C.S. Lewis: Perelandra (Voyage to Venus)

A book that manages to combine metaphor and rationality in an interesting and integrated way is a rare find. I've just finished reading Perelandra, originally published as Voyage to Venus, by C.S. Lewis - and it turned out to be one of those rare finds. I have always enjoyed what I think of as classic science fiction, as opposed to the fantasy writing which became part of the SF genre in more recent decades. Perelandra, first published in 1943, is classic SF, yet the prudent use of metaphor and symbolism places it a little outside of the classic category too.

Perelandra (Venus) is a world unspoiled - it's an other-wordly place of beauty and perfection. Into this world come two men, Ransom and Weston - two anti-heroes in the sense that they are both middle-aged academics and quite ordinary in their own ways. Ransom arrives first and finds himself alone in a marvellous world:

"Ransom himself could only describe it by saying that for his first few days on Perelandra he was haunted, not by a feeling of guilt, but by surprise that he had no such feeling. There was an exuberance or prodigality of sweetness about the mere act of living which our race finds it difficult not to associate with forbidden and extravagant actions."

Ransom has arrived in a paradise - a metaphorical state of innocence and uncorrupted pleasure. It is here that he meets the Green Lady, a native of Perelandra, and as they dialogue the scene brought to mind is that of an Eden, with it's own Eve. "I come in peace", says Ransom. "What is peace?" queries the Green Lady. She has not needed the word, having never known it's opposite.

Into this paradise-found comes Weston, sent by a spiritual force with an agenda. Weston sees himself as an autonomous man - but is bound by something older and stronger than he. He sees himself as a man enlightened - and yet is pursuing his goals into a deeper and deeper darkness. Lewis very cleverly describes Weston's self-serving spiritual philosophy, which is an attempt to combine the natural and the supernatural into univeralism. Weston says:

"The cause of this universal tendency is to be sought much deeper. The doublets are really portraits of Spirit, of cosmic energy - self portraits, indeed, for it is the Life-Force itself which has deposited them in our brains".
... "Your Devil and your God", said Weston, "are both pictures of the same force. Your heaven is a picture of the perfect spirituality ahead; your hell a picture of the urge or nisus which is driving us on to it from behind."

Lewis uses Weston to draw out a picture of dualism - the belief that there are two equal and opposing forces at work within the world and within people. Yet Weston's dualism folds back in on itself - his motivating force (evil) is supposedly the one that pushes him on to perfection (good). The logical consequence of this belief is that good is evil - for one is always being propelled forward by that which one has attained to. Thus evil propels one to the good, and the good attained is then the evil which propels one on further. Weston's dualism is circuitous and based on the philosophy of naturalism - which Lewis analyses in the story. It is this underlying premise that Weston puts forward in his role on Perelandra - for Weston is the tempter, the vehicle by which the pull of temptation is delivered to the Green Lady.

All that is forbidden to the two native inhabitants of Perelandra is that they must not live on the Fixed Lands. Much of their time is spent on floating islands, and it is on these islands, mini havens of paradise, that they must live. This is the will of Maleldil, the unseen creator of Perelandra. Separated from the King, her male counterpart, The Green Lady is left with Ransom and Weston, and so begins a fascinating conversation in which Weston attempts to corrupt some-one who has never known such corruption. This is Lewis writing at his best - going to the heart of the arguments we so often hear and presenting them clearly and concisely.

The Green Lady has never questioned Maleldil, whom she is devoted to and listens to within as he speaks to her. As she says to Ransom:

"I have never done if before - stepping out of life into the Alongside and looking at oneself living as if one were not alive. Do they all do that in your world?"

It is this imaginative capacity that Weston makes his target. When the Green Lady reminds him she is forbidden to live on the Fixed Lands, Weston says:

"But he has never forbidden you to think about it. Might that not be one of the reasons why you are forbidden to do it - so that you may have a Might Be to think about, to make Story about as we call it?"

There follows a relentless verbal onslaught, as Weston tries to use the gateway of imagination to implant a stream of fixated thought, which would lead to the conclusion that self-autonomy apart from Maleldil will in fact please him. It is an argument which proposes that a broken spiritual accord is the basis for self-fulfilment. In place of innocence Weston attempts to implant the idea of an evolutionary coming of age, in which the very source of one's existence and being is somehow outgrown. He suggests to the Green Lady that perhaps it was Maleldil's intention all along that she become a little maleldil herself - in fact she may even be able to teach Maleldil something.

Ransom realises that he cannot win this battle of words - for it is not just an intellectual battle. In Perelandra Lewis presents a picture of the supernatural as part of natural life - a reality which is present and evident in natural circumstances. Ransom realises he is up against more than his middle-aged human nemesis in Weston - a fact hammered home when Weston says:

"And you think, little one, that you can fight with me? You think he will help you perhaps? Many thought that. I've known Him longer than you, little one. They all think He's going to help them - till they come to their senses screaming recantations too late in the middle of the fire, mouldering in concentration camps, writhing under saws, jibbering in mad-houses, or nailed on to crosses. Could He help Himself?" - and the creature suddenly threw back its head and cried in a voice so loud that it seemed the golden sky-roof must break, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtani."

Weston has become an "Un-man", which mutilates and destroys the lesser creatures which inhabit Perelandra for pleasure, and "did not defy goodness, it ignored it to the point of annihilation". Lewis wrote this novel during World War II, and the comparison between the evil which propels Weston and the evil of the Nazi genocide is one he draws out as the story progresses. The philosophy of naturalism and evolved racial superiority, the occultic spirituality, and the completely inhumane actions of Weston, all mirror that which we call evil, even in our current age.

Ransom despairs over his inability to overcome the threat of corruption wearing down the Green Lady's resistance, and wonders why Maleldil does not intervene. Like Pilate he prevaricates between possible courses of action but can see no outcome but to wash his hands of the matter - he is not strong enough to defeat the power of the Un-man. It is here that Lewis, in a clever self-referential comment on his own literary process, brings Ransom to the conclusion that Perelandra is not Eden - it is a post-Eden world, and he, a human, is in it. Maleldil speaks into his mind, "It is not for nothing that you are named Ransom". There follows a gripping battle between Ransom and Weston the Un-man - a spiritual, psychological, and physical battle.

At first I was uncomfortable with the introduction of a physical battle - with Ransom's decision that Weston must be killed to prevent the introduction of corruption and evil into Perelandra as a way of life. Yet as Perelandra proceeds it becomes evident that Lewis is tying in the supernatural with the natural, and has written the story against the backdrop of genocide and annihilation that take place in our world. Ransom's physical battle, which takes him through suffering to the brink of hell itself, is a battle in which he is willing to lose his life if necessary - to save another. It is an extreme response to extreme circumstances. Good does finally triumph over evil, although to tell you how would spoil the ending.

Perelandra is a fascinating and challenging book. Lewis emphasises that when the Bible says that we battle against principalites and powers, "it is ordinary people who do the fighting". He provides different layers of meaning to this - from the intellectual response through to physical defence. There are metaphorical glimpses of heaven and hell - both as other-worldly places and as states of being within oneself. And throughout there is the supernatural at work through natural agency. As Lewis says:

"The distinction between natural and supernatural, in fact, broke down; and when it had done so, one realised how great a comfort it had been - how it had eased the burden of intolerable strangeness which this universe imposes on us by dividing it into two halves and encouraging the mind never to think of both in the same context. What price we may have paid for this comfort in the way of false security and accepted confusion of thought is another matter."