Perelandra

Originally posted at FanLit.

Perelandra is the second volume of C.S. Lewis???s SPACE TRILOGY and I liked it even better than Out of the Silent Planet, its predecessor. Cambridge professor Dr. Elwin Ransom is back on Earth and has told his friend Lewis about the adventures he had on the planet Mars and the supernatural beings he met there. When Ransom explains that there???s an epic battle between good and evil, that the planet Venus is about to play an important part, and that he???s been called to Venus to do some unknown task, Lewis begins to worry about his friend. Yet he decides to help him get to Venus anyway, so Ransom goes and eventually returns to tell his tale, which Lewis has transcribed for us.

Venus is gorgeous ??? a lush conglomerate of archipelagos where the land floats on top of the water, so that walking on it is like walking on a waterbed. The sky is full of stunning colors that Ransom has never seen before; exotic trees delight the eye and yield delicious fruit. Other than the strange but friendly animals, Ransom seems to be alone in this world ??? until he sees a beautiful naked woman waving from a neighboring island. When he finally meets her, he discovers that evil lurks in this seemingly perfect world.

If you were able to ignore the Christian allegory in Out of the Silent Planet, you won???t be able to do so in Perelandra ??? it???s a parallel version of humanity???s awakening in the Garden of Eden and Eve???s temptation to sin. Evil is trying to gain a foothold and Ransom suddenly realizes what it would mean to bring ???the knowledge of good and evil??? into a sinless paradise. Ransom discovers that the Biblical admonition to resist temptation may be a spiritual truth on Earth, but at this time on Venus it???s a real physical battle and he has been sent to fight it, both with words and fists.

C.S. Lewis, a lover of words and mythology, writes beautifully about the alien paradise of Venus and the possibility that what is myth in one world might be truth in another. He also has much to say about good and evil, sin and obedience, madness and sanity, loneliness and companionship, science and the supernatural, predestination and free will, the nature of God and man, and humanity???s purpose in the universe. Some readers will accuse Lewis of preachiness, I???m sure, and that???s something that usually annoys me, but though Ransom???s introspections go on a little too long, I found it impossible to resist the beauty, logic, and concision of his philosophizing.

I listened to Geoffrey Howard narrate Blackstone Audio???s version of Perelandra which is just under 8 hours long. Mr. Howard narrates rather than performs the story, which I think is suitable. I???ll certainly be listening to him read the concluding volume: That Hideous Strength.

This book was almost the reverse of Out of the Silent Planet for me, in which the beginning was dark but the book as a whole was not. In Perelandra, it starts off pretty quietly, with Ransom essentially being supernaturally transported (no actual space travel involved this time) to Perelandra, or Venus, and then about a third of the way through the book, something evil arrives. I personally find this kind of evil, the conniving and sinister type, to be the most disturbing and haunting. But although set in another planet, with wonderfully imaginative world-building, this book is ultimately an exploration of theology. I can't exactly say that I enjoyed the book, but it was intriguing and well done.