Perelandra

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.

Related Topics:
Pan Books - Space Trilogy - C. S. Lewis

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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.

Related Topics:
Philologist - Elwin Ransom - Mars - Out of the Silent Planet - Angel - Venus - Garden of Eden - Adam and Eve - Professor Weston

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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 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 Eve of the planet; unlike the inhabitants of Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, she is human (because Maleldil became a man), but with green skin. She speaks the same Old Solar language that the hrossa of Mars taught to Ransom, so they are able to speak to each other. She mentions an island not far from there which, unlike all the floating rafts that Ransom has seen so far, is "fixed"... in other words, it is a real island, like on Earth. However, she mentions that she and her husband, the Adam of the planet, were forbidden to go to sleep on the island.

Related Topics:
Earthquake - Out of the Silent Planet

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The tricky part of the story comes 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 is obviously unconvincing; he still seeks power, but in a different way. He gets into a heated argument with Ransom, and gets angry, going so far as to invite demonic possession. However, his prayer is quickly answered as he sustains a fatal injury. Ransom flees; a demon enters into Weston who resurrects as a zombie or "Unman" and finds the Eve, trying to tempt her into spending a night on the island. Ransom meanwhile must act as the counter-tempter when he encounters them.

Related Topics:
Professor Weston - Demonic possession - Zombie

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The key sequence of the story involves Ransom realizing he must "kill" the Weston zombie. During their fight, both men end up sinking into the ocean, coming up in a subterranean cavern. With Weston finally disposed of, Ransom undertakes the long journey to the planet's surface, and 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 parallelling the journeys of Dante in the Divine Comedy.

Related Topics:
Solar System - God - Dante - Divine Comedy

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His mission accomplished, he returns, rather reluctantly, to Earth to continue the fight against the forces of evil on their own territory.

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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.

Related Topics:
1943 - Paradise Lost - Satan - Milton's

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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.

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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.

Related Topics:
That Hideous Strength - Earth

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