Perelandra - C.S. Lewis

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis is the second novel in his Space Trilogy. This time Ransom, the protagonist, goes to the title planet, the one we know as Venus, and here he encounters a new temptation plot unfolding (Adam and Eve). It's up to the aptly named Ransom to fight the Evil One who has possessed the body of his colleague. The plot is very straightforward, but the theme and the descriptions certainly make this an outstanding work.

The descriptions of the planet are once again enchanting and the theme well plays into it. The world consists of several floating islands and only one solid island which is forbidden. It has to do with faith. The solid island is a place that is unchanging, a place which man can make into his own. That's my take on it anyway.

To make a very interesting scenario, the Devil comes to the planet from our world to do another edition of the Apple story. The Devil engages in debate with the Eve character and Ransom is there too trying to shoot down the Devils points. They make interesting points about what God would want for us. The devil tries to say that God wants us to grow up on our own so that he doesn't have to guide us any more, and that is why we should rebel against him(in this case by staying overnight at the forbidden island). The discussion lasts for days and Ransom is losing, so he comes to the conclusion that he must physically fight the Devil.

This was my hangup about the novel: the Devil possesses a person's body. Ransom actually does struggle with the idea of another person being no longer that person, and even after fighting the devil, almost gets tricked into believing he is the person again. In the context of the story, it works. But, in real life, I would worry about what this is saying. If someone thought the Devil possessed someone, they would still have no right to cause that person harm, they might be wrong about the possession anyway. In the author's defence, I think that most of his reader base would have realized the extremely special other worldly context of the story and known not to directly connect it with our experience.

One of the best parts about the novel was when Ransom saw the Eldila (angels) visually. Well not visually, it's complicated. Defining what an angel looks like, outside of our childhood fantasies, is a hard task. Here C.S. Lewis managed to describe, not only a novel image, but one that makes sense with his whole cosmos description. The angels live in a different dimension than ours and so when we appear to be still, they must run to keep up. It was more complicated than that, but very interesting.

Overall, the book continues the interesting descriptions from Out of the Silent Planet, but gets more theological about the Fall, Temptation, the Devil, and Faith. The first book is a bit more accessible to everyone since it deals with questioning our way of life. A lot of the themes in this book might be lost on people who aren't religious. Don't let that fright you away, the adventure aspect is still fantastic. He gets to ride giant fish, and flee from the Devil, who eventually shows up shambling after him like a zombie since he got banged up in their fight.