I mean, you may have noticed.
Basically, between some personal matters and the news cycle of the last week or so, I've found myself either too busy or too preoccupied with other things to get beyond reading chapter 7 of Perelandra. So with next Sunday now closer than the last, I've decided just to leave it until this weekend rather than effectively double up. It's a significant chapter, anyway, and the extra time will be beneficial. It's worth doing right.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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