The Eric Metaxas Show - Christiana Hale (continued)

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

Christiana Hale continues her look into one of her favorite subjects, the works of C.S. Lewis, specifically examining the symbolism found in characters and locations within the Ransom Trilogy.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m.investments.com. Taxis show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Folks, welcome back. I'm excited to see my friend Sean Foyt as my guest. As you know, all these programs are on Rumble.

And if you go to my website, Ericmataxis.com, sign up for the videos. you'll get all these videos sent to your inbox. Sean Foyt, you, my friend, are in D.C. You're celebrating the overturning of the satanic Roe v. Wade ruling from 1973. And I want to be clear to my audience, the reason Roe v. Wade is wrong is not because abortion is wrong. Abortion is wrong. But that's not why Roe v. Wade is wrong. Roe v. Wade is wrong because it's stupidly and unconstitutionally mandated that every state,

had to have the same laws on abortion as though the Constitution said that were the case. The Constitution does not say that, and it has taken us 50 years of praying and being activists to overturn this evil anti-American law. And, Sean, you correctly say that pastors need to have guts. A lot of times, I want to be clear. A lot of times people say like, oh, they need to have Cajonis or whatever. We say that. What we really mean is they need to have heart.

they need to have heart, okay, to be lying-hearted, to have courage. The word courage comes from Kerr, which means heart, to have a heart, not to be men without chests like C.S. Lewis predicted, but to have a heart to be on fire for truth and justice. And that's why I love you. That's why we become friends. And your tweets on this stuff are next level. But let's talk about you have a book coming out. Talk about that.

Yeah. So I have a book coming out. And it was actually, it was actually canceled by two major publishers in America. Who? Which Harper Collins was the last one to cancel it. You know, which I thought was kind of, actually kind of prophetic because the book's on boldness. And, you know, I don't think we can, you can get out a message about boldness without experiencing some level of resistance. So, you know, those who are not particularly bold, aka Harper Collins.

Yeah. So anyway, they, they, they canceled it and then, you know, thankfully, Regnery picked it up. And anyway, we're getting it out there. It comes out next month. You can pre-order it now on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or wherever. It's called Bold. But yeah, it's really the journey of, you know, us, let us worship this, this experience that we had of standing up for, you know, standing up for these values, standing up for Jesus in the midst of the pandemic. like standing against governmental tyranny, standing up for, you know, there's a lot of standing up for pro-life, standing up to the culture, to the mob, to the culture wars that we're in, that we're living in right now, and really kind of a deep dive into what that looked like for my family, from my kids, from my wife, from my marriage, for my own church situation. So in a lot of ways, it's pretty vulnerable. But I think it's going to encourage a lot of people, you know. I think you talked about it, Eric, even in the film,

about how, you know, courage, it's not really taught. You kind of have to catch it. It has to be modeled. And for whatever reason in that season, God was doing that in us. And so I wanted to share that experience. And my hope is to inspire others to do the same. And listen, all we're trying to do, as you know, I have a book coming out along similar lines in the fall called Letter to the American Church. but it's what we're trying to do is trying to get people to see what is biblical.

This is not just like Sean Floyd and Eric Metaxis have a certain brand. No, no, no. Either what we're doing is right or we shouldn't be doing it. But the point is it is biblical. And many people shrink from seeing that. You were saying yesterday on this program that a lot of Christians have been muted instead of celebrating the victory over Roe v. Wade, which they ought to have been doing, they have been muted because they have bought into this idea.

I actually do write about this in my book. They bought into this idea over the last like 15, 20 years. Like, you know, we shouldn't be too bold. We should be we should be humble. And you're like, yes, you can be humble and bold at the same time. You can celebrate truth and victory. And when you do it, and when I say when you do it, when you, Sean Foyt, do it, you inspire others. You inspire me.

Your tweets inspire me. In fact, you inspired me so much that I was really. rocking a Let Us Worship hooded sweatshirt last week when I was on vacation. I saw that. You look good. A lettuce worship hooded sweatshirtirt let us worship.usworship.usworship.us.

That's the website if people want to want to go there, right? Yeah. Yeah. They can go to let usworship.us.shonfoyt.com. But yeah, you're right. Eric, I think, you know, we're in a really weird hour. I, if you would have told me back when I was praying, you know, in 2000 for the overturning bravery weight. If you would have told me that, you know,

when the ruling came out, that there would be a lot of Christian leaders that were either silent or almost kind of apologizing. This is actually my favorite line. Hey, well, listen, we can celebrate, but we got to do the work, you know. And I'm kind of like, dude, the church has been doing the work for 50 years. Like there's nine pregnancy centers to every one abortion clinic, right? Bingo. Christian evangelicals are the number one, uh, uh, uh,

segment of the population that adopts kids. I mean, there's more resources that go into. I mean, we have been doing the work. And you're right. There's still work to be done on the state level. They bought the lie. This is what's so key. And I think I talk about this, that many Christians have internalized the secular narrative. It is a complete lie. It is false. But we've internalized it. We kind of back like, yeah, it's mostly true. No, it is a lie. And lies come. from the pit of hell. When people say Christians need to do the work, you want to say, I rebuke you. Christians have been doing the work. I know because my wife and so many others have been involved in caring for women, leading them in a sacrificial way to choose life. Right. I mean, the idea that we've

internalized this nonsense from the secular pro-abortion left, it's sinful that we've done that. We need to repent. We do. We do. We need to repent. And, you know, the other thing is we need to not rob God of getting the glory out of this. And it's like, that's the thing I want to tell these leaders. I'm like, your silence is actually robbing God of the praise that he's worthy of because he did something no one thought would ever be done. You know, I was told my whole life, I mean, I was obviously praying in the pro-life movement and, you know, believe in life tape.

And I have a life band that I'm wearing right now that I've worked for 10 years. And I had another one on before this that was in my wedding pictures. So I've been praying this prayer every day. And, you know, there were moments where I thought it was impossible. I thought it was never going to happen. And so when you, in a season of a miracle, it's like, it's like the, you know, when Jesus healed, healed the blind men and, you know, what was one of them, only one of them went back and gave praise. It's like, no, no, we are mandated to give God the glory for what he did.

I mean, this is historic. And so, you know, we don't want to rob God of that because we're worried about the mob and what people may think and what you know, it's like no way, man. And I feel like even when we were there today on this, you know, worshipping on the steps of the Supreme Court, I felt like this holy reverence where it's like, you know what, God is on the throne over this nation. He is the one pulling the levers, you know, the left and these crazy people.

They think they've won the narrative. How crazy is this, Eric? God would wait for this ruling. when their radical left is in control of Congress. They're in control of the Senate. They're in control of the White House. And God's like, I'm going to slide this right in there. Bam.

You know? Let me just say God has the sense of history because he is the Lord of history. He is the Lord of history. And you know what, Sean, I want to say, when you say, you know, that Christians are sort of shy about celebrating, this reminds me exactly when David was dancing. before the Ark and his wife, Michelle, was embarrassed, ashamed. That is a picture of the church today. Some are dancing with joy.

Others are ashamed. Folks, which side are you on? And you know, the result of Michael being ashamed was from that moment forward, she was barren until the day of her death. Uh-oh. So there's a barrenness that comes on you. There's a barrenness that comes on you when you refuse to celebrate. great the great works of God. So anyway, it's so great to have you. I want people to go to

Sean Foote.com, but they can't spell it so they can go to let us worship.us.orgia. Let us worship.com. And you can get an awesome hooded sweatshirt. It's really not a hoodie. It's a hooded sweatshirt like I was rocking on Instagram. My friend will have you back soon. Thank you. I appreciate it. Love you guys. Bye. Thanks. The administration has caused a financial crisis, and they have no clue how to fix it. Oil prices have skyrocketed, and when oil prices go up, the cost of transportation and shipping spikes, leading the prices of goods to rise. And when we're already seeing record inflation, that's the last thing we need.

Our economy is in trouble, and you need to take steps to protect yourself. If all your money is tied up in stocks, bonds, and traditional markets, you are vulnerable. Gold is one of the best ways to protect your retirement, no matter what. happens you own your gold. It is real, it is physical, it's always been valuable since the dawn of time. Legacy precious metals is the company I trust for investing in gold. They can help you roll your retirement account into a gold-backed IRA where you still own the physical gold. They can also ship gold and precious metals safely and securely to your house. Call Legacy at 866-528-1903 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com.

Improve your memory with award-winning Vivalore memory support. Vivalore's founder prayed God would show her the solution to memory loss when her mom was devastated by dementia. Divine encounters, faith, and her background as a pharmacist led Susan Gibson to create Vivalore memory support. Vivalor is a premium quality supplement with five to 20 times more nutrients than any other memory supplements. Vivalor has won numerous awards and a customer independently wrote three books about it. Visit Vivalore.com for testimonials about the life-changing improvements. Vivalore has helped those with normal memory, mild or severe memory loss, and it can help you. Vivalor has many brain fortifying nutrients to help focus in memory.

Don't wait until your memory slips. Invest in your memory now. Vivalor is V-I-V-O-L-R. Get 30% off with code Eric. Memories are real treasures. Keep yours. Help us pray for miraculous healings that give God glory. V-V-V-O-R dot com and use code Eric.

V-V-V-V-L-O-R-R.com. Use the code Eric. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking both hours today with Christiana Hale, the author of a new book called Deeper Heaven, a Reader's Guide to C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy because a guide to C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy did not exist and needed to be written, and Christiana Hale wrote it. And here's the good news. I actually read the whole book, which I really get to do. And it is a wonderful guide to C.S. Louis's Ransom. I'm just so grateful to you, Christiana, for writing this book. because as you said before, nothing like it existed, and people are intimidated by the world of Lewis's Ransom Trilogy because it seems deep and intimidating and stuff. It's really not because it works on so many levels. But your book serves as just a wonderful introduction.

So we were just talking about, so the first book is a trip to Mars, the second book is a trip to Venus. The third book is called That Hidious Strength, which is a really bizarre book that kind of almost stands on its own. but let's just kind of keep going with the plot, the overview of these three books. So the first book, this guy, ransom, he doesn't know what he's getting into, right? Like he's a guy that's just kind of on a walking tour, and he kind of stumbles on this dark situation with these people, these nefarious scientists wanting to kidnap this boy and take him to Mars to sacrifice him.

And so he sort of intervenes. And so he inadvertently finds himself going to Mars. Yes, that is right in the first book. And then if we're moving on to the second book, in the second book, it's less accidental, it's more on purpose. And what's fascinating to me is that the whole reason the second book happens, though, is because of the first book. And this is Lewis's genius, is that this first book was a total accident. Ransom just stumbled, stumbled into this situation. because of this kidnapping, because he was taken to Mars,

the important thing that happens is that Ransom was a philologist, meaning he studied languages, and being taken to Mars, he was fascinated by the fact that these creatures are speaking a different language. It's a language that's entirely unknown on Earth. It's called Old Solar. And he learns this language, of course. Old Solar.

I mean, this stuff is so, we can talk for days about every single one of these weird concepts. So I want to remind my readers in case they don't know and to tell them, imagine a world where C.S. Lewis is friends with J.R.R. Tolkien. They're hanging out. They're going to the bird and the baby pub and they're drinking their ale and talking and sharing stories. So there's this amazing level of literary community and one-upsmanship. And I'm going to write this book and you write that book. It's hard to believe that that ever existed. and Tolkien and Lewis are both totally into philology, into the study of languages and whatever. I mean, talk a little bit since you know about this, about Tolkien inventing for his books. Like he invents a language. I mean, I don't know how far he got, but he did.

Yes. Well, this is a language that, I mean, you can, if you wanted to, take a course in Elvish. I don't want to. I don't want to. You can't make me. If you wanted to. No, I don't want to.

But the point is the language is that that well developed, at least in Tolkien's side, to where you can actually learn how to speak it, which if you know other languages at all, it's very, I mean, it's very difficult. There's a lot that goes into. How nerdy are you? That's the question. Do you speak elvish? Do you have an elvish tattoo?

No, no, I don't mean you. I just mean I'm speaking to my audience. Like, how nerdy do you want to be? Yeah. So, but I'm bringing this up because they both were. interested in this stuff, right? So you have, Lewis is totally into this stuff. Tolkien is into this stuff, but you're saying that Lou, I forgot this, that Ransom, the character, is a philologist totally into language. And so he goes to Mars and he encounters a foreign language.

Yes. And that's actually one of the things that pulls him out of his terror because he's very, I mean, it's very shocking experience at first when he realizes that he's in a spaceship because he actually gets, he's unconscious when they take him onto the spaceship. So then he comes out of it. He wakes up. Yes, he's on the spaceship. And when he realizes where he is, that's terrifying experience. And then when they get to Mars, he's scared and he runs away.

But part of the thing that brings him out of that is when he realizes that when he encounters the first non-human being on Mars, it's one of the Harasa. He encounters them. and he realizes it's talking, it's communicating, it's speaking a language, and that totally, he has this moment where he starts imagining going back to Earth and writing a book on Mars, its language and its uses or whatever. And he totally nerds out basically about the fact that this is a language that no one has ever heard or learned or diagnosed or pulled apart or understood.

And so that's when things that kind of snaps him out of his terror and leads him to start interacting with the Hrasa so that he can actually just learn their language. And that's the key point that leads to Peralandra is the reason that he's taken to Venus in the second book. He's actually taken there and asked to go there by the Eldela, which are angelic beings and the Oriarasa, which are the greater angelic beings. He's sent there for a purpose primarily not because he's this amazing person, but because he knows the language. He's basically just an interpreter. Oh, wait a minute. So you're saying that because I forgot this, and even though I read your book, I forgot. So when he goes to Mars, because he's a philologist, he has the ability, in a sense, to learn their language, which is old solar.

And of course, refers to the solar system. So he learns this. So he's then sent on a mission to Paralandra, because. because he speaks old solar. Yes, exactly. So the second book is the trip to Venus or Paralandra. And I'm trying to remember in the first, so what happens roughly in the first book?

What's the plot of the first book other than that he goes there and encounters these strange beings on Mars? I don't remember the ending. So the characters that take him, Weston and Divine, are the two men that end up that kidnap him. And they want to, well, they kind of have different, different... They're both bad people.

They're both bad. They both want different things, but they are neither one of them good. And so it ends, though, with their purposes being thwarted, and the Oyarsa of Mars, which is like the angelic being of the planet, sends them back. So he sends them back to Earth. But the key thing that happened, and this maybe goes a little bit back to the medieval cosmology, is that the medievals believe that there's a barrier between the moon and the rest of the medieval cosmology, the cosmos. So the moon is basically everything under the moon has been affected by sin and the fall, and everything above the moon, the trans lunar realm is unfallen.

And there's a barrier there that that's why it's called out of the silent planet is that the earth is the silent planet. It's silent. Great deeper heaven can't hear what's going on down there because there's this barrier that's been put up. up. But when Weston and Divine go to Mars, they break that barrier, which means that there now can be, there can be back and forth, basically, between Earth and the rest. Which is bad. In other words. It can be bad and it ends up being good in the last book, right? There's kind of goes both ways. Well, it can be redeemed, but the point is that they have, in a sense, you know, it's kind of

like bringing slavery to the states in the West. It's like you're bringing this evil into a place where it didn't exist before, which is what... I see, that's what I'm saying. I'm forgetting all this stuff. But so, so, yeah, so... And part of the genius for me is how Lewis can really portray evil. I mean, these are dark, evil characters.

And he also shows the evil of science, the potential evil of science. That science is not all good, which was part of the myth of that era, you know, the 30s or whatever. And then he's saying, oh, no, no, no, it can be used for evil. So, okay, so,

so they are sent back. But yeah, I just don't remember how it ends. So I don't know if you... Yeah, he wraps, the ending, he wraps it up very quickly. So there's this whole conversation between the Oyersa of Malacondra and Ransom, who's, again, acting kind of as an interpreter because the two evil men know bits and pieces of phrases, but they can't really speak the language. So Ransom is kind of in between translating, basically.

back and forth. And the OIRSR just says, well, you have to send you back, right? You have to go back. And we don't know if you'll make it or not, but you have to leave. You can't, you can't stay here. That's not, that's not allowed. So they're sent back in the spaceship. They do make it back, back to Earth. And it kind of ends very abruptly. Ransom wakes up and it's raining. And he's, it's the great scene because he's so glad that it's raining. And he goes and has a pint of beer in a pub. just like after he's been on Mars for however long. It's a very British way to end the book. So it kind of ends abruptly.

And then he has this whole post script kind of pulling things out. There's a whole letter from ransom that he's writing to someone kind of explaining his experiences. And so that's another reason I kind of think that Lewis was treating that book in itself as kind of a standalone there and back again sort of story. That it's like this happened. It was and then we're back basically. Well, when we come back, we will talk about the second book, Paralandra, which is my favorite. I think it's so magnificent that it deserves, you know, a place in the pantheon of great books of all time. And it should be taught alongside Paradise Lost.

It's just it's as spectacular as any book I've ever read in some ways. So when we come back, we will discuss all this with the author of Deeper Heaven. That's the new book, Deeper Heaven, a Reader's Guide, to C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. for heaven by Christiana. Hail. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Hey there, folks. Eric Metaxis here. As you know, our friend, and he's a real friend, Mike Lindell, has a passion to help everyone get the best sleep of their life. But he didn't stop by simply creating the best pillow. Now Mike has done it again by introducing his My Slippers. My Slippers, they're unbelievable. I know all about them. But I got to tell you,

for a limited time, you will save $90 on each pair of My Slippers. They're expensive. You can save $90. This blowout sale of the year won't last order now. He's taken over two years to develop them. The my slippers are designed to wear indoors and out all day long, made with My Pillow Foam and Impact gel to help prevent fatigue. Made with quality leather swayed, call 1-800-978-3057. Use the promo code Eric or go to MyPillow.com.

Click on the radio listeners square and use promo code Eric. The offer will not last long, so order now with promo code Eric at MyPillow.com or call 800-978. 3057. 800. 978 3057. Folks, welcome back. I'm talking to Christiana Hale, who has written a new book,

a wonderful book called Deeper Heaven, A Reader's Guide to C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. Okay, so first book, Ransom Goes to Mars, comes back. Second book, Parilandra. So tell the plot, roughly, of that book,

because it's pretty amazing. So, yes, Paralyander, I would have to say, honestly, I hate being asked which one's my favorite. But when forced, I have to say Paralandra, because I just, I love that book. It is funny, though, because the plot is very simple, actually. It's a very simple plot. And there's a lot of conversation and talking and Lewis doing what he does,

which is unraveling really deep and difficult, theological, and philosophical issues in conversations between his characters in a way that just puts it puts it in a light that you never had considered it before. So the plot very simply is that Lewis, because of his adventures in the first book, because primarily of his ability to speak the language, you mean ransom. Sorry, did I say Lewis? I get them confused also because, you know, you feel like, Ransom's a lot like Lewis, but, yeah.

Thank you. Ransom. And then Lewis shows up, though, too. that's the other thing is Lewis as a character shows up in the book actually at the beginning of Peralander he goes to visit Ransom the character so then you have Lewis the author Lewis the character and Ransom who is basically Lewis the author so so it gets very complicated but ransom is sent on a mission to Peralandra primarily again mainly just because he can speak the language so he knows the language he can speak to the people who live there on Peralandra and so

they send him there because there's going to be a danger that he needs to point them about. When you say they send him there, the Oyarsa, these are these angelic beings. So these are good guys. The Oyarsa and the El Dilla, is that what they're called? The higher level. So yeah, these are these angelic beings. And there's clear correspondence, you know, that Lewis is not inventing. Like, you know, these are basically angels, but he calls them Oyerso.

So you're saying they send? ransom to Venus because he can speak old solar. I don't remember, did they know what his mission is? Does he stumble on the mission? He doesn't know what his mission is. He doesn't know what it is. And he even makes a comment because in the beginning he's talking to Lewis, the character. So Lewis inserts himself into the story as a character who goes to visit Ransom.

And Ransom is explaining to that character what his mission is. he even says, I don't really know what it's going to be. They haven't told me, I don't know. And he even says something like, there are some missions for which it's better, one knows less, basically. The less one knows about one's mission, the better. So in that sense, and I talk about this in my book, is that I feel like Ransom has more of a prophetic role in this book.

See, he's being sent on a mission. He doesn't always know what exactly he's going to do, so he's trusting that he will be given the right. words to say that he'll be given the insight to know what it is he is to do at the appropriate time, which is very much a prophetic sort of role that he has. So he goes to Venus and then he ends up meeting the green lady on Venus, who she's not human, but she's very humanoid in her, in her, in her, well, she's like the Eve. I mean, it's like there's an Adam and Eve characters of Venus, but Lewis calls her the green lady, and then she's the what, she's the queen of that

world, and the king of that world, the atom of that world, is her husband or whatever. So he, but yeah, so this character ransom meets this green lady. Yes, and basically from that point on, I mean, they have a lot of conversations, so there's a lot of talking for, for a while, just trying to feel one another out, understand each other. And then Weston, who was one of the, baddies from the first book, comes back to Paralandra, but we find out later that he has been possessed by either a devil or the devil. It's somewhat ambiguous, and he's been possessed. So he's basically not Weston anymore.

And so Ransom starts calling him the unman in his mind. Look, that is so creepy. It is one of the most, the unman, this character is one of the creepiest characters. in the history of literature. And Lewis is such a genius for being able to create this character who is effectively possessed. So he's like a talking corpse.

It's like a nightmare. And it's so brilliant. So he has sent Weston, who is evil to begin with, but now he's given himself over to evil. So he is a complete, like, a carrier of evil. He is this truly evil. And Lewis calls him the unman

which is just creepy. It's like he's a man who's not a man. He's like a dead man talking. Exactly. And yeah, so I think he is, I agree with you. He's one of the creepiest, creepiest characters. And Lewis does an excellent job writing that in that way. And then so he is trying to, basically,

he's acting like the Satan of that unfallen. If we see Peralandra kind of as Garden of Eden, and the Green Lady is the Eve of that world. The unman is coming in as the Satan of that world, trying to tempt her to disobey the one command that has been given, which is to, so there's all these floating islands, and then there's the fixed land, which is the land that doesn't float, doesn't move.

And the command has been given that they are not to spend the night on the fixed land. They can visit it, but they can't spend the night there. That's the one command. And his whole purpose is to try to get her to just obey that command. So to cause the fall of that world. So it's like a retelling of Paradise Lost. It's a retelling of the first few chapters of Genesis in another world. I mean, it's so amazingly done.

It's brilliant, but it's brilliantly done. And that's Perilander, the second book. We'll be right back. We're talking to the author of Deeper Heaven, Christiana Hale. We'll be right back. Welcome back, folks. The book is Deeper Heaven, a reader's guide to C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy. The author, Christina Hale, is my guest. And, Christina, this stuff is so deep. I hope people are tracking because there's so much to this. And that's why your book is so wonderful, because it's just a really perfect introduction in a way to this world here. But so you were just recounting the plot of Peralander, the second book. And it's basically a retelling of the story of the fall, except in this story, the Satan figure does not succeed in tempting the eve of that world. And the whole book is about this. I mean, it's, it's,

you talk about epic. It's an epic poem. It's like Paradise Lost, except it's kind of weird because Milton, you know, retold the story that he got. Lewis invented. a story in a whole other world and then has to figure out. So what would that look like if the Satan figure doesn't succeed? What would that battle look like? I mean, it's just it's so rich. And it's just theologically rich. It's philosophically rich.

And it's also an exciting story. That's pretty tough to pull off. But he seems to have pulled it off. Somehow he does. Yes. I mean, I think some people think it's his greatest book. it's certainly, if not his great. I think it's probably his greatest book.

So say more about this. You just mentioned floating islands. I mean, that alone, Lewis creates a world that you keep bumping into things. You think, how did he think of this? What a brilliant idea of floating island. There are all these floating islands. And so you said that the number one thing, the only thing that God basically forbids this Adam and Eve from doing is spending the night.

on the fixed land. So, like, that's the one command, and then you have this unman figure trying to really seduce this woman into the sin of disobeying that. And that's where ransom kind of comes in to do battle with

this Satan figure. Yes, and it's really fascinating to me, the more you, the more I read that book to the methods that the unmaned, the Satan figure, uses to try to sway the green lady to listening to him, right, to disobey, disobey. Because if you've read Paradise Lost and have that comparison kind of in your head, it's very interesting to see how Lewis presents it in a different way. So vanity

comes into play in both of them. So in Milton's Paradise Lost, there's this sort of, the the devil in that story is kind of using, playing to Eve's vanity. There, it's a little bit more almost physical vanity, right? Showing her how beautiful she is. And Milton kind of plays that up. The Unman in Peralandra tries to do that, actually. He like dresses her up and shows her her reflection, but she doesn't, it doesn't really move her very much. He's playing on her emotional vanity. So trying to get her to see how sacrifice she could basically is making, a sacrifice for the good of her children. And kind of this playing up, she will be this noble kind of matriarch, right, be looked up to, and it's for your future children,

basically trying to play up the vanity in herself, not externally, but internally. And so that's a fascinating comparison. The more that you dig into, into Milton and Lewis. And Lewis even wrote, he wrote about Milton frequently. He wrote a wonderful little essay called Preface to Paradise loss lost longer than an essay. It's a few chapters long. It's just excellent and really unpacks a lot of what he thought about Milton and that comes into play in this book. Do you remember when he wrote Preface the Paradise Lost? Because I remember reading that and boy, that's brilliant, but that gives you some insight into his thinking on all this stuff. But I don't remember. I don't remember exact year. If I had to say, I would say it was before the Ransom Trilogy

was written. That would be my guess, but I don't know an exact year. Yeah, I was going to say, did it help him begin thinking about these things? But we don't know. On the break, maybe we'll look that up because it is so clear when you read Peralandra that it's an analog to Paradise Lost and that he, I keep saying that if we lived in a sane world, it would be taught, Paradise Lost and Paralandra would be taught together like in a survey course of Western Lit because they correspond to each other so dramatically. at least that's my theory.

Yes, yes, they do. As well as Purgatorioo from Dante. Dante is Divine Comedy, too. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's, now do you teach Dante also? I don't currently, because I teach literature to junior high students,

so they're a little purgatories a little bit, maybe beyond them at the moment. But I highly, I mean, it's. It was one of, the divine comedy was one of Lewis's favorite, if not his favorite. He doesn't, he doesn't always call favorites, but he has the highest praise for Dante's divine comedy. It was a really key part of his conversion, in fact, as well. And so he references Dante all over the place across the trilogy. Now, I'm a little surprised I don't remember that.

Can you fresh my memory? Because I don't remember that he was, that it figured. somehow in his conversion. Can you remember any details? Yes. So prior, so prior to his conversion, he read the entire thing in Italian, in the original Italian, of course, with a friend. And he, he wrote some letters about it back and forth with his friend, basically saying that it, it reaches heights of poetry, that poetry has never reached before and probably never will again. It just gave him, it gave him this kind of transcendent experience. And he talks about, in Surprised by Joy about reading Fantasties by George McDonald and how that gave him this

concept of the holy. And he says something similar in a letter about Dante's divine comedy as well, specifically Paradiso, which is the third part of Dante's Divine Comedy. He uses kind of similar language when talking about that, that it introduced something to him that basically made him long for something that he didn't really have. words for, which he comes to find out is Christ, is the gospel in his conversion. So it's, he read it significantly enough before his conversion, but it, it, you can see when he talks about it, that it's pushing him that direction.

That's amazing. That's just not something that I, that I, uh, remember having heard before, and I feel pretty familiar with Lewis's. So I'm, I'm, uh, I'm surprised to hear that, but it makes perfect sense. We'll be right back. Final segment for today with Christiana Hale. That's H-A-L-E. And the book is Deeper Heaven.

We'll be right back. Folks, welcome back. Final segment for today with Christiana Hale. We'll continue the conversation either tomorrow or another day. But the book is Deeper Heaven, a guide to C.S. Louis's Ransom Trilogy. So we were just talking about the plot of Peralandra, the middle book. If you can in, you know, two minutes, I dare you. you to sum up the plot of the third book. We'll talk about that as we continue the conversation,

but just since we have a couple of minutes left, how in the world do you describe the final book in the trilogy titled That Hidious Strength? That is, yeah, that one, that stumps people, right? The first two, you can kind of see, okay, they're interplanetary, traveling to other planets, maybe a little more sci-fi effect here and there. But that third book, you know, he's a it stays on Earth. There's no planetary travel, at least by men, that they don't travel in a spaceship or anything in the third book. And it's a very fascinating book because the main characters, at least, ransom himself and the characters he surrounds himself with, don't actually make the final stand, right? We have other characters that kind of do that for them. So it really is the

the culmination of the first two books we have. I would describe it as a collision of worldviews. It's a collision of philosophies that have come to fruition. The collision of the materialist, reductionist worldview that drives this pseudoscience. I mean, it starts out science, but ends in basically demon worship, right, and possession in the end, versus the, I would say, incarnationalist Christians, you can say, right? that they, so you have this, this conflict that comes to a head where you have the society on the one hand, the NICE, that is trying to push their agenda and it's a very evil, demonic agenda.

And then you have the group surrounding ransom who's taking a stand against that, against that. So it's this, and what's funny, though, is that you have this back and forth, right, between these two characters, which is different from the other books. So even though I would still argue that the Ransom trilogy is a good name for it, this third book does take the spotlight off of Ransom and focuses on the married couple, Jane and Mark Stuttick, and their relationship with each other. And then when they're apart, it kind of flips back and forth. We go from focusing on Mark to then next chapter we might be over here with Jane and what she's doing, which is very different structure from the first two books. I mean, it really is. It's such a bit of.

bizarrely different book, and it's such a bizarre book. There's just no way around it. I don't know. I mean, can you compare it to anything? I almost don't know that I can compare it to anything. I haven't found anything quite like it. No, it's, yeah, it's, because you have, still have that thread of planet interplanetary, you know, the medieval cosmology, but between perilandra and that his strength, Lewis became really good friends with Charles Williams, who was known for his Arthurian scholarship. So he was Arthurian, myth and legend was one of his

specialties. So Lewis just became captivated and enrapture with that. And his, again, his was the personality where anything that he was kind of really into worked its way into everything, right? He couldn't, he wasn't, he was very much a whole person, right? It's like, he couldn't

just be like, oh, and that's my hobby off to the side. That came out in his writing. So the whole idea was Merlin and Yeah, Merlin, the figure of Merlin is resurrected in the book, that hideous strength. And we're running out of time here. But it really is, that hideous strength seems like a prophetic book for today. I've never seen anything like it.

Definitely. It is creepy. You want to talk about like deep state, demonic, whatever you want to talk. It's just really creepy, powerful. Well, we're at a time for today. Christiana Hale. congratulations on a great book, Deeper Heaven. We'll continue the conversation.

But before then, let me just say again, thank you. Thank you for having me.