be in it. 00:40:06.800 --> 00:40:12.880 Um, and the whole thing with Mark is his kind of core, I suppose, is quite empty. 00:40:13.119 --> 00:40:18.880 He doesn't have any, well, it's empty in the book because he's not religious. 00:40:19.039 --> 00:40:30.400 Um but I thought Mark was quite a resonant character for our times, actually, because I think people in our society are living in a way which is increasingly siloed and lonely. 00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:39.440 Um, people are increasingly online, and I think there was something about the emptiness of Mark that really did resonate for me. 00:40:39.519 --> 00:40:43.199 And I thought he was a really psychologically actually quite real character. 00:40:43.519 --> 00:40:48.559 Yeah, and with the exception of like the complete and utter obliviousness to like plots. 00:40:49.199 --> 00:40:50.000 I don't know. 00:40:50.159 --> 00:41:01.039 I really don't know because I think what Mark does is he joins this evil organization, but he joins it by increments. 00:41:01.519 --> 00:41:04.880 So when he joins it, he doesn't know that it's an evil organization. 00:41:04.960 --> 00:41:09.199 He thinks this is the forward-thinking part of his college where actually a lot of money is being invested. 00:41:09.360 --> 00:41:11.599 It's a savvy career move to kind of go with them. 00:41:11.840 --> 00:41:13.360 Yeah, to begin with, it's very synthetic. 00:41:13.519 --> 00:41:17.199 And I think I

would probably have been among the progressive elements in Bracton, to be honest. 00:41:17.440 --> 00:41:18.719 Yeah, exactly. 00:41:18.880 --> 00:41:22.559 Um, and I guess he doesn't understand the purpose of that organization. 00:41:22.719 --> 00:41:28.400 And then once he gets there, they let him into the inner circle of this organization by degrees. 00:41:28.719 --> 00:41:31.119 So he learns by degrees how evil it is. 00:41:31.280 --> 00:41:38.719 And Mark is stupid, and I think a lot of people would probably leave the organization before Mark decides to. 00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:39.199 Yeah. 00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:49.920 But because he's being dragged in by degrees, in some ways he's quite a good analogue for someone who maybe lives in a country with a totalitarian government and they become complicit in that by degrees. 00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:50.159 Yeah. 00:41:50.239 --> 00:41:52.079 And they're not in themselves a bad person. 00:41:52.320 --> 00:41:52.719 Yeah, sure. 00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:54.639 As a as a portrait of corruption, it's really good. 00:41:54.719 --> 00:41:56.480 And we should go back to that because it's the strong bit. 00:41:56.639 --> 00:42:04.400 I think what I was saying about him being kind of oblivious is that, for example, when he arrives, he's warned by another person to like get out of the organization. 00:42:04.480 --> 00:42:05.599 Yes, and like that's correct. 00:42:06.400 --> 00:42:10.079 The guy drives off and then is like later found dead shot by the side of the road. 00:42:10.239 --> 00:42:12.559 And then Mark's like, oh goodness, how terrible. 00:42:12.719 --> 00:42:19.840 And then later he like gets into some conflicts in the organization, and people are continuously threatening him, and he doesn't pick up on the threat. 00:42:20.159 --> 00:42:35.440 And then his um his wallet is mysteriously found at the scene of the crime, and then if everyone's making allusions to, oh, well, you know, the police will think bad things about you, but we can make it go all go away if you um if if you cooperate with us. 00:42:35.519 --> 00:42:46.400 And Mark's like, and at that point you think Mark has realized that they're threatening him, but then it turns out that actually he's like, oh my goodness, I can't believe all these nice people here at nice think that I murdered Bill Withers. 00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:51.679 Um, and and he just like continuously fails to recognise the sinister nature of what's going on. 00:42:51.760 --> 00:42:54.159 But yes, as a portrait of corruption, it's very good. 00:42:54.239 --> 00:43:04.400 He gets more and more into it, and at the very end, he's like confronted with the decision basically to like fall or not fall, like he's let into the very inner circle. 00:43:04.559 --> 00:43:16.639 And there's this great book, which I'm just going to try and find my notes, where um Lewis describes like the final step of corruption, and it's very much like these imperceptible shifts. 00:43:16.800 --> 00:43:17.840 Is there a way to search on this? 00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:21.760 Sorry, I'm using the Kinderlap, which I don't actually know how to do. 00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:33.519 Um but I think as a portrait of kind of self-delusion as well, it's quite effective because often you don't want to see what's going on around you. 00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:40.000 So Mark wants to believe that these people are good people because he's kind of thrown his lot in with them. 00:43:40.159 --> 00:43:47.840 He's given up his job that he previously had at the college, he's given up his financial security, he's not seen his wife in weeks. 00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:52.000 And all of that is because he's thrown his lot in entirely with these people. 00:43:52.079 --> 00:43:57.360 So his levels of investment in them being good and right are very, very high. 00:43:57.519 --> 00:43:59.760 And so he's able to kind of delude himself. 00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:04.320 And pretend that these crazy events are just sort of coincidences. 00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:06.559 Like it's a coincidence that he had his head stolen. 00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:10.239 That's actually a really good way, a really good way of reading it. 00:44:10.480 --> 00:44:11.679 Like I found him believable. 00:44:11.760 --> 00:44:16.639 I found him gullible and stupid and naive, but I found him believable. 00:44:16.880 --> 00:44:17.039 Yeah. 00:44:17.599 --> 00:44:23.599 And I could see like how I hope that I wouldn't act like that in that situation, but I could see how I might. 00:44:23.679 --> 00:44:25.920 Like I might be drawn into something in the way that he is. 00:44:26.159 --> 00:44:39.119 Yeah, and you get um you get a good view of like the mix of his motivations as well, because at one point it does become fear, but before it becomes kind of ambition, you then also it's interesting how he fails to resist the kind of corruption. 00:44:39.360 --> 00:45:03.760 So for example, um they like there's this one bit where um he's given this invitation um to join the inner circle, and it talks about basically how Mark is trying like considering resisting this um this invitation, but he does it based on based on pride, like um, and then like that pride becomes the thing which actually creates the attraction in him. 00:45:03.920 --> 00:45:10.480 So like there's that kind of um counterintuitive shift there where the foundation of resistance kind of drags him more into it. 00:45:10.559 --> 00:45:48.960 But there's this other passage which I'm just struggling to find where it talks about um like he suddenly becomes aware of the possibility of like the final step towards fallenness, and um it talks about it not being like this single clear moment, this grand gesture, but it's just a gradual becoming more and more cold and inured to like the good of those around you until you become like inured to questions of like your own good, and you just kind of watch the fall happen in this mute and detached way, and you it talks about

Lewis like I can't remember exact word it is, but it's like sleepily watching the trap close around you. 00:45:49.199 --> 00:45:53.920 Yeah, and it's it's it's kind it's really I think perceptive and really well presented. 00:45:54.239 --> 00:45:55.119 A hundred percent. 00:45:55.280 --> 00:46:03.119 Um so I actually I thought Mark was a was a well-drawn character, probably the best drawn character actually in in the whole trilogy. 00:46:03.599 --> 00:46:18.960 Um Jane is very interesting though, because so I think you are meant to not find Jane particularly sympathetic because she's this kind of modern woman who's biting her head but doesn't think it wants to be taken seriously, doesn't deserve it. 00:46:19.440 --> 00:46:27.119 Ignoring her husband, has decided not to have kids, is writing this really banal PhD thesis that ultimately is meaningless, blah blah blah. 00:46:27.280 --> 00:46:32.960 But I think reading it in 2026 actually found her quite sympathetic. 00:46:33.199 --> 00:46:37.519 I was I was sort of team Jane because I wouldn't want to be married to Mark. 00:46:37.679 --> 00:46:39.679 Um they don't seem to really like each other. 00:46:39.920 --> 00:46:41.360 Made sense that she's not having kids. 00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:45.199 She's like 23, I think, in the novel, wants to finish her PhD thesis. 00:46:45.360 --> 00:46:48.320 Fantastic, would quite like to be an academic, great career. 00:46:48.480 --> 00:46:52.719 Um so I thought she was very interesting as a character who's just not aged well at all. 00:46:52.880 --> 00:46:56.480 Yeah, or in some ways has aged very well, but just not in the way that Lewis would look at it. 00:46:56.960 --> 00:47:06.480 Lewis is genuinely awful about her, and like her whole her whole um character progression is basically learning, first of all, how like natural hierarchies exist. 00:47:06.559 --> 00:47:06.719 Yeah. 00:47:06.880 --> 00:47:09.280 Second, how God wants her to be with Mark. 00:47:09.519 --> 00:47:14.800 Um, third, how like obedience is like a necessary component to relationships. 00:47:14.960 --> 00:47:25.280 Fourth, how like masculinity is like transcendently superior to everybody, to everything, and like you have to occupy your place within this kind of gendered hierarchy. 00:47:25.440 --> 00:47:44.559 And then like there's some awful shit about like um her not want specifically not wanting to have sex with Mark and it being told that like that's not about um that that's that's because she's like withdrawing from reality, um, not being in contact with the world's created, which is created such that she should have sex with Mark. 00:47:44.719 --> 00:47:54.880 There's this line where like I think it's ransom says to her that like women who don't want to have sex but are not virginal are just away to masculinity, and this is a sign of psychological immaturity. 00:47:55.280 --> 00:48:30.159 Um, and it talks about how her reluctance to be with Mark and desire to be um desire to be taken, effectively like this whole thing where she talks about, like she realizes that she wanted to be seen as a person more than like seen as an attractive object, and that was like holding her back from taking up her role as a wife and feeling upset that Mark was sometimes more interested in her body than he was like interested in her like person, or sometimes how Mark was more interested in his own ideas than both, and how she should like embrace this and see it as okay and stuff like that. 00:48:30.239 --> 00:48:44.960 And it's basically like Jane is taught to effectively just like submit to the men around her and then just have sex with them and have children, and then in the end, like they end up having having sex, and it's seen as like this great writing of a huge wrong. 00:48:45.039 --> 00:48:48.159 And honestly, it's just like rape culture, isn't it? 00:48:48.400 --> 00:48:49.519 Yeah, it's horrendous. 00:48:49.599 --> 00:49:09.039 And and the ending as well, it's heavily implied that Jane will then get pregnant and have a son who's gonna be the next pen dragon, and her whole destiny is to be like a vessel for this child, which I just found really, yeah, difficult to read, actually, really objectionable, obviously. 00:49:09.199 --> 00:49:22.639 Um, and I think her whole thing through the novel, her whole character journey is that she becomes more passive, and you start to see that through her being the passive recipient of these prophetic dreams, which she hates. 00:49:22.880 --> 00:49:26.800 She never sees any kind of value or power in this. 00:49:27.119 --> 00:49:31.280 Um, and then she gradually becomes kind of more and more passive. 00:49:31.360 --> 00:49:33.280 She becomes just the receiver of other things. 00:49:33.440 --> 00:49:44.320 Yeah, there's this great, there's a there's a passage in here which I just see because it happens to be the annotation I have in front of me right now, where um the director, aka Ransom, says to Jane, like, there is no escape. 00:49:44.480 --> 00:49:52.800 If this is about her not wanting to have sex with um Mark, which she sees as a rejection of the masculine or a fear of the masculine, says, There's no escape. 00:49:52.880 --> 00:49:56.880 If it were a virginal rejection of the male, he he, God would allow it. 00:49:57.119 --> 00:50:04.159 Such souls can bypass the male and go on to meet something far more masculine, higher up, to which they must make a yet deeper surrender. 00:50:04.239 --> 00:50:06.159 So this is like becoming a nun. 00:50:06.559 --> 00:50:09.760 But your trouble has been what old poets call dongia. 00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:11.039 We call it pride. 00:50:11.199 --> 00:50:23.039 You are offended by the masculine itself, the loud, eruptive, possessive thing, the gold lion, the bearded bull, which breaks through hedges and scatters the little kingdom of your primness as the dwarves scattered the carefully made bed. 00:50:23.199 --> 00:50:29.039 The male you could have escaped, for it exists

only on the biological level, but the masculine, none of us can escape. 00:50:29.199 --> 00:50:34.000 What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it. 00:50:34.159 --> 00:50:36.800 You had better agree with your adversary quickly. 00:50:36.960 --> 00:50:38.639 You mean I shall have to become a Christian? 00:50:38.880 --> 00:50:39.440 said Jane. 00:50:39.599 --> 00:50:41.599 It looks like it, said the director. 00:50:42.079 --> 00:50:45.440 Yeah, so it's sort of a forced conversion as well, which is the other thing. 00:50:45.599 --> 00:50:52.960 But I think you see, I guess Lewis's attitude towards female sexuality very large in Narnia. 00:50:53.119 --> 00:51:06.639 This is probably where most people encounter it, where everyone goes to heaven at the end, apart from Susan, obviously, because she's the one woman in the group who has hit puberty and presumably had relationships with men. 00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:12.719 Uh, whereas Polly, who's the other adult woman, it specifically stated that she is a spinster. 00:51:12.800 --> 00:51:16.000 She's never had a relationship with a man, so she's able to enter heaven. 00:51:16.159 --> 00:51:22.320 And the other females, the other girls, are I think before the age of puberty when they go. 00:51:22.639 --> 00:51:31.679 So I think it's slightly different in that because this has quite a pro-sex and relationships message, albeit sex and relationships indexed to like a paralyarchy. 00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:37.440 It's marriage is the institutional and sacramental form of this hierarchy. 00:51:37.599 --> 00:51:39.760 But what he's really concerned with here is a hierarchy. 00:51:39.840 --> 00:51:43.920 So that line about um everyone being feminine in relation to God. 00:51:44.239 --> 00:51:46.719 This is an idea is lesser, or less. 00:51:47.360 --> 00:51:47.679 Exactly. 00:51:47.760 --> 00:52:05.280 So this is an idea you get in um in particular like medieval um Christian spirituality, where um firstly, like you you view relationships of activity and passivity in terms of relationships of masculinity and femininity, where the active is also like higher than the feminine. 00:52:05.440 --> 00:52:11.199 Um, you also then have and and and this this kind of hierarchy was seen as played out in a number of different ways. 00:52:11.360 --> 00:52:15.760 So there is um the relationship between humanity and God, we are feminine in relation to God. 00:52:15.920 --> 00:52:22.480 If you read people like John the Cross or something, great Christian mystic, talks about his own position in relation to God as like the feminine. 00:52:22.559 --> 00:52:26.239 And some people have like read like gay themes into this and stuff, and that's kind of cool. 00:52:26.400 --> 00:52:29.760 But there's also this like element of a kind of misogynistic hierarchy. 00:52:29.920 --> 00:52:46.559 And then when you look at like medieval um views of like sex in humans, um medieval people saw human sex as

existing on this continuum, everyone is basically made male, and then people develop through effectively degeneration into females. 00:52:46.719 --> 00:52:53.119 So there's this literal, um, there's this literal hierarchy which is then represented in kind of types of human bodies as well. 00:52:53.280 --> 00:52:58.159 And this is this is really the kind of message I think that Lewis is trying to put about with Jane. 00:52:58.400 --> 00:53:03.760 So in refusing to have sex with Mark, she's refusing to take up her place within this hierarchy. 00:53:03.920 --> 00:53:06.400 This is why she's rejecting rejecting the masculine. 00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:24.000 She's rejecting to literally take up her place within the great hierarchy that kind of makes up creation, and then rejecting the masculine in um Mark, she's also then rejecting the masculine in God, um, before which all human beings are feminine, and that's like the nature of what is basic, no, what is literally her sin. 00:53:24.079 --> 00:53:30.800 Like it's labelled effectively as a sin by Merlin, who talks about her as like the most fallen woman in all of Christendom or something. 00:53:31.119 --> 00:53:40.239 Because she was very specifically because she was very specifically meant to have sex with Mark at a particular time and give birth to some great champion of God in a way that's never fully elaborated upon. 00:53:40.559 --> 00:53:46.960 Yeah, and I think Lewis is quite concerned, I suppose, with ancient female archetypes as well. 00:53:47.119 --> 00:53:54.559 So I think you're back in the territory of the maiden, the mother, and the crone because you see those represented in the novel. 00:53:54.960 --> 00:53:59.119 So the other women in the novel I think fall quite neatly into those archetypes. 00:53:59.199 --> 00:54:04.559 So there's a woman called Camilla who is a member of the kind of good faction. 00:54:04.719 --> 00:54:10.159 Um, and it's heavily implied at one point that Camilla is pregnant, so she's married. 00:54:10.480 --> 00:54:16.559 Um and they talk about how she is the person who will ensure their future, she will kind of bear their heirs. 00:54:16.880 --> 00:54:18.800 And Camilla really embraces this role. 00:54:18.880 --> 00:54:23.199 So she loves her husband, she loves spending time with her husband, she wants to have his children. 00:54:23.360 --> 00:54:29.679 And then you have Mother Dimble whose great sorrow is that she's never been able to have children, so she becomes a mother in other ways. 00:54:29.840 --> 00:54:30.079 Yeah. 00:54:30.239 --> 00:54:32.239 And then you've got Jane who just doesn't fit. 00:54:32.400 --> 00:54:35.280 She's not a maiden, she's not a mother, she's not a crone, she's outside of this. 00:54:35.519 --> 00:54:38.159 I I think Mother Dimble is not a crone, she's a she's a mother. 00:54:38.320 --> 00:54:38.719 She's a mother. 00:54:38.800 --> 00:54:39.119 She's a mother. 00:54:39.440 --> 00:54:41.039 I mean, and I and I and I think that's the thing. 00:54:41.119 --> 00:54:47.280 Like, all the women who take up their place within within the world, within reality, take it up as mothers. 00:54:47.360 --> 00:55:01.039 And there's another interesting thing where like basically Lewis is taking this um this religious kind of metaphysics as like the thing which provides real which which associates this gender hierarchy that he sees with reality. 00:55:01.199 --> 00:55:11.599 And it's really interesting because he then contrasts this with like the view of religion as more kind of self-action individualistic, or what he would see is individualistic self-actualization that Jane has. 00:55:11.679 --> 00:55:29.840 Like there's this other bit where um he writes like religion ought to mean a realm in which her haunting, that's Jane's haunting female fear of being treated as a thing, an object of barter and desire and possession, would be set permanently at rest, and what she called her true self would sort upwards and expand in some freer and purer world. 00:55:30.000 --> 00:55:38.159 For still she thought that religion was a kind of exhalation or a cloud of incense, something steaming up from specially gifted souls towards a receptive heaven. 00:55:38.320 --> 00:55:50.800 So this contrast here between like Jane's fake view of religion as an escape from reality, which Lewis thinks is this kind of gendered hierarchy, versus religion as an actual like turn towards this metaphysical hierarchy. 00:55:50.960 --> 00:55:56.800 That's not to say that the only way of interpreting like Christianity is ultimately is inscribing herself within this hierarchy. 00:55:56.880 --> 00:55:59.679 There are forms of Christianity which Lewis would have freaking hated. 00:55:59.760 --> 00:56:07.679 And in fact, he also kind of evokes some of them in this book, um, where it sees Christianity as also bringing about certain forms like worldly liberation and things like that. 00:56:07.840 --> 00:56:12.480 This is a form of Christianity actually that's embodied by the figure of the fallen priest who works for nice. 00:56:12.639 --> 00:56:21.039 So, like, this is not actually the form, the only form of Christianity, but for Lewis, um, Christianity as reality means this hierarchy. 00:56:21.119 --> 00:56:37.360 And he's like constantly drawing distinctions between that and the kind of fake world of nice, the fake world of like um Jane's, what I think actually seems like quite innocent and naive kind of feminism, um, but still also again another form of unreality. 00:56:38.159 --> 00:56:45.199 Yeah, and I think this kind of religious hierarchy for him is embodied through gender. 00:56:45.519 --> 00:56:52.960 Um, and in order to, for Lewis, in order to kind of accept God into your life, you have to accept your gender role. 00:56:53.199 --> 00:57:06.320 And you see that um quite clearly exemplified within Nice, because Nice is almost entirely men, um, and those men do not seem to have very much contact with their wives, so a lot of

them are separated. 00:57:06.639 --> 00:57:06.880 Exactly. 00:57:07.199 --> 00:57:11.679 The only time Mark is required to bring Jane to Nice is so that they can exploit her powers. 00:57:12.000 --> 00:57:24.079 Yeah, it's nothing to do with her being there as his wife because there's no there's almost no role for sex and human relationships with it in Nice, and um you're gonna get them before I interject and ask the question. 00:57:28.239 --> 00:57:34.559 But also what you see within the members of NICE are a couple of people who are explicitly gay. 00:57:34.800 --> 00:57:43.039 So there's including the one woman member, including the one woman member who's known as Fairy Hardcastle, which feels like a very insulting name. 00:57:43.199 --> 00:57:49.679 Um and she is explicitly a lesbian within the text, um, but she is sexually depraved. 00:57:49.920 --> 00:57:52.960 So and sorry, Nicky keeps cutting me off. 00:57:53.119 --> 00:58:06.400 There's also a gay man within Nice who enjoys kind of looking at the other men in Nice, which is again presented as him stepping outside of his gender role and through that losing contact with God. 00:58:06.719 --> 00:58:14.639 Yeah, so I was what I what I was going to just briefly say, not in the sense of cutting off, but in the interjection that gives the conversation this natural flow, Emma. 00:58:14.880 --> 00:58:15.280 Sorry, Mickey. 00:58:15.599 --> 00:58:17.039 Rigid turn taking. 00:58:17.360 --> 00:58:22.000 Anyway, what I mean, what I was going to say, I wasn't going to cut you off, but um, and I'll talk about it at more length. 00:58:22.159 --> 00:58:33.119 Uh, I think I think the fairy hardcastle's name is interesting because she's like gay and there's another like gay man, but I think she's referred to as fairy, not as like um the homophobic slur fairy. 00:58:33.440 --> 00:58:36.400 No, because I don't think that was actually a thing in 1948. 00:58:36.639 --> 00:58:36.960 I have no. 00:58:37.199 --> 00:58:39.039 I might be wrong, but I feel like it wasn't. 00:58:39.199 --> 00:58:45.599 Yeah, but I think it's actually an ironic reference to the fact that she's very masculine and kind of violent and hefty. 00:58:45.760 --> 00:58:49.679 And that's why I don't think it was a slur, because I think otherwise he wouldn't have used that word. 00:58:49.840 --> 00:58:51.920 But yes, I think that's why she's called Perry Harkoth. 00:58:52.159 --> 00:58:58.159 But her characterisation is really interesting because she's kind of like a grab bag of things that Lewis seems to hate, right? 00:58:58.239 --> 00:58:58.400 Yes. 00:58:58.639 --> 00:59:08.000 Um so firstly, she's this very grotesque predatory masculine woman who's like the head of their police force and is violent and sexually predatory towards Jane and things like that. 00:59:08.159 --> 00:59:14.480 But how they manage to have a police force is something that he never explains because they're like a science organization. 00:59:14.559 --> 00:59:14.639 Right. 00:59:14.960 --> 00:59:16.719 And they somehow have a police force. 00:59:16.800 --> 00:59:19.360 But anyway, university has its own police force. 00:59:19.679 --> 00:59:20.239 Okay, fine. 00:59:21.039 --> 00:59:22.960 I think it's a branch of the actual police. 00:59:23.119 --> 00:59:26.960 Um, but um yeah, what was I going to say? 00:59:27.119 --> 00:59:28.000 Oh, you cut me off now. 00:59:28.320 --> 00:59:29.119 Sorry, I didn't cut you off. 00:59:29.199 --> 00:59:31.199 Yeah, I'm not just telling you off for cutting me off. 00:59:31.440 --> 00:59:34.159 Uh right, uh castle and body. 00:59:34.480 --> 00:59:34.960 Oh, that's it. 00:59:35.039 --> 00:59:44.079 She's like a grab bag of things that Lewis hates because not only is she this grotesque, fat lesbian, um, but she was also apparently once a suffragette. 00:59:44.239 --> 00:59:45.440 Um yes, she was. 00:59:45.679 --> 00:59:49.760 A suffragette, a pacifist, and also a British fascist. 00:59:50.000 --> 00:59:51.119 So she really likes. 00:59:51.440 --> 00:59:53.840 I don't actually know what his views on pacifism were, though. 00:59:53.920 --> 01:00:02.079 He seems pretty pro-war, and the other two books both have two very distinctive ways of figuring out how to like justify violence. 01:00:02.320 --> 01:00:03.039 I think he's anti pacifist. 01:00:03.360 --> 01:00:04.400 I think he's anti-pacifist. 01:00:04.800 --> 01:00:13.039 Because in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when he talks about how terrible Eustace's parents are, they're vegetarians, feminists, and pacifists. 01:00:13.280 --> 01:00:14.079 Uh, okay, sure. 01:00:14.159 --> 01:00:14.559 All right, yeah. 01:00:14.960 --> 01:00:17.280 It's a clear statement of positionality, I think, right? 01:00:17.599 --> 01:00:18.000 Yeah, sure. 01:00:18.079 --> 01:00:25.599 Okay, so yeah, so she represents all of these like terrible newfangled things, and um her lesbianism kind of becomes a sign of all this. 01:00:25.679 --> 01:00:39.760 And it's also a slightly, it's a slightly um, it it seems on the face of it like a slightly incoherent, um, incoherent grouping, although I think that actually in actuality you did have people who'd probably be of all of those different things at different times. 01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:45.199 But I do think her particular character doesn't strike me as someone who would be a pacifist. 01:00:45.599 --> 01:00:49.440 I think the pacifism thing is the is the real is the real missing. 01:00:49.920 --> 01:00:53.039 She seems to be boiling for a fight through most of it. 01:00:53.280 --> 01:00:55.840 Yeah, David Hardcastle loves violence. 01:00:56.000 --> 01:01:08.800 Um but I think but I think I think this is something that is worth noting is that like Lewis's parody of Nice and the kinds of horrible modernist ideologies at work there are not entirely unrealistic. 01:01:08.960 --> 01:01:19.039 So like we read the fact that people at Nice and Mark is really in favour of eugenics, for example, as um something, we

might read it as something that's kind of like outlandish and parodic and vivisection. 01:01:19.199 --> 01:01:20.079 And vivisection. 01:01:20.159 --> 01:01:23.599 But these things were, it took a while for these things to become unpopular. 01:01:23.760 --> 01:01:38.480 The link between like feminism and um eugenics as well is like not an entirely unrealistic one in that many of the early feminist proponents of contraception advocated for it partly along eugenics lines and things like that. 01:01:38.880 --> 01:01:43.119 Um it took it took and and like even like science fiction writers, like who's it? 01:01:43.199 --> 01:01:44.400 Um Sherry Tepper. 01:01:44.639 --> 01:01:53.280 There's one of her books where there's just this, I can't remember which line it was, but there's something where it talked about like natural selection of humanity and things like that as like a good thing. 01:01:53.440 --> 01:01:57.119 Um, and this was a book from like it must have been the 1960s or something, maybe. 01:01:57.440 --> 01:02:04.239 Um, so it's like it seems shocking, but it's partly because Lewis was writing in what in hindsight was an incredibly shocking time. 01:02:04.320 --> 01:02:09.119 Like people took a while to learn the lessons that they should have learned from from World War II and things. 01:02:09.519 --> 01:02:10.239 A thousand percent. 01:02:10.400 --> 01:02:20.639 I think it was actually the vivisection which really stood out to me because the book actually is ultimately anti-vivisection, um, quite strongly because all the animals kind of rebel and except for when Mr. 01:02:20.800 --> 01:02:22.719 Boltitude vivisects some people. 01:02:23.119 --> 01:02:24.079 Yeah, but that's okay. 01:02:25.039 --> 01:02:25.199 Mr. 01:02:25.280 --> 01:02:26.480 Boltitude is the bear. 01:02:26.719 --> 01:02:27.199 He's a bear. 01:02:27.519 --> 01:02:29.519 He lives in he lives in um Ransom's house. 01:02:29.599 --> 01:02:29.760 Yes. 01:02:29.840 --> 01:02:37.440 Um this was the thing, this was the point where this book totally jumped the shark because ransom just has a random bear living in his house. 01:02:37.519 --> 01:02:44.400 And I get why he does, is because he's been to Venus and he entered a pre-lapsarian state, and now the animals really love him. 01:02:44.559 --> 01:02:48.800 And obviously, the lion will lie down with the lamb, so the animals are not eating each other. 01:02:48.960 --> 01:02:52.880 Um, but the fact that he has a random pet bear is very, very odd. 01:02:53.039 --> 01:03:03.440 And also it ends, the book ends with like bear sex because the bear finds a female bear, and then they go off and they have bear sex because that's like the way of things, and that struck me as weird. 01:03:03.679 --> 01:03:05.760 Is it the spirit of Venus comes down to Earth? 01:03:06.000 --> 01:03:07.039 Yes, but then all the animals. 01:03:07.599 --> 01:03:16.880 So the animals have sex, and then Jane meets her and finds her terrifying because she's yet to embrace fully embrace like her place in like the Christian cosmology. 01:03:16.960 --> 01:03:18.320 So she encounters like the bear. 01:03:18.480 --> 01:03:22.320 So she encounters Venus in her terrifying kind of pagan guise. 01:03:22.480 --> 01:03:23.119 Whereas Mrs. 01:03:23.360 --> 01:03:24.400 Um, what's her name? 01:03:24.559 --> 01:03:25.280 The Dimble. 01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:26.159 Mrs. 01:03:26.239 --> 01:03:30.960 Dimble, um, she has this Christianized worldview that's still like a friend to all of these powers. 01:03:31.119 --> 01:03:35.760 So she encounters a much more um a much more friendly kind of Christian version of it. 01:03:36.159 --> 01:03:39.039 But yeah, Venus comes down to Earth and everyone fucks. 01:03:39.519 --> 01:03:40.239 Including the animals. 01:03:40.480 --> 01:03:41.519 Including the animals, yeah. 01:03:41.679 --> 01:03:56.559 Um, but yes, the vivisection thing, I think when when Mark kind of goes to Nice and he enters their building and he learns that they're doing vivisection and he is not in any way shocked by this. 01:03:56.800 --> 01:04:04.559 I think actually, if you're reading that book when it was published in the 1940s, perhaps you also would not have been shocked by vivisection, is what I'm saying. 01:04:04.639 --> 01:04:07.760 I think there's been a big kind of societal attitude shift there. 01:04:07.920 --> 01:04:13.199 And maybe actually you'd find it more surprising at the end when Lewis comes out against animal experimentation. 01:04:13.519 --> 01:04:16.880 Yeah, so this this is we're I think we're we're running kind of late here now. 01:04:17.280 --> 01:04:17.599 Yeah, we are. 01:04:18.000 --> 01:04:36.719 But I think I think one thing that we should talk about before we go, because it's the kind of it's the other side of this whole like Christian worldview, like metaphysics thing, is um the way that Lewis construes the fundamental moral conflict near the end of the book as between the normal and the abnormal. 01:04:36.880 --> 01:04:37.119 Yes. 01:04:37.280 --> 01:04:47.920 So like Mark's Mark when when they when the people at Nice try and finally initiate Mark into the inner circle, what they do is they put him in a room. 01:04:48.000 --> 01:04:56.159 And the room is covered with this like horrible, nauseating, abstract pattern of irregular dots, with like no, well, it's not a pattern, that's the whole point. 01:04:56.239 --> 01:04:59.119 There's no kind of there's no like reason to it. 01:04:59.280 --> 01:05:08.880 And the idea is to um, it's the first step in Mark's initiation where he's deprogrammed from having any attachment to effectively rationality. 01:05:09.199 --> 01:05:15.519 Um, and you kind of see this in the views of everyone at nice, everything's very chaotic, um, everything's very anti-rational. 01:05:15.920 --> 01:05:24.719 Some of them promote this um philosophy called epiphenomenalism, where like reasoning is a um side effect of actions. 01:05:24.960 --> 01:05:37.760 Um, you saw

in uh the previous books, um, Western has this philosophy where um everything kind of reduces to kind of naturalistic forces and kind of human reason and agency kind of falls out of it. 01:05:38.000 --> 01:05:38.960 It's a real philosophy, right? 01:05:39.280 --> 01:05:45.119 Yeah, epiphenomenalism is this, and like Weston inscribes it within um a much kind of broader, broader view. 01:05:45.199 --> 01:05:51.840 And in Nice you have this kind of fullest realization where you have the complete like dislocation of all reason and communication. 01:05:52.000 --> 01:05:59.519 And Marx tried to like be programmed into this, and he has this very strong reaction against this process where he realizes that he's in. 01:06:00.079 --> 01:06:04.800 that he's he's being forced effectively to choose between normal and abnormal. 01:06:04.880 --> 01:06:07.039 And these are the words that Lewis uses. 01:06:07.519 --> 01:06:21.199 And in doing so, he frames, he he takes, he takes this, this kind of metaphysical view, but he it's really interesting because I think he then what what what he re what he does there is he reveals really what's going on, right? 01:06:21.360 --> 01:06:30.239 Lewis has this view of the normal, which he's inscribed within this kind of like metaphysics in order to ground it in something other than like just his own subjectivity. 01:06:30.480 --> 01:06:41.440 And then um he's basically inviting the reader to invest in the same set of norms, make them um as unquestionable and as given as a given as he thinks it is. 01:06:41.599 --> 01:06:46.800 And when he's talking about the normal then that's when he's thinking about like heterosexuality, women submitting to men. 01:06:46.960 --> 01:06:51.199 But then also things like human dignity and not vivisecting animals and stuff like that. 01:06:51.440 --> 01:07:04.239 It's kind of interesting then that he takes these um ideologies and movements that were genuinely going on the world around him and he puts them on the side of the abnormal when for other people they probably would have been kind of more normal. 01:07:04.400 --> 01:07:15.840 So it also kind of reveals um like the kind of the nature of the critique that he's going on he's trying to construct norms but he does so um by way of making them seem something that's just a given and unquestioned. 01:07:15.920 --> 01:07:23.599 So he's also kind of trying to disguise the fact that he's doing the construction or perhaps the way that he tries to disguise that shows that there's a construction going on. 01:07:23.760 --> 01:07:26.000 So there's like deconstruction going on in it. 01:07:26.320 --> 01:07:29.679 Yeah because I think he kind of turns them into natural hierarchies. 01:07:29.760 --> 01:07:43.039 So what he considers to be normal for him is like the natural the way of things in the world so he doesn't there's no sense of him explicitly constructing this as the norm even though obviously that is what's happening. 01:07:43.440 --> 01:07:47.199

Because who was Lewis to say what is normal and natural in the world. 01:07:47.360 --> 01:07:50.079 Yeah and the tensions and how he goes about doing it. 01:07:50.239 --> 01:07:58.400 He reveals certain tensions in doing it which reveals the artificiality of what he himself is creating which is like the deconstruction the text deconstructs itself. 01:07:58.880 --> 01:08:02.559 But it's it's just really interesting the way that he does that and he does that kind of framing. 01:08:02.719 --> 01:08:08.320 Maybe it's because I'm the kind of like nice like postmodern person that he would have hated. 01:08:08.559 --> 01:08:18.479 But as soon as he said that I suddenly became like 10 times more suspicious than I was because it turns out like oh these gay people are they just abnormal why can't they just be normal? 01:08:19.039 --> 01:08:46.399 Yeah 100% so we are over time um so before we stop yeah um Nikki what would you give this out of 10 and why this was the worst book in the trilogy wasn't it yes in fact it's easily I really enjoyed this book but I know objectively this was a bad book and I think I have read someone's people saying that this is widely acknowledged to be Lewis's worst book. 01:08:46.720 --> 01:08:51.920 So what's your Nikki rating and what's your okay my Nikki rating was this is a seven because I did enjoy it. 01:08:52.560 --> 01:08:53.439 And it was kind of interesting. 01:08:53.680 --> 01:08:59.760 I don't think it was as interesting as the other books actually in that it's not quite as um doesn't feel as sophisticated. 01:09:00.720 --> 01:09:03.600 But I'd say like my actual rating is like a three or a four. 01:09:04.079 --> 01:09:13.680 So I'm actually a bit conflicted because I think on atmosphere alone this probably was actually about an eight I genuinely found it very chilling. 01:09:13.840 --> 01:09:46.800 And I also we didn't really talk about this but the sequence at the end where the planets all come down and possess I love that that was done very well so there's a bit where it's Mercury in particular so Mercury in Lewis's kind of cosmology and in you know ancient societies is the god of language and when Mercury comes down and possesses them there's a wonderful sequence where they all start to just be very good at language and have these like amazing kind of philosophical discussions they all become great poets and I thought that was brilliantly done. 01:09:47.279 --> 01:09:56.479 And then correspondingly Merlin's given all of the powers the planets and then he curses nice so like with the powers of Mercury they lose their ability to speak and just start talking rubbish. 01:09:56.800 --> 01:10:07.119 And with the power of Saturn they all become despairing for example there's something about Jupiter as well where they feel that they're like a sense of oppression by authority or something. 01:10:07.680 --> 01:10:27.520 Yes I thought that was brilliant so yeah very strong there but I think because of the really objectionable anti-feminism um and gender staff and also because it was quite dull um I guess the other side of my rating would be like a four. 01:10:27.840 --> 01:10:30.079 So I actually don't I don't know where to place this at all. 01:10:30.159 --> 01:10:32.319 I think it's I think you liked it more than I did there. 01:10:32.640 --> 01:10:35.279 I gave a seven and a three and you gave an eight and a four. 01:10:35.520 --> 01:10:44.560 Maybe I didn't yeah it was a book where there was a real kind of duality within me as to how much I liked it or resonated with it. 01:10:44.720 --> 01:10:54.960 But weirdly I found myself when I sort of stopped reading it when I took a pause I wanted to start reading it again which I actually didn't have with um Voyage to Venus Voyage to Venus I just found boring. 01:10:55.199 --> 01:11:01.199 Well you know I thought it was no chapter house of Gostam reviewable. 01:11:01.520 --> 01:11:02.640 What do we do next Emma? 01:11:02.880 --> 01:11:16.880 So what we're doing next uh next we've got a we've got a treat um I mean I say that I haven't read either of the books yet so I think next week or next next week next episode we're undecided as to whether we're going to do two books in one episode or one book. 01:11:17.279 --> 01:11:24.159 I think I think one book Nikki thinks two but the the either one book or the two books that we'll be doing are two Star Trek novels. 01:11:24.479 --> 01:11:28.800 Yeah so these are technically forgotten sci-fi novels because no one remembers them. 01:11:29.039 --> 01:11:37.119 Yes so one is called Uhura's song and one is called Killing Time and the reason why we're doing both of them is because they're both very gay. 01:11:37.520 --> 01:11:45.920 So Killing Time was actually withdrawn from publication, censored because it was too gay and then republished we have the gay version. 01:11:46.159 --> 01:11:48.960 We managed to get a copy of the gay version and that's quite hard to find but we did. 01:11:49.199 --> 01:11:58.640 And then Uhura's song um was never censored but it has extremely gay overtones so we thought that we could also do that one. 01:11:58.720 --> 01:12:06.720 So we'll either combine them into one episode or we'll do one episode each let's read let's read Killing Time and see how much we have to say about it. 01:12:06.960 --> 01:12:16.800 Yeah because I've read um so I'm halfway through Uhura's song and I think it could be an episode but we'll see what and obviously I haven't read Killing Time so who knows if there's enough substance there. 01:12:16.960 --> 01:12:25.600 And then after enjoying ahura song and then after that um so one of the things that we've been thinking about is that like if you look at our numbers because we're uh we're able to do that. 01:12:25.920 --> 01:12:33.840 Absolutely um the books that are about people that people recognise are obviously significantly more successful than the books but people aren't able to recognise it. 01:12:34.000 --> 01:12:35.840 And you know there are many different reasons for that. 01:12:36.000 --> 01:12:40.079 Maybe people see books about from writers that they recognise and go, oh that's interesting. 01:12:40.239 --> 01:12:56.640 Maybe people are more likely to have read the books by people whose names recognise and then they enjoy the frisson of feeling like they've read something obscure because we told them it's obscure and you can too can be part of like the elect that we've kind of constructed by our own sense of what people may or may not have read. 01:12:56.880 --> 01:12:57.039 Okay. 01:12:57.760 --> 01:13:06.239 But uh occasionally we also like to read genuinely weird obscure forgotten books and we found well I found two amazing looking books in Oxen yesterday. 01:13:06.319 --> 01:13:11.920 The first is a high fantasy book potentially written but about the author's horse. 01:13:12.239 --> 01:13:14.960 Yeah it's called The Heavenly Horse of the Outermost West. 01:13:15.359 --> 01:13:18.079 Which does seem pretty fun and I am very excited to read it. 01:13:18.319 --> 01:13:37.520 I also found a sci-fi book published by the women's press which is an old um feminist press that used to run in the UK up until the 90s um which also seems kind of cool and could be an interesting from reading the blurb could be an interesting counterpart to the Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swannick which we read ages ago that Emma might like more. 01:13:37.760 --> 01:13:43.439 Yeah because I hated the Iron Dragon's Daughter it feels like there's a kind of fundamental similarity between the books but I won't give up more of that. 01:13:43.520 --> 01:13:45.520 But we'll figure this out we don't actually have a plan. 01:13:45.760 --> 01:13:49.119 No well the plan is the Star Trek novel so that will be the next episode. 01:13:49.680 --> 01:14:05.199 And then after that too if you like Star Trek if you like Kirk's book action scandalized 1980s publishers um tune in next time to the Space Archives well listen thank you for thank you so much Steve