Perelandra
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the novel. "Perelandra" is also the title of a song by Circle of Dust, an album by Glass Hammer, and an album by Kevin Braheny (Hearts of Space, HS001T).
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| First edition cover | |
| Author | C. S. Lewis |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Space Trilogy |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | The Bodley Head |
| Released | 1943 |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | 978-0-7432-3491-7 |
| Preceded by | Out of the Silent Planet |
| Followed by | That Hideous Strength |
Perelandra (also titled Voyage to Venus in a later edition published by Pan Books) is the second book in the Space Trilogy of C. S. Lewis.
[edit] Plot summary
The story begins with the philologist Elwin Ransom, some years after his return from Mars at the end of Out of the Silent Planet, receiving a new mission from Oyarsa, the angelic ruler of Mars. Ransom is to travel to Perelandra (Venus), a new Garden of Eden with a new Adam and Eve, to oppose the diabolically inspired human physicist Professor Weston who has been sent to tempt the Eve figure.
Ransom arrives in Venus and finds it to be an oceanic paradise. One day is about 23 Earth hours, in contrast to Earth and Mars with their 24 and (roughly) 25 hour days. The sky is golden and very bright but opaque - the sun cannot be seen, hence the night is pitch black with no stars visible. Strange, mythical creatures roam the planetary sweet-water ocean, which is dotted with floating rafts of vegetation. These rafts look like small islands, and actually have plant life growing on them and animals living on them; however, due to the ocean underneath, they are in a constant state of motion like in an earthquake. Ransom quickly meets the Queen of the planet; unlike the inhabitants of Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, she is human (this is said to be because Perelandra was populated after Maleldil became human, that is, the birth of Jesus), but with green skin. She and the King of the planet are the only human inhabitants, the Eve and Adam of their world. Living on the floating rafts Ransom has seen, they are forbidden to sleep on the "Fixed Land". The rafts or floating islands are indeed Paradise, not only in the sense that they provide a pleasant and care-free life (until the arrival of Weston) but also in the sense that Ransom is for weeks and months naked in the presence of a naked beautiful woman without once feeling the slightest hint of sexual stirring - just as Adam and Eve were in the original Paradise until the Fall.
The plot thickens when Professor Weston arrives in a spaceship and lands in a part of the ocean quite close to the Fixed Land. He at first announces that he is a reformed man, but appears to still be in search of power. During a heated argument with Ransom, he pledges allegiance to what he calls the "Life-Force", and subsequently shows signs of demonic possession. The new Weston finds the Queen, trying to tempt her into defying God and spending a night on the fixed land; Ransom must act as a counter-tempter.
Well versed in the Bible and Christian theology, Ransom realizes that if the pristine Pure Queen who never heard of Evil succumbs to Weston's arguments, the Fall of Man will be re-enacted on Perelandra. He does his best in day after day of lengthy arguments illustrating various approaches to temptation, but the demonic Weston shows super-human brilliance in debate (though when "off-duty" he displays moronic behaviour and small-minded viciousness) and moreover appears in no need of sleep.
With the demon/Weston on the edge of winning, the desperate Ransom hears in the night what he gradually realises is a Divine voice, commanding him to physically destroy the Tempter. Ransom is highly reluctant, grappling with God for the whole night, but finally accepts the mission upon realising that otherwise God would later have to take drastic personal action to redeem this world ("not a second crucifixion but an even more appalling sacrifice"). Ransom fights his opponent bare-handed and chases him over the ocean, both riding the backs of giant fish. During a fleeting truce, the real Weston momentarily re-inhabits his body, and the conversation between them displays Lewis' horrific vision of what Hell is: the damned soul is not consigned to the pain of flames, but is absorbed and "digested" by the Devil, eventually losing completely its personality.
But the momentary re-appearance of the real Weston was a trap - the demon controlling Weston has intended and succeeded in arousing Ransom's horror and his feeling of pity and compassion for the utterly damned Weston, and while Ransom is thus distracted the demon takes back control of the body, surprises and tries to drown him.
Surviving, Ransom at last smashes the devil/Weston's head with a stone in a subterranean cavern and consigns the body to volcanic flames. At the last moment, though, the demon bites Ransom's heel - an unhealable wound which cripples Ransom for the rest of his life. (This is presumably a reference to Genesis 3:15: "And the LORD God said unto the serpent (...) I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.)
Returning to the planet's surface, Ransom meets the King and Queen together with the Oyarsa of Mars and Venus. The story climaxes with Ransom's vision of the essential truth of life in the Solar System, and possibly of the nature of God: strongly paralleling the journeys of Dante in the Divine Comedy.
His mission accomplished, he returns, rather reluctantly, to Earth to continue the fight against the forces of evil on their own territory.
Perelandra was published in 1943, one year after A Preface to Paradise Lost, and it deals with many of the same issues: the value of hierarchy, the dullness of Satan, and the nature of unfallen sexuality, for instance. To an extent, it can be viewed as a commentary on Milton's poem but a commentary which is intelligible to a reader ignorant of the original.
Lewis's description of Perelandra's environment and rotation period is, of course, inconsistent with the actual conditions on Venus, but astronomical observation at the time of writing of the novel had not yet positively determined this to be the case.
The third volume of the trilogy, That Hideous Strength, is set on Earth and, perhaps inevitably, has rather a different tone than the prior two volumes; Ransom is a key character but is "off-stage" for much of the action.
[edit] External links
- A review by Tal Cohen
- Malacandra.co.uk - A Wiki especially for C.S. Lewis fans.
- Perelandra publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
