Book Review: Perelandra

[osprey_archer]

My feeling with Perelandra is that C. S. Lewis didn’t have quite enough story to fill a whole book. He starts out strong: the descriptions of Venus are imaginative and delightful. I loved the floating islands, the delicious fruits, the bubble trees (the bubbles burst as you walk under them in the most refreshing shower, an image worthy of Narnia), and the Lady, the naked green Eve figure of Venus, with whom Ransom has some fascinatingly strange conversations.

(Ransom is also naked for the entire book, including when he’s climbing craggy rock faces.)

This is all very nice, but somewhat vague and meandering, so I sat up and took notice when a spaceship crash-landed. And it’s Weston, our old antagonist from Out of the Silent Planet! “Ah, here is the snake,” I thought, and settled in for the plot to start rip-snorting.

Unfortunately, there’s just not that much plot to get through, so Lewis has to pad it out with a bunch of philosophical meandering. Now Lewis has other books that are basically all philosophical meandering, like The Screwtape Letters, which I love! But in The Screwtape Letters Lewis is contemplating ethical behavior between human beings, a topic on which he is sharp and insightful, and here he’s contemplating The Nature of God and the Universe, on which he is fuzzy and repetitious.

Anyway, it turns out that Weston is actually possessed by a demon, and Weston/the demon try to tempt the Lady into disobeying the commands of Maleldil (God). Chapter after chapter passes in this way, and Ransom starts thinking “this can’t go on,” which I strongly suspect was a message to the author as much as anybody else.

Eventually, Lewis wises up that this message is meant for him, and Ransom decides he needs to kill not!Weston! Which takes three chapters! They spend half a chapter wrestling hand to hand, and then not!Weston flees across the sea on the back of a Venusian dolphin-like creature, and Ransom chases him, and they end up washed into a cave where Ransom at last gets his hands on a rock and smashes not!Weston’s head!

I personally felt that there was perhaps something a bit Cain-and-Abelish about this - Ransom has introduced murder to Venus? However, this is NOT what Lewis is going for, and when Ransom meets the Lady again (at long last reunited with her King, who has been bopping around somewhere else on Venus), they hail him more or less as Space Jesus, which Ransom finds so mortifying that they have to reassure him that he’s not actually that important! Sure, we will sing your praises for thousands of years, but, like, don’t worry about it.

Ransom was based on Tolkien, and I strongly suspect that Ransom’s in-book reaction is based directly on Tolkien twisting on his bar stool with mortification as Lewis read this aloud to the Inklings. “Jack, you can’t make me Space Jesus!” Unfortunately, Lewis already had, and it was far too deeply embedded in the book to remove.

Also, no more space otters. Not only are there no more space otters in this book, but apparently there will be no more space otters ever again, as Maleldil’s plans have moved beyond space otters to humanoid creatures. Maleldil, no! Keep making space otters! I see no reason to leave them behind!

Comments

[asakiyume]

Yep, that sounds like what I remember! And I agree, just up and braining the guy is like... hmmmm. It's why I really admired Madeleine L'Engle's approach to evil in A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door: she managed to make beating it be not *at all* about using evil's own tools, and yet it still felt (to child me; I know not everyone's of this opinion--maybe not you? can't recall) exciting.

I really liked the worldbuilding early on, and I seem to recall enjoyed Ransom's talks with the Lady, though now I can't remember them.

[osprey_archer]

I am one of those philistines who doesn't truly appreciate A Wrinkle in Time, and part of it is that I didn't fully buy Meg defeating evil through Love, but I did think the book was exciting! You don't have to have a three-chapter long murder scene to be exciting. Although, OTOH, in a way I am glad that we do feel the brutality of what he's doing? It would seem like more of a cheat if it was easy...

But I do think it does *something* theologically for Ransom to introduce murder into Eden, or ought to. Although I guess Weston already did, in killing and mutilating the animals? I'm a bit vague on just how much death there is already on Perelandra; that perhaps should have been established more clearly. But "premeditated murder of another sentient being" definitely feels like a step up from what seems to be there.

The early worldbuilding in this book is fantastic. The floating islands! THE BUBBLE TREES. I would so like to walk under one.

[littlerhymes]

NO space otters and even one singing beast will not make up for it!

It just seemed so brutal that after fighting for Gamora's heart and mind using words and wits, Ransom suddenly would be like "ok murder is the way". LIKE???

[osprey_archer]

Now maybe if Ransom got to hang out with the singing beast for a while and actually do some philology? I know Out of the Silent Planet didn't go that deep into the philology, but I enjoyed what we got, and there was NONE here!

I mean as a reader I was glad to get Weston out of the way by any means necessary! And since he let his space ship float away I guess it's gotta be murder? But it does open up a theological can of worms that Lewis doesn't even begin to deal with. And the murder scene is SO long and brutal. Grappling barehanded!

[teenybuffalo]

I'm way more into this book than you are, but I agree with the point about Cain and Abel and am a little annoyed with myself for not seeing it till now, and with Lewis for not acknowledging it.

He's even got that great, chilling part about how Ransom has a moment of enjoying killing basically-Satan because it's OK morally for him to do it ("an experience that perhaps no decent man can have in our world" or something). I loved that and at the same time I wished he would question that righteousness for a second.

[osprey_archer]

Yes! And the bit where his hatred propels him and makes him stronger, as it never could on earth because on earth hatred can't be righteous. Lewis is skimming lightly on the surface of a whole sea of darkness there and he never circles back around to deal with it!

[rachelmanija]

I agree with all of this, especially the space otters. I love the space otters!

So you're going to read That Hideous Strength, huh? Uhhh it has one scene I like. (Involving fancy dresses.)

[osprey_archer]

BRING BACK THE SPACE OTTERS.

I said I was going to read the Space Trilogy so I am, by god, going to read the whole Space Trilogy, but I'm a few chapters in and I'm pretty stressed out about how Mark has just been recruited for an organization called N.I.C.E. so clearly evil that the people recruiting him keep saying things like "there's too much life on this planet. we have to get rid of a bunch of plants and animals. Then we can brainwash all the humans" (paraphrasing! but not by much!) and Mark just stands there nodding like a bobblehead. SIR. DOESN'T ANY OF THIS BOTHER YOU.

[rachelmanija]

I despise Mark. And one doesn't read Lewis for subtlety but N.I.C.E.? S.E.R.I.O.U.S.L.Y.?

[osprey_archer]

Still cackling over that acronym to be honest. It's impossible to take seriously as the acronym for a Big Evil Science org, though. I'd buy it for a fandom org that alternates between syrupy social justice posts and hounding people to kill themselves for shipping crimes.

[ethelmay]

The thing is there really were people far too much like that. I have spent much of my adult life realizing that as much as I hate a lot of things in That Hideous Strength, there's some stuff he gets terrifically right. Same with The Last Battle.

[teenybuffalo]

I've been refreshing my memory about H.G. Wells' bad ideas, just to take one example, and yeah, you're right. I've seen litcrit writers even take Lewis to task for making fun of Wells, which, nope. Wells had every bit coming and more.

[osprey_archer]

My main familiarity with Wells as a social thinker (as opposed to a novelist) comes from an essay by George Orwell, in which Orwell lampoons Wells for, IIRC, arguing that Hitler couldn't possibly start another war because the world was supposed to be developing toward a peaceful one world government, dammit. And Orwell is like, this is what happens when you reason from wishful thinking instead of, you know, reality. Would that Hitler could not start a war, and yet here he is, starting a war!

[asakiyume]

this is what happens when you reason from wishful thinking instead of, you know, reality. --a lesson that, judging from our current reality, is eminently forgettable...

[osprey_archer]

Well, look, wishful thinking is just so much nicer than facing reality...

[osprey_archer]

Yes, when I was rereading The Last Battle last month, I was really struck by the accuracy of the dynamics among the followers of the false Aslan. He is really terrifically on point about the ways in which humans go off the rails both individually and in groups. (I mean technically a lot of the Last Battle characters are Talking Beasts, not humans, but still.)

[asakiyume]

I wonder if the one scene you like is the one scene I like (AKA the only scene I remember).

V'z gnyxvat nobhg gur fprar jurer gurl jnag uvz gb gbhpu bar fcbg ba gur prvyvat naq fbzrubj guvf vf yvxr GUR ZBFG NJSHY guvat cbffvoyr.

[kore]

Screwtape is also hilarious! Nothing in this book is even mildly funny. Except possibly accidentally.

[osprey_archer]

The funniest part of this book is imagining Tolkien's reaction as Lewis reads this aloud to the Inklings. "Jack, am I still naked?" "Tollers old boy, it's a Garden of Eden retelling, of course you are!"

[rachelmanija]

Hahahaha.

[ethelmay]

You might like this: https://rushthatspeaks.dreamwidth.org/480878.html

[osprey_archer]

Thanks!