Sweet Home Malacandra

Alga:

Rostrum:

I thought that Hooper had been thoroughly discredited. I haven't seen "Prelude to Space" but isn't THE DARK TOWER fragment that Hooper published thought to be of questionable origin? Wolfe himself dismissed it in some interview or other it on the grounds that he felt that he was pretty good at recognizing authors' styles and it didn't read like Lewis to him. I seem to recall reading a long and tedious web page devited to this topic. I thought it was an interesting read. And earlier Rostrum noted:

To which Alga replied:

I think that this is only really explicitly stated in THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH, the third (and weirdest, IMHO) book. Shellac

There's also the scene in OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET where the scientist who captured Ransom is on "trial" and he gives this eloquent defense of humanity's manifest destiny to conquer the stars, which becomes ridiculous when translated into the Malacandrian language. I can't remember it exactly, but there's a part that, when translated, goes something like, "He says that humans are never satisfied and always want more and compete with each other and that only the strong survive, and that these are good things and that therefore humanity has a right to spread everywhere." I don't remember for sure, but I wouldn't be suprised if there's also a hint of the idea in Ransom and Weston's conversations in PERELANDRA before he becomes the Un-man. -Rostrum