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Friday, 30 April 2021

Sofa Spotlight - Perelandra Voyage to Venus, C. S. Lewis

It’s not taken me long to crack on through this trilogy and this is book two. Thankfully the series is such that there are few spoilers along the way. It’s less about drama driven by action but drama driven through moral dilemma.

As the second book in the series there seems to have been a move from being ambiguous about which religion the story is tied to, and instead it’s fairly explicit about following the Christian narrative. That being said to get full appreciation of the novel a knowledge of the early chapters of the Biblical book of Genesis certainly helps.

In contrast to The Silent Planet which explores what has happened to our world from the perspective of those out in the universe, Perelandra is about the start of a new world. Just as in our own world Perelandra is initially occupied by a man and woman paralleling Adam and Eve. And just as in our world there was a temptation to disobey God, that same temptation is offered to the inhabitants of Perelandra.

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Ransom who reappears in this story and is a pivotal character. He goes through a lot and most of the book I spent worrying that he would lose his integrity by trying to save the innocence of the King and Queen. What upset me though is that it is never resolved whether they could stop his heel bleeding. So if for nothing else I will have to read book three!

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