In Out of the Silent Planet, Lewis makes many-a-comment on Christian themes, such as the concepts of holiness, virtue, the metaphysics of God and good and evil; however, there are little hidden gems that suggest a different type of metaphysic -- if you're really looking for them. Often they are imbedded in commentary about one of the above Christian issues, but have much more fascinating implications (at least for someone like me, who sees Christian metaphysics as simply one possible lens of truth, which never tells a holistic enough story).
In chapter 12, Hyoi the Hross and Ransom, our main character, discuss many of the points of contention between the lifestyles of the hrossa on Malacandra and 'hman' on Earth (or as they call it, Thulcandra). The major commentary being discussed is the idea of sexual monogamy, a conversation which reveals to Ransom the epiphany that man's sexual 'perversion' -- as he labels it -- is actually what he considers to be the unnatural of the two, in the end:
"Ransom pondered this. Here, unless Hyoi was deceiving him, was a species naturally continent, naturally monogamous. And yet, was it so strange? Some animals, he knew, had regular breeding seasons; and if nature could perform the miracle of turning the sexual impulse outward at all, why could she not go further and fix it, not morally but instinctively, to a single object? He even remembered dimly having heard that some terrestrial animals, some of the 'lower' animals, were naturally monogamous. Among the hrossa, anyway, it was obvious that unlimited breeding and promiscuity were as rare as the rarest perversions. At last it dawned upon him that it was not they, but his own species, that were the puzzle. That the hrossa should have such instincts was mildly surprising; but how came it that the instincts of the hrossa so closely resembled the unattained ideals of that far-divided species Man whose instincts were so deplorably different? What was the history of Man?..."
Hyoi goes on to tell him that "Maleldil" -- the Universal creator, or at least ruler as we have yet to discover more about the entity at this point in the book -- has "made [them] so" and ascribes rational reasons to it being so: "How could there ever be enough to eat if everyone had twenty young?" A sensible description about the economical resource of such a natural, instinctual trait of this type of monogamy. He also rationalizes it from an emotional standpoint, asking, "...how could we endure to live and let time pass if we were always crying for one day or one year to come back...?"
Embedded in this discussion, thus far, is the idea of perverse desires -- of sin -- akin to much of Lewis' Christian opinions as explored in his essay, Mere Christianity. Of course it is at least well-known that Christianity espouses the position of monogamy -- 'till death do us part' -- and a particular position on the definition of marriage; this is clear from the way the church has backed legal defenses for the one man, one woman debate in recent challenges to marriage laws in the United States. It is also clear Biblically that sexual desires and acts be something shared only between married individuals after marriage rites have been secured, which means that sexual activity beyond that strict definition lies in the realm of 'sinful' behavior; thus, Ransom easily comes to the conclusion within the contrast here that the hrossa have attained -- quite naturally, contrary to the human condition - what man has sough as an unattainable 'ideal' as expressly preached by established (in his case, Christian) religion.
This could be an attempt for Lewis' to make social and ethical commentary, aiming to show the validity of the Christian notion of sexual sin, supporting the whole "you can't have your cake and eat it, too" cliche. In fact, at the beginning of the conversation, he discusses man's tendencies for what sounds like obsession: "If a thing is a pleasure, a hman wants it again. He might want the pleasure more often than the number of young that could be fed," as if suggesting that the pleasure of the act of sex is the sin itself. In fact he even almost tries to justify the idea of monogamy purely for the sake of reproduction, without the pleasure at all, citing what he calls 'lower animals' in the terrestrial world that do just that (for me, the only thing that comes to mind right now is penguins, but you get the point), as if sex for reproductive purposes alone can be divorced from the human pleasure -- and almost, seems to be suggested here, that it should be, in that the hrossa do it right in letting it be just that.
But somehow I feel a different pull personally in this discussion. I get that Lewis wants to address Christian themes and issues and ideals, and through apology legitimize them, but there seems to me something more fundamentally important than just the idea "you shouldn't have sex for pleasure all the time, especially outside of the realm of marriage laws." Taken without the Christian apology, the following passage takes on more personal significance (as Hyoi here shares):
"A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hman, as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. The séroni could say it better than I say it now. Not better than I could say it in a poem. What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure, as the crab is the last part of a poem. When you and I met, the meeting itself was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then -- that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it. You say you have poets in your world. Do they not teach you this?"
Again, Ransom (and mankind by extension) is made to look the uncivilized, unaware fool, but what Hyoi is saying seems to me more than just "don't have sex all the time for pleasure." Instead, sex is just an example of one aspect humans are classically bad at -- drawing significance from the single event. Hyoi talks about sex as an event of greater significance than just an act of pleasure -- and really, that's the key. Not that the pleasure is a sin, but in over-indulging in it, as one over indulges in food over and over again, one diminishes the value of the pleasure -- the sin here, really, is gluttony. And this seems far more fitting to me, and more significant to me, than the previous obvious interpretation, as it feels more true of humans -- we are classically bad at understanding the gravity, value, weight, of something until it's well behind us. And instead of seeing it as an event that still continues to have value to us in the present, we ascribe the feeling of nostalgia, of regret, and sadness, that it is over and done. We see life as images randomly placed in succession without any significant flow -- I blame Hume for this. So Hyoi comments on the human inability to understand the idea that past events are not at all in the past, but rather things that continue to unfold and actually gain in significance as life continuously flows in time, not diminish as we tend to believe (because we attach the notion of human 'forgetfulness,' of self-doubt in our ability to remember accurately, in this belief that our thinking constantly warps the once 'true' event into something significantly less real).
I have issues with that thinking, as does Hyoi apparently. We like to think that we experience something true, 'raw' we call it, only in the moment. And that once that moment ends, memory becomes something lesser, and because of it, lower quality. And yet, sometimes, it is only upon reflection, oftentimes when events are coupled together and time has elapsed, that 'hindsight' gives us the real significance of that moment. What the hrossa are espousing here is that the event and the memory of the event cannot be divorced from each other, or taken in isolation -- that they are inherently valuable only when in fluidity. I love this interpretation. Because, really, if anyone wants to argue that the event is the only important thing, and that all time beyond it is less significant, we miss such a massive chunk of existence. (And, from a more Heideggarian perspective, it fails to realize that we never truly experience anything really in the raw anyway -- we're always already interpreting the world, through our own particularities and biases, and so the present is always a memory instantly anyway...)
This view is perpetuated in the end of the chapter as they relate the discussion of sex to the idea of evil; Ransom brings up the issue of the hnakra -- a creature which is often responsible for hrossa deaths and which Ransom implicitly suggests is an evil which he says Maleldil has "let in" to the world (a reference akin to the idea Lewis explains in detail in Book 2 of Mere Christianity for the 'problem of evil'). Hyoi explains the difference in evil, here:
"I long to kill this hnakra as he also longs to kill me. I hope that my ship will be the first and I first in my ship with my straight spear when the black jaws snap. and if he kills me, my people will mourn and my brothers will desire still more to kill him. But they will not wish that there were no hnéraki; nor do I. How can I make you understand, when you do not understand the poets? The hnakra is our enemy, but he is also our beloved. We feel in our hearts his joy as he looks down from the mountain of water in the north where he was born; we leap with him when he jumps the falls; and when winter comes, and the lake smokes higher than our heads, it is with his eyes that we see it and know that his roaming time is come. We hang images of him in our houses, and the sign of all the hrossa is a hnakra. In him the spirit of the valley lives; and our young play at being hnéraki as soon as they can splash in the shallows."
Ransom has a hard time grasping the concept of mutual respect inherent to his description, so he goes on:
"... I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes. I will tell you a day in my life that has shaped me; such a day as comes only once, like love, or serving Oyarsa in Meldilorn. Then I was young, not much more than a cub, when I went far, far up the handramit to the land where stars shine at midday and even water is cold. A great waterfall I climbed. I stood on the shore of Balki the pool, which is the place of most awe in all worlds... Because I have stood there alone, Maleldil and I, for even Oyarsa sent me no word, my heart has been higher, my song deeper, all my days. But do you think it would have been so unless I had known that in Balki hnéraki dwelled? There I drank life because death was in the pool..."
Pleasure, too often sought and indulged, loses its meaning in much the same way Hyoi describes life without the possibility of danger (or, good without the existence of evil). Without the contrast of unrequited desire, of restraint, pleasure loses its significance when it is at once finally attained. Same here with the idea of life and death -- without death, life becomes less precious and meaningful, and it is that constant reminder of the danger -- Hyoi argues -- that gives us reason to appreciate the moments, and ultimately the memory of those moments that exists in between. Thus, the memory becomes equally important, as it is the thing that gives lasting purpose and meaning and value to those events that really should be (in his assessment) few and far between to keep the significance pure.
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