Deeper Heaven: A Reader's Guide to C.S. Lewis's Ransom Trilogy
By Christiana Hale
Deeper Heaven: A Reader’s Guide to C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy
$26.95
C.S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, better known as “the Space Trilogy”, is a much-neglected and yet critically important part of Lewis’ works. It has captivated and bewildered readers since its publication, and though hundreds of books about Lewis have been written, few seek to navigate the maze that is Lewis’s “space-travel story.” These books are a distillation in novel form of one of Lewis’ favorite subjects, a subject whose melody is woven into almost everything that Lewis ever wrote: the medieval model of the cosmos.
Deeper Heaven is a guide and companion through the magical web of medieval cosmology, ancient myth, and critique of modern philosophies that makes up the oft-maligned “Space Trilogy.” A student and teacher of literature and history herself, Christiana Hale will walk you through the Trilogy one step at a time, with eyes fixed where Lewis himself fixed his: on Deep Heaven and beyond. In the process, many questions will be answered: What does Christ have to do with Jupiter? Why does Lewis care so much about the medieval conception of the heavens? Why should we? And, perhaps the most puzzling question of all: why is Merlin in That Hideous Strength?
Chapter 1: Mapping the Universe:What is the Medieval Cosmos?
Chapter 2: Kindly Enclyning: The Influence & Personality of the Planets
Chapter 3: Whatness and Whichness: Donegality & Atmosphere
PART I: OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET
Summary
Chapter 4: The Pedestrian & the Pilgrim: Dante’s Influence
Chapter 5: “By Jove!”: Lewis’s Use of Language
Chapter 6: The Heavens Declare: Ransom’s Revelation
Chapter 7: Strange Fiction: Wells, Lindsay, & the Sci-Fi Genre
Chapter 8: Learning to Re-See: Imaginative Training & the Cosmos
Chapter 9: Grey-Eyed & Keen: The Martial Influence
Chapter 10: The Lost Poets: Memory & Pleasure
Chapter 11: Strange Counsel: Maleldil & the Great War
Chapter 12: Devils in Disguise: Hell on Malacandra
Chapter 13: The Ocean of Eternal Noon: Ransom’s Imaginative Transformation
PART II: PERELANDRA
Summary
Chapter 14: World from Beyond the World: The Medieval Principles of the Triad & Plenitude
Chapter 15: Foreknowledge & Mission: Ransom the Prophet
Chapter 16: The End of Silence: Principalities & Powers
Chapter 17: Along the Beam: Enjoyment, Contemplation, & Love
Chapter 18: Lady of Love: The Influence of Venus
Chapter 19: The Tree & the Fixed Land: Real Loss & the Consequences of the Fall
Chapter 20: Garden of the Hesperides: True Myth
Chapter 21: The Language of Paradise: Poetry on Perelandra
Chapter 22: A Fit Receptacle: Weston as the Anti-Ransom
Chapter 23: Kindling Love in Man: Purgatory for the Pilgrim
PART III: THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH
Summary
Chapter 24: Mars & Venus: Mark and Jane Studdock
Chapter 25: Joy & Jubilee: The Jovial Character
Chapter 26: Men Without Chests: The Abolition of Man
Chapter 27: As Sparks Fly from an Anvil: Ransom as Jovial Priest-King
Chapter 28: Hard, Bright Splendour: Merlin & Ransom the Elf-Friend
Chapter 29: Coming to a Point: St. Anne’s & Belbury
Chapter 30: A World Unmade: Biblical Imagery
Chapter 31: Women of the West: True Femininity
Chapter 32: Rebellion & Obedience: Mark & Jane’s Conversions
Chapter 33: Pulling Down Deep Heaven: Paradise on the Silent Planet
CONCLUSION
Chapter 34: The Incarnation & the Eyes of Heaven: Man’s Importance in the Cosmos
Chapter 35: Recovering the Discarded Image: Looking to the Stars
APPENDICES
Appendix A: Timeline of the life and writings of C. S. Lewis
Appendix B: Index of Characters, Places, & Old Solar
Appendix C: Index of Allusions & Quotations, and translations
CHRISTIANA HALE (New Saint Andrews College, BA ’15, MA ’17) spends her days teaching Latin and English to over a hundred energetic junior high students at Logos School in Moscow, Idaho, a classical Christian school seeking to train students with the kind of education that produced such minds as Lewis and Tolkien. When not teaching or writing works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Christiana spends time with her parents and siblings, and enjoys the rolling hills of the Palouse and the deep woods of North Idaho. Sometimes, she even goes stargazing. Deeper Heaven is her first published book.
“Christiana Hale has done C.S. Lewis’s readers a great service with this very well-written and carefully researched guide to the Ransom Trilogy. It is a thoughtful and helpful study of three novels that are often misunderstood but which, as the years go by, are increasingly showing their value and importance. Warmly recommended.”
– Dr. Michael Ward, Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, Professor of Apologetics, Houston Baptist University, and author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis.
“Christiana Hale is particularly suited to the task of writing a reader’s guide to the Ransom Trilogy. She is an intelligent lover of all things Lewis, and is a dedicated student of this material. She reads carefully, widely, and wisely, and is not hampered by having to read her material with modernist blinkers that help us all to deny what the texts are obviously saying. I have been privileged to have known Christiana as a student in a number of settings, and this book is one that I can happily commend and recommend. You will come away from it the wiser.” — Douglas Wilson, from the Foreword
“For those readers longing to go “further up and further in,” Christiana Hale’s new book Deeper Heaven: A Reader’s Guide to Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy sets out to to demystify Lewis’s epic, offering up a wide-ranging exploration of the trilogy’s complex inner workings. What’s more, Deeper Heaven is a profoundly accessible text that nonacademic readers will be able to appreciate: Lewis’s work is dense indeed, but Hale’s prose is mercifully unclouded by excessive jargon.” – John Ehrett. Read full review at Patheos.
“Deeper Heaven does for the ‘Ransom Trilogy’ what Ward did for the Chronicles of Narnia, and even more! Not only does Christiana Hale explore Lewis’ love of medieval cosmology and ancient myth and the reasons why he wove these ideas into his work, she carefully analyzes each book of the trilogy. In the process she uncovers a myriad of gold nuggets and secrets which will delight those who enjoyed reading the trilogy.” – Alf Cengia, Read full review at Zeteo 3:16
“A genuinely magnificent book on one of the most important subjects in the world: C.S. Lewis.”
– Eric Metaxas, author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy
“The short, graceful chapters of ‘Deeper Heaven’ form a delectable menu. Thoughtful and descriptive, they walk us through the themes of preparation, sacrifice, marital splendor, and joyous warfare that Lewis seeded throughout his three novels.”
– C.M. Miller, On writing a guide to the C.S. Lewis Ransom Trilogy Read Full Article
Watch the full interview with Eric Mataxas and Christiana Hale on Deeper Heaven
Pints with Jack Podcast on Deeper Heaven.
Douglas Wilson and Christiana Hale, Renaissance of Men Podcast
The Gracious Guest Podcast with Christiana Hale
The Digressio Podcast with Christian Hale:
Author: Christiana Hale
Foreword: Douglas Wilson
ISBN 13: 978-1-944482-56-5
ISBN 10: 1-944482-56-3
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x 1
Page Count: 412
Cover Design: Joey Nance
Interior Layout: Carissa Hale
Interior Illustrations: Joey Nance
