“For he had seen already how the pattern grows and how from each world it sprouts into the next through some other dimension. The small external evil which Satan had done in Malacandra was only as a line: the deeper evil he had done in Earth was a square: if Venus fell, her evil would be a cube---her redemption beyond conceiving.”
PERELANDRA is the second book in Lewis' science fiction trilogy, and thus far my least favorite. Published in 1943, Perelandra picks up the story of Dr. Ransom, a philologist who in the prequel, Out of the Silent Planet, became an unwilling prisoner on a voyage to the planet Malacandra. Having returned to Earth, Ransom is visited by eldila, alien creatures made of something akin to light (think angels). The eldila impart a mission to Ransom, which soon sends him hurtling through the cosmos to the planet Perelandra (think Venus).
Once on Perelandra, Ransom experiences all the bizarre and very-unscientific ideas which writers in Lewis' day had about other planets. Venus is no hideously-hot planet boiling under a noxious atmosphere. Instead, Venus is a gentle ocean planet, with floating islands of lush greenery and delicious frutis, strange islands which undulate with the waves as if they were carpets on the surface of the sea.
The story that unfolds (after many, many pages of Ransom's detailed meandering through Venus) involves Ransom encountering a situation very much like the temptation of Eve on planet Earth. Ransom's mission eventually becomes clear when Dr. Weston (the man who captured him and took him to Malacandra in the first book) inexplicably arrives on Perelandra packing weapons and a new and crazy philosophy of life.
From then on, most of the book involves philosophy and theology in the form of debates between Weston and Ransom, both of the men trying to win the mind of the Lady, the new Eve of Venus. Their debating occupies what seemed to me like chapter after chapter. Eventually, Ransom (like myself) had had enough. He decides that the only way to overcome the lies of his enemy is through brute force.
Perelandra was a weaker book than its prequel, and I hope than its sequel, That Hideous Strength. The storytelling is so detailed that it's downright tedious. The plot trudges forward at a sickening slow rate. The themes seemed to have no bearing at all upon our hero. The protagonist muses on philosophy far too often, even during action sequences, which themselves are rare. The dialogue too comes from characters speaking in Old Solar, which when translated into English apparently sounds like Neanderthals talking. In other words, there's no eloquence here. While, this worked fine in Out of the Silent Planet, there's much too much dialogue, debating and speech-making in Perelandra. By the time the last chapter slunks along, angels are crying the praises of God, but it sounds so "out-of-the-way", so stiff and unnatural, un-eloquent and unintelligent, that I found myself speed-reading through that final chapter. All in all, it seemed a little too mystical to be truly religious, a little too cold and calculating to feel anything for any character, and little too wandering to feel like it all meant something.
I can applaud Lewis' attempt to merge Christianity with a science-fictiony view of exterrestrial life. The place of redeemed man within an occupied universe is interesting. But it wasn't enough to hold my mind, my eyes or my heart.
It's disappointing to think "man, I'm still reading this?" as I'm reading. Perelandra is a planet I will not soon return to.
Sorry, Clive, but this book gets:
4 out of 10 alien angels!
I expected better from you. I can't really recommend this book. It did have it's high points. It was great to see Ransom beat the Hades out of Weston in a brutal fist fight, and Weston did prove to be an interesting and horrifying villain.
I'm both looking forward to and at the same time reluctant to pick up That Hideous Strength.
Once on Perelandra, Ransom experiences all the bizarre and very-unscientific ideas which writers in Lewis' day had about other planets. Venus is no hideously-hot planet boiling under a noxious atmosphere. Instead, Venus is a gentle ocean planet, with floating islands of lush greenery and delicious frutis, strange islands which undulate with the waves as if they were carpets on the surface of the sea.
The story that unfolds (after many, many pages of Ransom's detailed meandering through Venus) involves Ransom encountering a situation very much like the temptation of Eve on planet Earth. Ransom's mission eventually becomes clear when Dr. Weston (the man who captured him and took him to Malacandra in the first book) inexplicably arrives on Perelandra packing weapons and a new and crazy philosophy of life.
From then on, most of the book involves philosophy and theology in the form of debates between Weston and Ransom, both of the men trying to win the mind of the Lady, the new Eve of Venus. Their debating occupies what seemed to me like chapter after chapter. Eventually, Ransom (like myself) had had enough. He decides that the only way to overcome the lies of his enemy is through brute force.
Perelandra was a weaker book than its prequel, and I hope than its sequel, That Hideous Strength. The storytelling is so detailed that it's downright tedious. The plot trudges forward at a sickening slow rate. The themes seemed to have no bearing at all upon our hero. The protagonist muses on philosophy far too often, even during action sequences, which themselves are rare. The dialogue too comes from characters speaking in Old Solar, which when translated into English apparently sounds like Neanderthals talking. In other words, there's no eloquence here. While, this worked fine in Out of the Silent Planet, there's much too much dialogue, debating and speech-making in Perelandra. By the time the last chapter slunks along, angels are crying the praises of God, but it sounds so "out-of-the-way", so stiff and unnatural, un-eloquent and unintelligent, that I found myself speed-reading through that final chapter. All in all, it seemed a little too mystical to be truly religious, a little too cold and calculating to feel anything for any character, and little too wandering to feel like it all meant something.
I can applaud Lewis' attempt to merge Christianity with a science-fictiony view of exterrestrial life. The place of redeemed man within an occupied universe is interesting. But it wasn't enough to hold my mind, my eyes or my heart.
It's disappointing to think "man, I'm still reading this?" as I'm reading. Perelandra is a planet I will not soon return to.
Sorry, Clive, but this book gets:4 out of 10 alien angels!
I expected better from you. I can't really recommend this book. It did have it's high points. It was great to see Ransom beat the Hades out of Weston in a brutal fist fight, and Weston did prove to be an interesting and horrifying villain.
I'm both looking forward to and at the same time reluctant to pick up That Hideous Strength.
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