S8E2 – Perelandra (Chapter 1: “Journey to Ransom’s Cottage”)

We begin “Perelandra”, following C. S. Lewis as he makes his tormented journey to Ransom’s cottage.

S8E2 (Chapter 1: “Journey to Ransom’s Cottage”) (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Quote-of-the-week

My fear was now of another kind. I felt sure that the creature was what we call “good,” but I wasn’t sure whether I liked “goodness” so much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it also is dreadful? 

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra

Chit-Chat

• Matt talked about a conversation that he had with a man who didn’t care for Lewis. Andrew was sure that this man wasn’t aware of his obvious blasphemy. Most people who don’t like Lewis dislike him because they don’t truly know him!
• They went on to piously misquote Catholic evangelists.

There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.

Bp. Fulton J. Sheen

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.

G. K. Chesterton

• As listeners can tell, David, Matt, and Andrew are coming into the season hot, ready to defend Lewis against any un-men that they find along the way.

Toast

• Matt was drinking Guinness 0.
• Andrew had some San-Antonio Blend in his Oxford mug, per usual.
• David just got a new shipment of Best Day Brewing’s Electro-Lime Cerca de Cerveza. He also had a cup of tea, since they were recording early.

• Andrew found a home brew kit on Pinter.

• And today we’re toasting Patreon supporter, Becca Brown (who upgraded from the Gold tier to Platinum).

Discussion

Chapter Summary

In response to a wire, our Narrator is travelling to Elwin Ransom’s cottage. As he walks from Worcester station, he experiences a strange sense of foreboding, the landscape appears ominous, and he experiences a repeated impulse to turn back…

Arriving at the darkened cottage, he finds a note from Ransom saying that he will be back later. Upon entering the cottage, he trips over a strange box on the floor. Then, a cylinder of light, whom he understands to be a manifestation of the Oyarsa of Malacandra, calls out for Ransom… who enters the cottage himself a few moments later.

01. “Opening Thoughts”

Q: Is there anything you’d like to say about how this chapter opens?

• As listeners might remember from the season opener, Jack begins writing “Perelandra” around the same time that he is writing “A Preface to Paradise Lost”, “The Screwtape Letters”, and giving the BBC Radio talks that would eventually be compiled into “Mere Christianity”, which all talk about the devil.
• One of the questions that comes up is the balance between emotion and intellect. In this chapter, we clearly see the narrator (Lewis) grappling with his emotions of fear and the rationality of what is going on around him.
• In “An Experiment in Criticism”, Lewis talks about the two ways to read a book, one of which is to receive it, and the other is to use it. He prefers that people receive it, rather than asking what they can get out of it. He also discussed this in the essay “Meditation in a Toolshed”, and also in “The Screwtape Letters”.

Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that ‘suits’ him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches. . . . The search for a ‘suitable’ church makes the man a critic where the Enemy wants him to be a pupil.

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

• Though reminiscent of its predicessor “Out of the Silent Planet”, “Perelandra” begins with a much more “thriller”- like tone.
• We do not learn the name of the narrator in this chapter, although, after reading “Out of the Silent Planet”, we can assume that it is the fictional Lewis. The journey echos his arrival at Oxford that he talked about in “Surprised by Joy”.
• Where is “Worchester”? Is it the Worcester (no “h”), near Birmingham? If so, David used to live about 30 miles away. It’s a bit far from Cambridge, which is the other location mentioned. David believes it’s probably fictional. After all, in the final book “That Hideous Strength”, he also makes up a university.
• It’s worth pointing out that this scene takes place in the autumn, which stands in stark contrast to the green fertility of Venus.

The gloomy five-o’clock sky was such as you might see on any autumn afternoon. The few houses and the clumps of red or yellowish trees were in no way remarkable.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra

• Fun fact: autumn was Lewis’ favourite season!

02. “The Trouble With Angels”

Q. I think Lewis does a good job of recapping the events of Out of the Silent Planet along the way. As we hear the narrator’s thoughts, he appears quite bothered by Ransom’s trip to Mars. What in particular unsettles him?

• Andrew brought up the “burden of intolerable strangeness”. Lewis hated when sci-fi authors would take the human drama and put a galactic backdrop on it. Space is more than just a change in scenery; it is otherworldly and bizarre.
• In “The Magician’s Nephew” (a book also associated with Venus), Digory Kirk’s cowardly Uncle Andrew expresses his aversion to the unknown of space travel. In Lewisian form, “anything” is a word to conjure with.

“Do you realize what you’re saying? Think what Another World means – you might meet anything – anything.”

C. S. Lewis, Uncle Andrew, The Magician’s Nephew

• In other words, when you go somewhere completely different from Earth, you should not expect the same things as your own planet. This prospect of encountering something foreign frightens the Narrator.

…Much worse my growing conviction that, since his return, the eldila were not leaving him alone … he was keeping strange company; that there were – well, Visitors – at that cottage.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Narrator Lewis is also troubled by how his friend Ransom will be changed by his adventures. Matt and David also made references to “The Four Loves” about Ransom’s “conversion” of a sort, and how that affects the people around the convert.

A man who has been in another world does not come back unchanged.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Lewis talks about this transformation and acquisition of humility in the section on pride in “Mere Christianity”.

The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Great Sin

03. “Be Not Afraid”

Q. It’s a revelation to our narrator when he realises he’s afraid. What’s he actually afraid of?

• Lack of knowledge – especially about the eldila – generates a great fear automatically. He’s afraid of meeting one, and being “drawn in.” This reminded David of Lewis’ fear of commitment in “Surprised by Joy”.

I realised that I was afraid of two things – afraid that sooner or later I myself might meet an eldil, and afraid that I might get “drawn in” … Ransom himself had been taken to Mars (or Malacandra) against his will and almost by accident. Yet here we were both getting more and more involved in what I could only describe as interplanetary politics.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Andrew talked about fear of the true nature of things, especially the Lord.

We think, in one mood, of Mr. Wells’ Martians (very unlike the real Malacandrians, by the bye), or his Selenites. In quite a different mood we let our minds loose on the possibility of angels, ghosts, fairies, and the like. But the very moment we are compelled to recognise a creature in either class as real the distinction begins to get blurred: and when it is a creature like an eldil the distinction vanishes altogether.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• There are also repeated references to both luck and accident.

The thing was such sheer bad luck. Ransom himself had been taken to Mars (or Malacandra) against his will and almost by accident.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• However, Lewis talked about the Christian view of accident elsewhere:

In Friendship, being free of all that, we think we have chosen our peers. In reality, a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another, posting to different regiments, the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting – any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking, no chances. A secret Master of the Ceremonies has been at work.

C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Friendship

Q. What is it about the eldila which makes them so odd?

• Andrew made a joke about Frank Peretti, who wrote a book called “This Present Darkness”, which tears the veil between the spiritual and material world, showcasing how demonic and angelic beings interact with humanity.
• Lewis appears to be blending the scientific and supernatural camps together, rather than making them into two distinct categories.
• Andrew talked about the stylistic differences between Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. In Lewis, religion comes “crashing in”, just as he crashed into it – or perhaps, it came crashing into him. For Tolkien, everything begins within the context of religion. While Lewis confronts the strangeness of the eternal, Tolkien has no issue with it, and embraces it. For those looking for a book on the subject of a “one-story universe”, David recommended “Everywhere Present” by Fr. Stephen Freeman.

04. “Forgotten Luggage”

Q. What’s Lewis’s impulse when he realises he left his bag on the train?

• Narrator Lewis’ first instinct was to go back. Matt pointed out how humans are excellent at rationalising non-rational thoughts.

“This is. along, dreary road,” I thought to myself. “Thank goodness I haven’t anything to carry.” And then, with a start of realisation, I remembered that I ought to be carrying a pack, containing my things for the night. I swore to myself. I must have left the thing in the train. Will you believe me when I say that my immediate impulse was to turn back to the station and “do something about it”?

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• David made a connection between this scene and the man with the red lizard in “The Great Divorce”, since it appears that the narrator Lewis is facing a kind of offensive force. In fact, he even describes it as a “headwind”.

I saw coming towards us a Ghost who carried something on his shoulder. Like all the Ghosts, he was unsubstantial, but they differed from one another as smokes differ. Some had been whitish; this one was dark and oily. What sat on his shoulder was a little red lizard, and it was twitching its tail like a whip and whispering things in his ear. As we caught sight of him he turned his head to the reptile with a snarl of impatience. ‘Shut up, I tell you!’ he said. It wagged its tail and continued to whisper to him. He ceased snarling, and presently began to smile. Then he turned and started to limp westward, away from the mountains.

C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Chapter Eleven

In doing this I discovered more clearly than before how very little I wanted to do it. It was such hard work that I felt as if I were walking against a headwind; but in fact it was one of those still, dead evenings when no twig stirs, and beginning to be a little foggy.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• The fog is reminiscent of “The Screwtape Letters”, where Screwtape explains to Wormwood that the mission of the demons is to keep their “patients” in a cloudy-minded state.
• There is a sort of inverted “Till We Have Faces”. Instead of hearing “why should your heart not dance?”, he hears a whisper to turn back. What the narrator fails to ask is, who is speaking?

The impulse to go no farther returned to me. “Go back, go back,” it whispered to me, “send him a wire, tell him you were ill, say you’ll come some other time – anything.” The strength of the feeling astonished me.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

05. “What happened to Earth’s Quarantine?”

Q. As we mentioned earlier, it seems that Ransom has been receiving angelic visitors. It seems that the eldila had started visiting our planet since Ransom’s return. What happened to the quarantine?

• WWII perpetuated a sense of global doom. Andrew brought up author Virginia Woolf, who drowned herself at the prospect of a second world war. Many – perhaps even Lewis himself – believed that everything was coming to a head. In this sense, the “quarantine” was over.
• Lewis described the “silent planet” as being under a kind of “siege”.

[Ransom] described us as being in a state of siege, as being, in fact, an enemy-occupied territory, held down by eldils who were at war both with us and with the eldils of “Deep Heaven,” or “space.” Like the bacteria on the microscopic level, so these co-inhabiting pests on the macroscopic permeate our whole life invisibly and are the real explanation of that fatal bent which is the main lesson of history.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• This explains some of the narrator Lewis’ hesitation to meet an eldil in person, though perhaps he doesn’t realise that he might come across a good one instead.

If all this were true, then, of course, we should welcome the fact that eldila of a better kind had at last broken the frontier (it is, they say, at the Moon’s orbit) and were beginning to visit us.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Lewis used the phrase “enemy-occupied territory” before in “Mere Christianity”. And the “fatal bent…of history” is described in the same book as a terrible story.

Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed—you might say landed in disguise as one of us—and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

All that we call human history–money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery–[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

06. “Ransom’s Paranoia”

Q. Over the course of his journey, our narrator begins to start suspecting everyone of bad intent – the eldila, Ransom, even abandoned houses! He even starts to worry about his sanity. What do you think is going on?

• Narrator-Lewis begins to go crazy and run in sheer terror, like what happens to Ransom on Malacandra. Bad emotions can snowball.

The strength of the feeling astonished me.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• The Narrator even seems to understand that he is acting foolishly, and that the intensity of these emotions is not warranted.

The reader, not knowing Ransom, will not understand how contrary to all reason this idea was. The rational part of my mind, even at that moment, knew perfectly well that even if the whole universe were crazy and hostile, Ransom was sane and wholesome and honest … What enabled me to go on was the knowledge (deep down inside me) that I was getting nearer at every stride to the one friend: but I felt that I was getting nearer to the one enemy – the traitor, the sorcerer, the man in league with “them” … walking into the trap with my eyes open, like a fool.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• This scene culminates with the Narrator pounding on the door in full-blown panic.

And there I was, drumming on the door and wringing the handle and shouting to him to let me in as if my life depended on it.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Andrew talked more about Lewis wrestling with emotion throughout this book, and also throughout his life, given his experiences in the war.

08. “Arrival at the cottage”

Q. Lewis finally arrives at the cottage. What does he discover and how does he react?

• Narrator-Lewis discovers a “Ransom note” (ba dum tss) on the door knocker.

There was only something white fluttering on the knocker. I guessed, of course, that it was a note.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Lewis enters the cottage per the note’s instructions, feeling as though he is entering a haunted house. He smacks into a strange-smelling coffin.

I groped a few paces forward, hit my shin violently against something, and fell … As soon as I sniffed I became aware of a strange smell in the room. I could not for the life of me make out what it was … I came at once to an obstacle – something smooth and very cold that rose a little higher than my knees. As I touched it I realised that it was the source of the smell … I saw something white and semi-transparent – rather like ice. A great big thing, very long: a kind of box, an open box, and of a disquieting shape which I did not immediately recognize. It was big enough to put a man into.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Andrew pointed out the impulse that Narrator-Lewis had to retreat.

Immediately the impulse to retreat, which had already assailed me several times, leaped upon me with a sort of demoniac violence.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Andrew connected this attack with a scene from Shakespeare’s Othello:

Hell and Night must bring this Monstrous Birth into the World’s Light.

Othello

09. “Close Encounter of the Third Kind”

Q. Narrator Lewis then has an encounter of the Third Kind… he sees what he assumes to be the Oyarsa of Malacandra. How does he know this? What does it look like?

• It appears that Lewis has run across an eldil, and he describes a combination of the material and the preternatural meeting each other.

I heard Ransom’s name pronounced: but I should not like to say I heard a voice pronounce it. The sound was quite astonishingly unlike a voice … It was, if you understand me, inorganic … What I saw was simply a very faint rod or pillar of light … Since I saw the thing I must obviously have seen it either white or coloured; but no efforts of my memory can conjure up the faintest image of what that colour was. I try blue, and gold, and violet, and red, but none of them will fit.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• The pillar of light reminded David of the biblical Exodus, as the pillars of light and cloud lead Israel.

And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night; the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

Exodus 13:21-22

• Andrew referenced a collection of Lewis’ essays, “Of Other Worlds”.
• We return to the episode quote, where the narrator is unsure about how he likes what he knows to be good.

I felt sure that the creature was what we call “good,” but I wasn’t sure whether I liked “goodness” so much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it also is dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can’t eat, and home the very place you can’t live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable? Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played…

Oddly enough my very sense of helplessness saved me and steadied me. For now I was quite obviously “drawn in.” The struggle was over. The next decision did not lie with me.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Matt brought up his fear of plane turbulence, and of not being ready to encounter God in his current state.

Love begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god.

C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

• Andrew talked about the terror-evoking nature of God.
• David pointed out the helplessness of the narrator upon this encounter, tracing it back to Lewis’ own experience laid out in “Surprised by Joy”, as being the “most reluctant convert”.

Oddly enough my very sense of helplessness saved me and steadied me. For now I was quite obviously “drawn in.” The struggle was over. The next decision did not lie with me.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

10. “Ransom Arrives!”

Q. What do you make of Lewis’ reaction to Ransom’s arrival?

I make no attempt to excuse the feelings which awoke in me … They were feelings of resentment, horror, and jealousy. It was in my mind to shout out, “Leave your familiar alone, you damned magician, and attend to Me.”

What I actually said was, “Oh, Ransom. Thank God you’ve come.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter One

• Andrew tackles the long footnote about the Oyarsa, where Lewis quotes his pseudonym “Natvilcius”. He talks about a fictional work “De Aethereo at aerio Corpore”, or “of the etherial and corporeal air”, which described the three heavens of the medievals.

Wrap-Up

Concluding Thoughts

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