Perelandra: Chapter 6

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. I recommend you support your local bookseller or public library, and read the book first.

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Ransom has been sent on a voyage to Perelandra, or Venus, by the Oyarsa of Mars. There, he discovered that Venus is an ocean planet with giant floating mats of vegetation that serve as land. There, he also met a green-skinned woman, and through conversing with her in Old Solar, the lingua franca of the solar system outside of Earth, discovered that she is destined to be the mother of all Perelandrians: the Venusian Eve, as it were.

The archipelago of floating islands have joined into a temporary continent. Still exploring, Ransom comes to the edge of the "land" and, across the sea, spots what appears to be proper land: an actual island with a giant stone column or mountain. The Lady calls it the Fixed Land, and informs Ransom that while she may visit it, Maleldil has forbidden her or the King to sleep there. She is confused, and somewhat horrified, when Ransom informs her that all the land on Earth is fixed, and they have no such rule there.

As they contemplate this, they spot something falling into the ocean from the sky.

He and the Lady travel to the Fixed Land, riding the backs of silver, porpoise-like fish. When they reach the island, they explore it, Ransom happy to be on Earth-like terrain again, though the flora and fauna are alien.

When they climb some of the rocks to look out over the sea, Ransom spots the object that fell from Deep Heaven. It is a spherical vessel, which he recognizes as the same as the one in which Professor Weston had taken him to Malacandra. A figure leaves the sphere in a small boat and approaches the shore. Warning the Green Lady to stay away from him, Ransom goes to the beach to confront him. It is Weston, who recognizes him and demands to know why he is there.

Up to now, we haven't had an antagonist in this novel, but one has arrived in the person of Weston. He was the physicist who, with the help of Ransom's old school friend Devine, abducted him to Mars, supposedly to offer as a human sacrifice to the Martians. Weston's own intent was to exploit Malacandra's resources, particularly its plentiful gold. But he also believed in a kind of scientistic progressivism in which it was humanity's duty to expand to the stars, echoing such contemporary scientific materialists as H. G. Wells, J. B. S. Haldane, and Olaf Stapledon, whose views on human expansionism Lewis found repulsive.

Weston's plans for Mars were thwarted by Ransom with the help of the spiritual eldila that inhabit Malacandra, who tampered with Weston's sphere so that it disappeared once they returned to Earth. Clearly, Weston has built another. His outfit, shorts and a pith helmet, is very much the picture of a stereotypical English explorer. Is his outfit a hint to his colonial intent? Having failed to claim Mars for humanity, is he trying again on Venus?

The Green Lady, the Perelandrian native, is naked and unashamed because she is in a state of innocence. Ransom is a guest on this planet, naked by order of Oyarsa, but as the inhabitant of a fallen world, ashamed by his appearance. Weston alone is both clothed and unashamed: the man who has fallen from Deep Heaven and entered this edenic world on his own initiative, for purposes yet unknown. (Does Weston remind you of anyone? Hope you guess his name.)

Ransom is again upset by the distress he has caused the Green Lady: this time, when he mentions that all the land on earth is fixed and there can be no law against sleeping there. In her innocence, she cannot conceive of something being wrong in one place but not another, until Maleldil assures her it is so.

This is not simplistic moral relativism. Obviously, the Perelandrian law against sleeping on the Fixed Land is analogous to the prohibition against eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:16-17). That prohibition had a purpose: it was covenantal, part of the relational agreement between God and Adam. Obedience to the rule signified trust in God's goodness and wisdom; when the serpent tempted Eve, he did so by questioning God's goodness and undermining her trust. (Coincidentally, this was the topic of the sermon at church this morning.)

On Perelandra, the analogous rule is against sleeping on the Fixed Land. Is this why Ransom is here—to protect Perelandra from its own Fall by stopping its serpent (Weston?) from tempting its Eve?

Ransom thinks the mountain on the Fixed Land resembles the Giant's Causeway, a geologic formation in Northern Ireland consisting of thousands of basaltic columns. This suggests that the Fixed Land is of volcanic origin, which seems consistent with what we know today of Venus. I'm not sure how to square this kind of violent upheaval with a planet that's supposed to be unfallen. (Then again, it is just geology…)

What is Weston's intent on traveling to Venus? Will Ransom finally discover his mission? Chapter 7 comes next week.

Perelandra: Chapter 5

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. I recommend reading the book first. It's short, I promise.

Yes, late yet again. I should just aim for Sunday and make the official release date Tuesday. (Except then I'll probably slip until Thursday.)

Elwin Ransom, philologist, was sent to Venus by Oyarsa, the spirit that rules Mars, which planet Ransom visited in captivity in Out of the Silent Planet, the first volume of the Space Trilogy. Venus (known outside of Earth as Perelandra) is an ocean world with giant floating vegetation mats. On his first day he discovered forests with trees bearing food; on his second, he became acquainted with a dragon-like creature that also inhabited his island. He also discovered that Venus has intelligent life: a green woman visiting a neighbouring island, who apparently mistook him for someone else. They could speak to each other in the universal tongue of the solar system, and he resolved to visit her island.

The next morning, Ransom finds that his island and the Green Lady's are only a few feet apart, and several islands have (temporarily?) formed a floating continent. The Lady is right there, singing to herself and plaiting together some flowers, and she initiates a conversation with him. This chapter is heavy on dialogue and light on action, so rather than my habitual plot summary, I'm going to talk about key points in their discussion.

The Green Lady's first words to Ransom are, "I was young yesterday." He doesn't initially understand what she means by that: taking her words at face value, he remarks that she's not that much older now. But she is speaking of her understanding. If I understand the discourse correctly, she finds it strange that Ransom speaks of time and life in terms of past, present, and future; she experiences life in the present moment. As they talk, she is also conversing with Maleldil, who is helping her understand what Ransom is saying.

Maleldil is the chief of all the spiritual beings in Deep Heaven (outer space, the solar system). The hierarchy of life was explained in Out of the Silent Planet: at the bottom are beasts, and above them, hnau (reasoning creatures); then eldila (spiritual creatures), and above all, Maleldil. He is, in other words, God—and it is him who is feeding the Green Lady information while she talks with Ransom.

Think back to Genesis and the creation story: "they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day" (Gen. 3:8). Adam and Eve were accustomed to having the personal presence of God with them in Eden, before the Fall. Clearly, the Green Lady is intended to be the Venusian Eve, and we're meant to understand that Perelandra is yet in an unfallen state. If the paradisaical state of Venus, with its warm climate, delicious fruit, and benign wildlife aren't clues enough, here also we have an utterly innocent—and naked and unashamed—woman who has everyday conversations with Maleldil.

She is aware that there are other worlds, and that Ransom comes from Earth. This bewilders Ransom, because with Venus's constant cloud cover, she cannot possibly observe the night sky. He also wonders why it is that she is shaped like a human woman: he saw no humanoid creatures when he was taken to Mars. The Lady's response is that Malacandra is an older world than either Earth or Venus. On Earth, God created man in his own image (Gen. 1:26). Then God himself became man: "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). If God made man in his image, and then himself took on man's image, why expect Reason to ever appear in another form? "'And after this,' said Ransom, 'it will all be men'"—perhaps sad to see such creatures as he met on Mars fade away.

The Green Lady doesn't know the reason Maleldil became man; being perfectly innocent, Ransom cannot tell her about the Fall or the plan of redemption, which would corrupt her. Yet she knows a second reason, and she also cannot tell him. I wonder what that is? I don't remember whether that revelation comes elsewhere in the novel.

The next day, Ransom asks the Lady to meet her people, and she does not understand: she only knows one other person of her kind, the King, and does not know where he is. When he makes clear he means he wants to visit the place where her brothers and sisters and other kindred and her mother live. To this she replies: "I have a mother? What do you mean? I am the Mother." It is here that Ransom realizes he is not addressing another commoner like himself: the Green Lady is the Eve of Perelandra, the Queen to her King.

The chapter ends on a bit of a sour note. Ransom brings up their first meeting, and notes that when she realized he wasn't the King, she must have been disappointed. It results in, perhaps, an unintentional and small loss of innocence: "You make me grow older more quickly than I can bear," she says, and walks away. Ransom realizes that her innocence is a fragile thing, and he needs to be careful what he tells her.

I'm trying to be on time, I promise. So chapter 6 will ideally drop this coming Sunday.

September, again

It's September, and that means it's time for the annual science-fiction moratorium. Originally I thought this idea up because my reading diet was almost exclusively sci-fi; however, this year, of the approximately 60 books I've read so far, only 10 of them have been. So as I branch out my literary interests, a moratorium seems to become increasingly irrelevant; but it's a habit I keep up, nonetheless.

Typically, I use September to broaden my literary horizons a bit: try something I've never read before or wouldn't pick up on impulse. This year, I've decided to keep it simple: get through William L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's a classic work of World War II history that weighs approximately one anvil. I've owned my paperback copy for somewhat over 20 years and never read more than the first few chapters.

I just started Patrick O'Brian's The Surgeon's Mate, one of the volumes in his Aubrey-Maturin series of naval historical novels. I'll finish that before digging into Shirer. In the unlikely event that I finish Rise and Fall prematurely, I've still got about half of Ishiguro's The Unconsoled to finish off, and a whole bunch of classic Westerns I have yet to sample.

This won't affect my readthrough of Perelandra. The spirit of the rule is to open my mind a bit more, not to be abstemious, and not to cut short any projects I happen to have already in progress. I'm working on the installment for chapter 5 now, late as ever, and it should be posted shortly.

Let September begin!

Perelandra: Chapter 4

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. You may well have a lot of reading ahead of you.

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Late again! My fault, this time. Sorry.

Ransom has been sent on a space voyage to Perelandra, Venus in our language, by Oyarsa, the spiritual being that rules Malacandra, or Mars. He was propelled through space by supernatural means in a translucent casket. When he landed on Venus, the casket dissolved and he was left afloat in the ocean that apparently covered Perelandra, where the climate is warm and perpetually overcast with golden clouds. Soon he discovered the several large floating mats of vegetation that act as land on Perelandra. Climbing onto one, he found some food, consisting of some delicious golden gourds, and then he slept.

When Ransom awakens, he continues exploring. He finds a grove of the golden fruit, and for the first time discovers animal life: a red dragon-like creature, which appears friendly but not intelligent. Some large flowers whose stalks accumulate bubbles of water serve as an impromptu perfumed shower. He also finds some large berries for food that taste very good and satisfy his hunger, but as with the golden fruit the previous day, he feels an impulse not to overindulge.

As Ransom explores, the dragon (which has been making a nuisance of itself in the meantime) zooms past him and flies to another island floating about half a mile away. He sees that the air and the oceans are teeming with life, and it’s all heading in that direction. In particular, he sees a pod of dolphin-like fish, and on the back of one, a human figure. He gets the being’s attention, and he sees that the figure is a green-skinned woman—who, evidently, was expecting someone else.

When they are close enough to speak, he gets her in Old Solar, the language of Malacandra. To his surprise, the green lady, now surrounded by a throng of beasts, points and laughs. Ransom shortly discovers that he is heavily sunburned on one side and still pale on the other, thanks to his trip through space in the translucent casket. This is the source of her amusement. When her laughter has calmed down, he announces that he is from another world and comes in peace. The green lady has no idea what that means, asking, “What is ‘peace’?” Ransom swims for her island and pulls himself ashore.

Finally,the action is beginning. We meet another principal character, the Green Lady, who appears, Disney-esque fashion, surrounded by friendly animals. She does not understand his simple greeting or the meaning of “peace”; is she naïve or completely innocent? It’s evident she was expecting someone, but not Ransom. Is there a Green Man yet to be revealed?

At the beginning of the chapter, when Ransom sees the grove of golden fruit with the dragon, he thinks the scene resembles the Garden of the Hesperides. In Greek mythology, the Hesperides were the daughters of Atlas and Hesperis, daughter of Hesperus. From the latter comes the literary name of the planet Venus in its evening aspect (as opposed to Lucifer, the name of Venus as the morning star).

The Hesperides tended a garden of golden apples. The Apple of Discord, in the myth of Helen of Troy, was one of these. The Garden was guarded by a dragon, which in classical art is portrayed as serpentine—perhaps to call the snake in the Garden of Eden to mind?—whereas the Perelandrian dragon is described as rather obese and the size of a St. Bernard. For the article graphic, I’ve chosen to depict him as the classical serpent. (I’ve also clothed Ransom in shorts—I don’t think the AI will let me depict him naked, even if I wanted that on my blog.)

There’s a similar scene in the Narnia novel, The Magician’s Nephew, when Digory Kirke reaches the walled garden containg the silver apples that will heal his mother’s illness. There, the garden is overlooked by a bird whom Digory feels it would be unwise to cross by taking a second apple for himself. Just as Digory’s Uncle Andrew in Narnia resembles Weston in Out of the Silent Planet scheming to exploit Malacandra’s resources, this may be another instance of Lewis recycling imagery from the Space Trilogy for the Chronicles of Narnia.

Chapter 4 is, again, not an action-packed chapter, at least until the end. Lewis/Ransom is still exploring the Perelandrian environment, setting the stage for the story yet to come. Things will pick up soon, for sure. See you next time.

Perelandra: Chapter 3

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. Unless you're the sort of person who likes skipping to the last page, go read the book first.

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I'm late! Oh my ears and whiskers.

Narrator-C. S. Lewis was summoned to the country cottage of Elwin Ransom, who informs him he was commissioned by Oyarsa, the spiritual being that rules Malacandra (Mars), to go on a journey to Perelandra (Venus) for reasons as yet unknown. His transportation was a featureless casket, propelled there by Oyarsa himself. Lewis was charged with helping him into the casket, and helping him out again when he returns—if he returns.

Over a year later, Oyarsa summoned Lewis back to the cottage. He and Humphrey, a mutual doctor friend whom Lewis also recruited to help Ransom, witness the return of the casket and help Ransom out again. Ransom began telling the story of his trip to them.

Enclosed in the casket, with only a blindfold to protect him from sunlight in space, Ransom arrives on Venus. The casket dissolves around him, leaving him in open water. The entire surface of Venus is apparently an ocean, and the sky is golden, perpetually overcast. Ransom also discovers that while there is no land, there are a multitude of large floating mats of vegetation He swims for one and climbs on. Exploring, he finds a forest, where he finds some particularly delicious fruit. Then he falls asleep.

Little was known about Venus in 1943. Telescope observations had confirmed a dense cloud cover, but there was no way of knowing what was beneath. It was assumed to be warm, but there was speculation about what lay beneath the clouds: desert, ocean, or vegetation. In the previous chapter, Ransom says:

"Our astronomers don’t know anything about the surface of Perelandra at all. The outer layer of her atmosphere is too thick. The main problem, apparently, is whether she revolves on her own axis or not, and at what speed. There are two schools of thought. There’s a man called Schiaparelli who thinks she revolves once on herself in the same time it takes her to go once round Arbol—I mean, the Sun. The other people think she revolves on her own axis once in every twenty-three hours. That’s one of the things I shall find out."

Giovanni Schiaparelli (1835-1910) was an Italian astronomer best known for his seminal studies of Mars. It was Schiaparelli who first "discovered" the "channels" (translated as "canals" in English) on Mars. He actually made no assumptions about their origin; it was Percival Lowell who ran with the idea of Martian canals being the product of intelligent life. They were later proven to be optical illusions. Schiaparelli also observed Mercury and Venus, and calculated the day of Venus to be 224 Earth days, the same length as its year. He was almost right: Venus's day is actually 243 days long. Venus is also the only planet with a retrograde rotation, that is, clockwise as opposed to its counterclockwise orbit around the sun. Neither this nor Venus's inhospitable climate were known until the 1960s.

Lewis was creating a fictional Venus—one where Ransom could fight a cosmic battle with evil. But it's clear he was well aware of the scientific understanding of Venus of the time, and he blends this with his own imaginative speculation. The same is true of his portrayal of Mars in Out of the Silent Planet.

A significant moment in this chapter is when Ransom discovers yellow fruit in the floating forest. He finds eating the fruit to be indescribably pleasurable. Yet, as he reaches for another one, he realizes, against all reason, that it might be better not to repeat the pleasure. It seems to parallel another discussion—a flashback at the beginning of the chapter, in which narrator-Lewis recounts

a sceptical friend of ours called McPhee was arguing against the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the human body. I was his victim at the moment and he was pressing on me in his Scots way with such questions as “So you think you’re going to have guts and palate for ever in a world where there’ll be no eating, and genital organs in a world without copulation? Man, ye’ll have a grand time of it!” when Ransom suddenly burst out with great excitement, “Oh, don’t you see, you ass, that there’s a difference between a trans-sensuous life and a non-sensuous life?” That, of course, directed McPhee’s fire to him. What emerged was that in Ransom’s opinion the present functions and appetites of the body would disappear, not because they were atrophied but because they were, as he said “engulfed.” He used the word “trans-sexual” I remember and began to hunt about for some similar words to apply to eating (after rejecting “trans-gastronomic”), and since he was not the only philologist present, that diverted the conversation into different channels. But I am pretty sure he was thinking of something he had experienced on his voyage to Venus.

Of course, "trans-sexual" has a completely different connotation today. But Ransom's retort says that in the resurrection, humans (being both physical and spiritual) will will experience life on a level that transcends mere human appetites (gastronomical or sexual) or sensory experience. It feels to me that Ransom's experience with the fruit is along the same lines. Following one's gastronomic appetite, it would make sense to have another fruit. But the experience itself is a spiritual one, and hence it would be a "vulgarity" to merely repeat it: "like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day."

That Ransom thinks this way at all suggests that the spiritual environment of Venus is very different from Earth, where such transcendent experiences are nonexistent, and of course we indulge (and overindulge) in sensual experiences all the time.

Not much happens in this chapter; we're still in the introductory section of ''Perelandra''. But it will pick up soon. Stay tuned for chapter 4 on Sunday—hopefully on time this week.

Perelandra: Chapter 2

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Perelandra now. I promise I won't be offended.

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The story so far: The narrator (a fictional version of Lewis himself) was summoned by his friend Professor Ransom on "business," which he understood to mean business having to do with Ransom's trip to Malacandra (Mars), as narrated in the previous novel, Out of the Silent Planet. Walking along the darkened road from the train to Ransom's cottage, he experienced a heavy feeling of oppression. When Lewis arrived at the cottage, he found it deserted, but in Ransom's hallway was a translucent, coffin-like box, and a strange shaft of light he recognized as an eldil, one of the spiritual inhabitants of Malacandra, with whom Ransom still communicated.

At the very end, Ransom finally returns to his cottage. He is relieved to learn that Lewis was not hindered by the "barrage" along the way: the oppressive feelings were real, caused by the dark eldila of Earth. He tells Lewis that they have gotten wind of what he is doing. The Oyarsa of Mars is sending Ransom on a voyage to Perelandra (Venus)—conveying him personally—and the vehicle is the coffin in the cottage.

Ransom does not know how long his trip will last or if he will even return. Lewis is there to pack him into the box. Ransom also charges him with coming back to unpack him, if and when he returns, and with recruiting a trusted successor in case Lewis himself is no longer alive. Lewis also decides to confide in Humphrey, a mutual doctor friend.

Lewis and Ransom carry the box outside and Lewis helps him inside—naked, with nothing but a blindfold to protect his eyes from sunlight. Then Ransom is taken away. Lewis does not see how.

More than a year later, Oyarsa summons Lewis. He and Humphrey return to Ransom's cottage, where they see the coffin descend from the sky. While the two earthbound men are a bit worse for wear, thanks to the ongoing war, Ransom himself looks healthy and even younger. He has a wound on his heel, however, which will not heal. Ransom relates his story over breakfast.

Like Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra involves Ransom being taken on a space voyage, each time by a means unexplained to the reader: to Malacandra in an H. G. Wells-esque sphere designed by the scientist Weston with an unexamined propulsion system, and to Perelandra in a mere box, transported supernaturally, with Oyarsa himself the means of propulsion.

Lewis reminds us that Elwin Ransom is a philologist (established in Out of the Silent Planet). Philology is a branch of linguistics dealing with the historical development of language over time. Ransom's profession helped him learn the Malacandrian language, or Hressa-Hlab. He expresses some disappointment that it is actually the lingua franca of the solar system, Old Solar or Hlab-Eribolef-Cordi, and so he won't get to solve the same problem on Venus. C. S. Lewis was not a philologist, but his friend J. R. R. Tolkien was. As he wrote in his autobiography, "Friendship with [Tolkien] marked the breakdown of two old prejudices. At my first coming into the world I had been (implicitly) warned never to trust a Papist, and at my first coming into the English Faculty (explicitly) never to trust a philologist. Tolkien was both."¹ Lewis's 1960 book Studies in Words is about how a handful of significant English words have changed meaning over the ages, and could be considered a work in philology.²

Ransom jokes, in a self-deprecating manner, about "setting out single-handed to combat powers and principalities." This is an allusion to Ephesians 6:12. This immediately precedes the famous passage about the "whole armour of God," the practice of spiritual warfare, which the Bible describes primarily as practical holiness and effective apologetics (see Eph. 6:13-20 and 2 Corinthians 10:3-6). But here, there's a sense that Ransom expects to do some literal battle; as he interprets that same Ephesians verse, "When the Bible used that very expression about fighting with principalities and powers and depraved hyper-somatic beings at great heights (our translation is very misleading at that point, by the way) it meant that quite ordinary people were to do the fighting." The phrase Ransom renders "depraved hyper-somatic beings" is usually translated "spiritual wickedness" or "wicked spirits," and I'm not sure he's right about it being a bad translation.

Paul does mean there's a spiritual reality behind the "flesh and blood" we strive against, but what Ransom has in mind is clearly going beyond the practice of prayer, faith, and righteousness that Paul says are the weapons of spiritual warfare. The dark eldil of Earth (aka Thulcandra) are in conflict with the eldil of the other planets, and it seems as though Ransom is the proxy for the Malacandrian Oyarsa, doing battle against an enemy on Venus that is yet to be revealed.

The actual voyage to Venus is a story-within-a-story; the first two chapters, at least, are a frame story to set the context. There's no concluding chapter in which narrator-Lewis and Humphrey react to the tale Ransom has told them. With the end of this chapter, Lewis and Humphrey disappear from the narrative. From here on, it's Ransom's own story. See you next Sunday.

Footnotes

¹ Lewis, Surprised by Joy, Fadedpage, updated Sept. 7, 2023, accessed August 9, 2025, https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20150220/html.php.

² Lewis, Studies in Words (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).

Perelandra: Chapter 1

Today I begin my readthrough of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, the second book of his Space Trilogy (also known as the "Cosmic Trilogy" or "Ransom Trilogy" in some editions). Sometimes alternatively titled "A Voyage to Venus," this short novel was originally published in 1943.

The story begins with the narrator (a fictionalized version of Lewis himself, presumably) travelling by train, then by foot, to the country cottage of Elwin Ransom, summoned there for "business"—which Lewis understands as something mysterious, and probably having to do with Ransom's previous voyage to Mars, aka Malacandra, as told in Out of the Silent Planet.

The road to Ransom's is dark. Perelandra was published in 1943 and presumably set in about the same time, so blackout regulations were in effect to prevent ground lighting from aiding enemy aircraft. There are darkened cottages and abandoned factories along the road, creating a foreboding atmosphere.

Lewis himself is gripped by unease. He realizes he has left his pack on the train and his first instinct is to return to the station, in spite of the fact that the train is long gone and there's nothing he can accomplish by returning rather than phoning the station in the morning. He is thinking constantly about the eldila, the incorporeal (spiritual?) intelligences Ransom met on Malacandra and apparently still speaks with from time to time. Lewis's fears, it seems, may not be entirely natural: perhaps some supernatural influence is holding him back.

When he arrives at Ransom's cottage, by now in a state of panic, it is empty but unlocked; inside, he discovers a coffin-like box made of something cold and translucent, resembling ice. Then he hears a voice calling for Ransom; the source is apparently a presence in the room that Lewis describes as a shaft of light that does not illuminate its environment. It is an eldil, Lewis realizes; indeed, it is Oyarsa, the ruler of Malacandra himself. Its presence seems to calm his panic. Just then Ransom returns and answers the eldil in its own language, and in spite of the horror he feels, Lewis is relieved to see him.

Lewis (the real one) does a good job of establishing the scene in this chapter. He could have just given a straight recap of Out of the Silent Planet. Instead, he gives a hint of what Ransom had experienced: his captive journey to Malacandra, meeting the inhabitants, and so forth, without giving too much of the story away. If the reader has not read the first novel already, he might be encouraged to do so, although as Lewis himself remarks in the preface, Perelandra can stand alone.

He also does a fine job of describing the eerie atmosphere along the walk and inside Ransom's cottage. In addition to the physical darkness caused by the war, accentuated by empty and ruined buildings, you get the sense that there's another kind of darkness about. The narrator's obsessive ruminations about eldila and alien beings aren't helping his state of mind—but it's almost as though a malevolent, oppressive force is also influencing him on his journey. He has sought excuse after excuse to abandon his visit: the darkness, the loss of his pack, the question of Ransom's sanity or whether his alien friends were good or evil. It is only when he encounters the eldil in the cottage that this oppression is lifted.

Finally, we start to get a sense of how Ransom has changed. In Out of the Silent Planet, he's a fairly straighforward stock character, a kind of reluctant hero or adventurer: someone thrust against his will into unusual circumstances who develops the courage to face his fears and help defeat the plans of Weston and Devine. But narrator-Lewis remarks that since his encounter with the Malacandrians, he's become otherworldly. It's like he's suffered a nervous breakdown, but narrator-Lewis knows that Ransom is as sane as anyone. One does not have a direct encounter with angels and leave unchanged.

I thought this was a great bit of prose, describing how disorienting the eldil was:

It was not at right angles to the floor. But as soon as I have said this, I hasten to add that this way of putting it is a later reconstruction. What one actually felt at the moment was that the column of light was vertical but the floor was not horizontal—the whole room seemed to have heeled over as if it were on board ship. The impression, however produced, was that this creature had reference to some horizontal, to some whole system of directions, based outside the Earth, and that its mere presence imposed that alien system on me and abolished the terrestrial horizontal.

How else can one describe a being that is so…right, it brings its own frame of reference with it and throws yours off-kilter?

Chapter 1 sets up the story, so I have little to say about it now. It does a good job of establishing the scene and setting the atmosphere, but the story will pick up later. We'll continue next Sunday with chapter 2.

Introducing the Space Trilogy readthrough

I suppose I may be one of the relatively few people—Christians, at least—who appreciate C. S. Lewis more as a man of letters than an apologist.

Though I'm sure my route to discovering Lewis is the same as many others': I read the Chronicles of Narnia in about third or fourth grade. (Still have that paperback box set, too.) Then, in university, I found a stash of his nonfiction books in the school library: short books like Broadcast Talks and Beyond Personality, two of the three titles that were edited into Mere Christianity. And, of course, The Screwtape Letters, still probably my favourite piece of satire.

But it was in 1991 that I borrowed Lewis's Space Trilogy for the first time from the public library in Huntsville, where I was living that winter. And as much as I appreciated Narnia, it was through Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength that I came to love Lewis as an author.

And now . . . this - Jan. 3/25

According to a news release from the Hamilton Police Service, on Dec. 18, a man entered a BMO branch over the lunch hour. Having cycled to the bank in Hamilton’s Westcliffe East neighbourhood, the modern-day Jesse James left his wheeled steed outside, and proceeded indoors.…

Upon exiting the bank, and looking for his bike, the thief was reportedly “dazed and confused” upon realizing that some other enterprising bandito had made off with his bicycle.

[Full Story]

Like the man said: instant karma's gonna get you. I'm sure police are looking for the bike thief, too—though hopefully not too hard

2024 reading review

It's the year 2525! (Well…2025, but you can't begrudge me a little bit of enthusiasm.) Time to review my year with books (this is not a book blog, I keep reminding myself).

As usual, my annual goal is to read 50 books of any kind. Last year, my final count was in the 70s. This year, it was…120. (My "official" count at Goodreads is 105, but several of those are actually omnibus volumes.) The average page count per book is still around 300, too. I wonder where I found the extra freet time. Maybe I didn't fall asleep as often.

The first book of the year was Emily's Quest by L. M. Montgomery, the final book in her Emily trilogy. Maybe it's juvenile, maybe it's girly, and maybe I started reading Montgomery in my teens to impress a girl. Nonetheless, over the years, Montgomery has become my favourite Canadian author.

The last novel of the year was Cyteen by C. J. Cherryh, which I finished on the weekend before Christmas. This is an SF novel from 1988 (which won the Hugo in 1989) about the implications of mass human cloning and designing human beings for specific functions. (A little bit like Blade Runner in that respect, I guess.) It's long, and I found it slow starting, but I got into it after a while. A good comeback, considering I didn't really enjoy reading Downbelow Station last year.

My newest book was In Too Deep by Lee and Andrew Child. As I said last year, as long as the Jack Reacher books keep coming out in October, and I keep reading them as soon as possible, this is going to be a recurring theme every year.

The oldest was Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en, one of the great Chinese novels. I also finished reading the plays of Aphra Behn, the Restoration dramatist. But Journey to the West was published c. 1592, beating her by almost a century. This was another book that was hard to get into, and (though I'm not quite finished) might also be the longest book I've ever read.

When you've read double your intended goal for the year, it's twice as hard to pick a favourite. I suppose mine for 2023 was Holly by Stephen King, his most recent novel, featuring his neurotic lady detective from the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, etc.). My runner-up, collectively, was the Toradora! series of light novels by Yuyuko Takemiya. I saw the anime last year, and was so affected by it, I watched it again. The novels didn't disappoint, either—surprising since I'm hardly a romance reader.

It's a little easier to pick a least favourite when you devote an entire month to reading something other than genre fiction, which inevitably leads to some rather bleak and depressing literature. This year's "winner" was The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, a fictionalized telling of the story of a Bosnian cellist who risked his life to play an adagio every day for each of the victims of a bombing. The problem with the book is that it wasn't really about the cellist. He was a backdrop to his own story, and it kind of left me cold. The runner-up was its immediate predecessor on my list, Rabbit, Run by John Updike. (Is there a proper literary word for a novel's main character who is just unpleasant in every possible way? "Anti-protagonist"?)

My best new discovery of the year was, A Confederacy of Dunces, the Pulitzer-winning novel by John Kennedy Toole. Again, this was one of my selections for September. Its (anti?) protagonist, Ignatius J. Reilly, is an overweight, unemployed, pretentious pseudo-intellectual who lives with his mother. If Toole had written this novel in the 2020s instead of the 1960s, he'd probably be a terminally-online Redditor.

I met my goal of reading five nonfiction books this year, though no more. The topics were literary criticism, theology, and poetry. The last, in particular (Anglican poet Malcolm Guite's two books Waiting on the Word and The Word in the Wilderness) have sort of sparked my interest in poetry, and I plan to read more this year. (I didn't like poetry when I was in university, leading one of my English profs to remark once—tongue-in-cheek, hopefully—what I didn't deserve an English degree. Better late than never.)

There were two goals that I didn't meet: First, finishing the works of Stephen King. I have one book left, You Like It Darker, which I am about 2/3 of the way through. Second, completing Journey to the West. I read three of the four volumes of Anthony Yu's translation, but just ran out of time. Since my Christmas vacation is usually a good time to blitz through a few books, I would have accomplished both. How was I to know that a medical problem would keep me in the emergency room for so much of my free time? I'll finish with Stephen King soon, though, and then clear the Monkey King off my list a little later, after I've gone through my outstanding library books (why do long-time reserves always come in at once?).

Finally, my reading goals for 2024 include:

• doing a new readthrough. I really enjoyed the experience of blogging my way through Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, and I plan to do a few books regularly. My plan is to start with the final two books in C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy (having already read and reviewed the first, albeit 20 years ago) and if time permits, a nonfiction book to be determined
• with my Stephen King reading project coming to an end, moving on to another author: specifically, Patrick O'Brian, author of the Aubrey-Maturing series of historical fiction
• continuing my habit of reading drama on Saturdays over breakfast, but instead of focusing on a particular author (i.e. Shakespeare and Behn), choose instead from a wide variety of classic plays from the Renaissance to the modern era
• finish up some of the series I've started, but left hanging

Happy 2025, everyone.