

Loading... Perelandra (1943)by C. S. Lewis
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Like the first book of this trilogy, re-reading Perelandra was time well-spent. As I vaguely remember the first time round, the last few chapters are a literary triumph worth much poring. This was an interesting take on the Eden/fall of humankind story, but there's some homecooked misogyny in there to remind us how very little Lewis understood women. Fun! At some point after his adventures on Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, philologist Elwin Ransom is summoned to Venus for some unknown purpose. He arrives to find himself alone with unusual fauna amid floating islands that move with the rise and fall of the ocean waters. Eventually he meets the Green Lady, a queen who is searching for her king. Soon a familiar face from his own world arrives, and Ransom begins to understand why he was summoned here. This book seems to be an allegory for the creation account of Genesis, although at one point Lewis expressly tells his readers that it is not. Lewis presents an alternate world in which Eve (the Green Lady) resists temptation and the Fall doesn’t happen. While it’s the second book in Lewis’s space trilogy, it can be read independently of the trilogy. It’s been long enough since I’ve read Out of the Silent Planet that I’ve forgotten most of the details, but I never felt lost without them while reading Perelandra. The book is Christian science fiction, one of the few (only one?) I've read. It takes a while for Ransom, our hero, to realize that just as his fellow earthman an agent of evil, he is in fact an agent of good and must take action himself, not rely on any other intervention. Page 200 has some interesting thoughts on Masculine and Feminine. It's the Garden of Eden story on Venus, but with Ransom there to try and stop the snake. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesSpace Trilogy (2) Belongs to Publisher SeriesDelta Pocket (14) Folio SF (309) Lanterne (L 293) Is contained inWas inspired byHas as a student's study guide
The second book of Lewis's sci-fi trilogy, this is a sharp, sophisticated fantasy that deals with an old problem, temptation, in a new world, Perelandra. "Mr Lewis has a genius for making his fantasies livable".-The New York Times. Written during the dark hours immediately before and during the Second World War, C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, of which Perelandra is the second volume, stands alongside such works as Albert Camus's The Plague and George Orwell's 1984 as a timely parable that has become timeless, beloved by succeeding generations as much for the sheer wonder of its storytelling as for the significance of the moral concerns. For the trilogy's central figure, C.S. Lewis created perhaps the most memorable character of his career, the brilliant, clear-eyed, and fiercely brave philologist Dr. Elwin Ransom. Appropriately, Lewis modeled Dr. Ransom after his dear friend J.R.R. Tolkien, for in the scope of its imaginative achievement and the totality of its vision of not one but two imaginary worlds, the Space Trilogy is rivaled in this century only by Tolkien's trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Readers who fall in love with Lewis's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia as children, unfailingly cherish his Space Trilogy as adults; it, too, brings to life strange and magical realms in which epic battles are fought between the forces of light and those of darkness. But in the many layers of its allegory, and the sophistication and piercing brilliance of its insights into the human condition, it occupies a place among the English language's most extraordinary works for any age, and for all time. In Perelandra, Dr. Ransom is recruited by the denizens of Malacandra, befriended in Out of the Silent Planet, to rescue the edenic planet Perelandra and its peace-loving populace from a terrible threat: a malevolent being from another world who strives to create a new world order, and who must destroy an old and beautiful civilization to do so. No library descriptions found. |
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There are some moments of worth. Lewis has a knack for description, and his portrayal of Ransom's perusal of Perelandra is well done. Also, portions of dialogue between the various characters are quite well done.
However, Lewis seems to take things to the extreme. His description and dialogue become tedious at times, and his narrative devolves into tiresome reports of concepts that perhaps could be described more succinctly and clearly. (