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Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: Perelandra is a planet of pleasure, an unearthly, misty world of strange desires, sweet smells, and delicious tastes, where beasts are friendly and naked beauty is unashamed, a new Garden of Eden, where the story of the oldest temptation is enacted in an intriguingly new way. Here, in the second part of C. S. Lewis' acclaimed Ransom Trilogy, Dr. Ransom's adventures continue against the backdrop of a religious allegory that, while it may seem quaint in its treatment of women today, nonetheless shows the capability of science to be an evil force tempting a ruler away from the path that has produced a paradisiacal kingdom. Will Perelandra succumb to this malevolent being, who strives to create a new world order, or will it throw off the yoke of corruption and achieve a spiritual perfection as yet unknown to man?.… (more)
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The book's protagonist, Ransom, travels via deus
Into this perfectly ordered "paradise" enters the antagonist, Weston, who alternates between having the better lines and being totally insane. Weston and Ransom dialogue interminably, talking past each other for several chapters, until finally Ransom resolves the situation--through violence, throwing Weston into a pit of fire. Yeah. IDEK.
And then I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but no, Lewis seems to think this is a perfectly acceptable method of conflict resolution, and apparently far preferable to letting the person with the superior argument persuade the other person or be vindicated by the dialectic of history.
If you're interested in a anti-modernist tirade wrapped up in clunkily-written science fiction allegory, this book is for you. But if you hold a vision of Christianity which engages in culture and edifies human being, you'll only be left feeling ashamed.
**SPOILER ALERT**
The Devil speaks to the Queen incessantly, laying siege to her reason and her emotions with so many arguments and stories to convince her to break that one rule to prove her independence and free will, just as the Creator really wants, and somehow Ransom cannot find the flaws in the arguments or otherwise counter the Devil. What gets me is that the Devil is going around killing and maiming all the plants and animals within reach every time her back is turned, so she never sees his evil actions firsthand, but still the evidence must be lying around to be tripped over. The animals must be learning fear, another source of indirect evidence. And yet the Queen never figures it out and Ransom never appears to point it out. Instead, he decides the only way to vanquish evil is to kill it. So they have a titanic struggle one day when the Queen is sleeping, here there, and everywhere. He ultimately wins, but then must struggle his way back to the surface from the pit of darkness where he ended up (not subtle, is it?). And when he gets out he finds the King and Queen and the supernatural powers of Mars and Venus waiting to congratulate him on saving Venus for the proper dawning of a new age. And then there's a pages long sermon, after which Ransom gets back into his capsule and is shipped back to Earth. I take issue with the basic premise that killing is the solution to a fundamental problem, that dialogue or guided personal experience accomplish nothing. And the pages and pages of religious exposition about the divine plan and how every species and everyone is both central and not central presented as some sort of communal soliloquy--yuck. That is not something that carries forward the plot of a novel and the quotation marks don't make it dialogue.
Nor is it so much that this isn't so much fiction about science and technology as it is Christian allegory. Early on in Out of the Silent Planet I thought it obvious these books have much more in common with Milton or Swift than Verne or Wells. That's only underlined in this novel which is basically a Paradise Lost set on Venus, with the "Green Lady" as an unfallen Eve and Weston from the previous novel in the role of the serpent--and it's very Miltonian in the way he attempts to subvert her. But then all great science fiction has its underlying message. You can't read Isaac Asimov's Naked Sun or Robert Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress or even Scott Westerfeld's Specials without being aware of a message, even if it's much more blatant in Lewis.
Part of Lewis' message though is against the humanistic thrust of science fiction itself. In the last book, Ransom spoke of the purpose of the book as "a change-over from the conception of Space to the conception of Heaven." This book talks of the very idea and dream of space exploration, particularly as envisioned in science fiction, as opening "a new chapter of misery for the universe." There's an anti-Reason and anti-science streak in Lewis--and Christianity--I've always found unattractive very evident here. And at times I found his Christian polemic eye-rolling. Especially early on when one absurdity of the doctrine of bodily resurrection is pointed out to Ransom and he counters with this idea of the "trans-sexual." (Admittedly, a lot of the giggle-worhiness of the moment comes from a contemporary meaning of the term Lewis could not have anticipated.) I see Ransom's arguments as much as a sophistry as those of Weston. (Much of Weston's cant is strikingly contemporary--when he rants against "dualism", I can't help but think of a friend's tirade against "binaries.") Like another reviewer though, I did find it disconcerting that Lewis--or at least Ransom--feels violence is a great resolution to a conflict when you're losing an argument. In other words, for all that so many have pointed me to him as a Christian apologist with a brain who would appeal to an intellectual, I don't find Lewis convincing.
So why did I keep reading anyway despite all I found dreary, unappealing and unconvincing? Well, partly because I do want to read the conclusion, That Hideous Strength, because I hear it deals with Arthurian legend. But there's also that I have no doubt when I'm reading him that Lewis is a first rate writer with a first rate mind. He's a pleasure to read, despite his didacticism. And you know, I've seen Lewis accused of racism and sexism in Narnia. I thought that a bum rap even while reading Narnia for several reasons, but it's only cemented in my mind that's wrongheaded reading these two books. The first book stands as a great refutation and repudiation of racism and imperialism to my mind, and the books stand out to me as the anti-thesis of xenophobia, with imaginative alien worlds that stand very much in contrast to more paranoid scenarios of alien beings. It's evident--and all the more resonant knowing the first book was published in 1938 and this one in 1944--that Lewis very much does not believe color or shape matters. Lewis might be an Englishman and in many ways conservative--that doesn't make him a Kipling. And while I can see a patriarchal thrust to the "Green Lady" and her King... Well, admittedly, I might not feel that way if I hadn't read Paradise Lost recently and noted all the ways Milton ground the very idea of Eve being an equal into dust... but in contrast Lewis doesn't come across as misogynistic to me given this book is practically, Paradise Retained, Or Milton Fan Fiction.
So, yes, a superbly written and at times thought-provoking (even if at times hair-pulling) book worth the reading, even if it lacks the charm of the Narnia books. And a short, fast paced read too.
I'm fascinated by the image Lewis creates of the floating lands
When the plot slides from that sort of almost lazy beauty into the endless days of hate and evil, I have to admit it chilled me. I have this phobia of frogs, see, so when the possessed Weston is caught torturing and mutilating the frog-like creatures of Venus, I had to put the book down for a little while. They doesn't happen often, I'm usually pretty comfortable with gross out fiction.
Also, like I said - I'm no Christian. So I never spent much time considering the Adam and Eve myth. Lewis asks us, what if Eve said no? Would the devil simply have given up and slithered off? Wouldn't he, instead, have hounded her every day of her life, lying and tricking and bribing? And, honestly, no matter how long she put him off, he had eternity on his side - one of her children would eventually give in. I'm interested in the fact that the forbidden act in Perelandra - sleeping on the "fixed land" - is only slightly portrayed as being something that would impart great wisdom by its very action. Un-Weston makes a great deal of God wanting Eve to disobey him in order to stand as her own being, but Lewis never suggests that the fixed land is "the land of knowledge" or some such parallel to the apple. Different time, different tactic?
final thought: The Christian philosophy gets a little thick on the ground toward the end, but that's the nature of the novel. I'm looking forward to the third and final book in the series, when I can get my hands on it.
The scenery is vivid and compelling. The face of
Lewis inserts himself into the story which amused me thoroughly.
The book led me to realize my inability to fathom how far we've fallen.
I've read a lot of Lewis' work and have generally enjoyed it, but this one if only I had known...I would have never started this trilogy since the first book wasn't that impressive and certainly not good enough to outweigh my dislike for this one. Maybe the last will redeem.
Ransom isn't the only person from Earth who makes the trip to Perelandra. He's followed there by Weston, who's also an academic. However, Weston is the antithesis to Ransom. He's a scientist and has no ethical qualms about using science in the name of progress no matter what the cost. Weston is primarily concerned with interplanetary conquest. He sees the inhabitants of these other worlds as savages. Weston's philosophy about good and evil is that they're one in the same. According to him, what Ransom calls God is what we are striving for and what Ransom calls the Devil is the energy or force that pushes us towards what we desire. (This is what Lewis was saying in the Narnia series when the Calormenes say that Tash and Aslan are the same thing just called by different names.) Weston is eventually taken over by Evil and begins trying to convince the Queen of Perelandra that Maleldil (God) wants her to disobey him. There is one commandment that He has given her and the King and that is that they may not spend the night on the fixed lands. He doesn't give them any reason for this taboo. He simply wants them to obey out of faith and love. Weston's arguments are difficult to rebut because they always contain just enough truth to make sense to the Queen. He takes what is good and perverts it to his own needs and desires. (Again this is directly out of the philosophy of Lewis who believes that evil doesn't exist in and of itself, but rather is a perversion of good.)
Perelandra is full of symbolism, but it's not simply Christian fiction. It's a story of good vs. evil in all its forms. The book is well-written and makes the reader stop and think about things in a new way. I highly recommend this one to everyone who likes a good story.
And anyways, as far as adventure goes, we'll have to disagree there too. It doesn't have the modern thriller sort of Dan Brown action on every page. But the newer editions of the whole Space Trilogy have an essay by Lewis in the preface explaining masterfully what a fairy tale is and why it holds the appeal that it does, and that this is a fairy tale for adults.
The imagined world of Venus, or
The ending made Aldiss and Amis (one or the other or both, according to one or the other . . . I think Aldiss, in "Billion Year Spree") a little queasy, what with its psalm singing and all. But it seems perfect to me. An odd end to a novel, yes, but apt for this one.
This does what sf is supposed to do: open up the world to its core reality, and surprise us. "Perelandra" surprises.
Elwin Ransom, the philologist and Cambridge don who is the unlikely hero from Out of the Silent Planet, is again the main character in Perelandra. Sent to Perelandra (or Venus) by the Oyassa (or ruler) of Mars to carry out an unnamed task he finds himself in a watery world, where initially the only 'land' seems to be provided by large floating islands made of vegetation. Large and beautiful floating islands with flowers and trees and woods and birds and animals, which all rush up and down the huge waves which surge around the oceans of Venus. Rather than being wholly alone as he had feared, Ransom eventually meets a green-skinned 'human', referred to throughout as the 'lady', and eventually comes to realise that she and the 'king' are the only two intelligent beings on the planet. Biblical references come thick and fast: it is soon clear that Perelandra is a picture of Paradise before the Fall, and the 'king' and the 'lady' are the Adam and Eve of another world. But temptation soon arrives, in the form of the scientist Weston, Ransom's enemy from Out of the Silent planet, whose endless conversations with the 'lady' bring the planet to the brink.
There is very little plot and most of the book deals with the temptation of the 'lady'. Theological arguments are not really my thing, but if they're well argued I'm prepared to give them a go: these just seemed flawed at times and to have noticeable holes in them. And I felt the allegories would have worked better if they had just been a little more subtle, these were just so obvious. In a similar way to his Narnia books, Lewis uses characters and creatures from various mythologies in this novel, and tries to tie them all together. I felt that in a children's book that was acceptable, but here he seems to be trying to create an allegory of an overarching theology, so why only use Western mythology? Isn't that a little Eurocentric?
So overall not a brilliant book for me.