Memories

I finished Out of the Silent Planet a few days ago, and I got to experience the joy of finishing a book. I suppose I've read many books, but I definitely do not know that feeling very well. I, on the whole, am not a very disciplined reader; so whenever I finish a book, I feel very satisfied. I have already shared one excerpt, but I'd like to share another, this part being my favorite part of the whole book. Interestingly they both come from chapter 12.

The following comes from a discussion between Ransom (the main character) and Hyoi (a creature from another planet). They are discussing pleasure and when it is fully realized. Ransom, at first, argues that pleasure exists most fully it the moment itself. Hyoi argues...

"A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking [man] as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing... what you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure. When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now is it 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?"

According to the book, the human world has become bent. This must be one of the many ways in which that is true. Our poets do not only not teach what Hyoi was talking about, but they teach the exact opposite: that we must seize the pleasure of the moment while we can as much as we can.

Closing thought: the world would probably be a better place if we listened to someone who is out of this world.