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.