S8E3 – Perelandra (Chapter 2: “Ransom Returns”)

David, Matt, and Andrew discuss Chapter Two of “Perelandra”. After enduring a spiritual assault on the way to the cottage, our narrator is united with Ransom, and learns about his next departure from the Silent Planet…

S8E3: Chapter 2 – “Ransom Returns” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Quote-of-the-week

Don’t imagine I’ve been selected to go to Perelandra because I’m anyone in particular. One never can see, or not till long afterwards, why any one was selected for any job. And when one does, it is usually some reason that leaves no room for vanity.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra

Chit-Chat

• At the time of recording, we are T-minus 30 days until Matt is a married man! David and Andrew gave him some last-minute marital advice.
• Matt talked about his pre-Cana, the focus on the marital union in the first chapters of Genesis, and receiving the Eucharist. Andrew expanded on the connection between communion with God and eating, as well as the “consummation” of marriage.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Genesis 3:6-7

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.

Luke 24:30

Toast

• Matt had a Celsius energy drink.
• Andrew had his usual cup of San Antonio Blend coffee in a Chicago mug.
• David was drinking a Best Day Brewing Kölsch, and a cup of tea.

• And today we’re toasting Patreon supporter Louise Brown…

Discussion

Chapter Summary

Ransom tells Lewis that he’s not surprised that he experienced opposition on his way to the cottage, as the enemy knows something is brewing.

Ransom is to be sent to Perelandra. There, alone, he must defend it. He knows few details, but suspects he’s been chosen simply because he knows the universal language of Old Solar. 

A naked Ransom climbs blindfolded into the coffin and is swept up into the sky by the Oyarsa. 

Over a year later, Lewis returns with Dr. Humphrey to unpack Ransom from the coffin. Over tea, Ransom begins to tell the story of his adventure…

01. “Ransom Arrives”

Q. We begin with Ransom entering the cottage and lighting a candle. The two men are seemingly alone. Our Narrator (whom we discover to be C. S. Lewis himself) identifies what he tripped over earlier – a coffin-shaped casket and lid made out of some white material. Any opening comments?

The door was slammed (for the second time that night) and after a moment’s groping Ransom had found and lit a candle. I glanced quickly round and could see no one but ourselves. The most noticeable thing in the room was the big white object. I recognised the shape well enough this time. It was a large coffin-shaped casket, open. On the floor beside it lay its lid, and it was doubtless this that I had tripped over. Both were made of the same white material, like ice, but more cloudy and less shining.

“By Jove, I’m glad to see you,” said Ransom, advancing and shaking hands with me.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Andrew pays attention to the act of lighting a candle. Narrator-Lewis has been in the growing dark, and when he arrives where he is meant to be, he is finally able to see clearly.
• Jupiter is invoked in this chapter, when Ransom says “By Jove, I’m glad to see you”. The next time this phrase is used is in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by the High King Peter. Michael Ward has talked about this planetary theory in “Planet Narnia”.

02. “Lewis’ Barrage”

Q. Ransom apologises for not meeting Lewis at the station and asks an illuminating question, whether he “got through the barrage without any damage?” What does he mean here?

• Clearly, there was a spiritual battle that had taken place. Ransom, having experienced this in “Out of the Silent Planet”, knew that this would happen. This awareness of opposing spiritual forces is something that has been largely lost today.
• Matt pointed out the hopeful, trustful nature of Ransom, that everything will work out providentially in the end.

“They didn’t want you to get here. I was afraid something of the sort might happen but there was no time to do anything about it. I was pretty sure you’d get through somehow.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Andrew talked about how Narrator-Lewis is focused on the temporal, not recognising the eternal spiritual battle. It is no surprise that Lewis was writing “The Screwtape Letters” around this time.

Our business is to get them away form the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future … In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time – for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Chapter 15)

• Matt brought up the emotional state of Narrator-Lewis, and how sometimes those feelings do not abate. Perhaps this is not a weakness, but something that we shouldn’t let overwhelm us. David mentioned the words of St. Paul in reply…

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

• One common feature of our modern world is that bad feelings can be explained away by psychology. While this might explain some of it, there is always a spiritual component to our conditions. Andrew cautions against putting the blame too heavily on either end of the spectrum, explaining how the physical and spiritual realms are integrated.

Q. Lewis begins to tell Ransom some of the worrying things he was thinking during the attack and Ransom says “Oh, they’ll put all sorts of things into your head if you let them… The best plan is to take no notice and keep straight on. Don’t try to answer them. They like drawing you into an interminable argument.” What do you think of this advice?

• Matt completely agreed. Andrew did as well, claiming that it is applicable to almost everything (excluding marriage, most of the time). Most daily grace comes through pardoning or ignoring the little irritants.
• David pointed out how this is a bit of a contradiction from “Screwtape” and the demon’s own advice…

It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Letter #4)

03. “Ransom’s Doubts”

Q. Lewis expresses some of his doubts about the existence of Satan, the battle between good and evil, as well as whether or not they’re on the right side. First of all, how does he describe the enemy?

“But, look here,” said I. “This isn’t child’s play. Are you quite certain that this Dark Lord, this depraved Oyarsa of Tellus, really exists? Do you know for certain either that there are two sides, or which side is ours?”
He fixed me suddenly with one of his mild, but strangely formidable, glances.
“You are in real doubt about either, are you?” he asked.
“No,” said I, after a pause, and felt rather ashamed.
“That’s all right, then,” said Ransom cheerfully. “Now let’s get some supper and I’ll explain as we go along.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• As Andrew explained, “Tellus” is a Latin-based word referring to the earth. In this part of the chapter, Lewis is describing Satan. Is this a pre-fall, pre-Thulc, name for our planet, as David theorises?

Q. How does Ransom address Lewis’ doubts and how does Ransom respond?

“Are you quite certain that this Dark Lord, this depraved Oyarsa of Tellus, really exists Do you know for certain either that there are two sides, or which side is ours?”
[Ransom] fixed me suddenly with one of his mild, but strangely formidable, glances.
“You are in real doubt about either, are you?” he asked.
“No,” said I, after a pause, and felt rather ashamed.
“That’s all right, then,” said Ransom cheerfully. “Now let’s get some supper and I’ll explain as we go along.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Andrew presumes that Narrator-Lewis felt ashamed because he was called out for saying something that he did not believe.
• This question returns with Edmund in the first Narnia book, when he asks how to determine which side Mr. Beaver is on.
• David read this as Narrator-Lewis still reeling from the attack. We often need to be reminded of our core truths.

Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.

Philippians 3:1

Love in this second sense — love as distinct from ‘being in love’ — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Book III, Chapter 6)

04. “Back to Malacandra?”

Q. Lewis then asks about the Coffin and Ransom says that he’s going to travel in it. Lewis assumes that the Edlil is taking him  back to Malacandra. What does Ransom say?

• Ransom deeply desires to return.

“Ransom!” I exclaimed. “He–it–the eldil–is not going to take you back to Malacandra?”
“Don’t!” said he. “Oh, Lewis, you don’t understand. Take me back to Malacandra? If only he would! I’d give anything I possess …

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Matt talked about the change from “Out of the Silent Planet”, where Ransom had trepidation about his journey the entire way. Here, Ransom expresses a want to experience living in the unknown again. The spiritual journey, likewise, is the most beautiful journey of one’s life.
• The scene reeks of “Sehsucht”, or strong nostalgia for a remembered beauty. Ransom rhapsodises about it.

“I’d give anything I possess . . . just to look down one of those gorges again and see the blue, blue water winding in and out among the woods. Or to be up on top–to see a Sorn go gliding along the slopes. Or to be back there of an evening when Jupiter was rising, too bright to look at, and all the asteroids like a Milky Way, with each star in it as bright as Venus looks from Earth! And the smells! It is hardly ever out of my mind. You’d expect it to be worse at night when Malacandra is up and I can actually see it. But it isn’t then that I get the real twinge. It’s on hot summer days–looking up at the deep blue and that thinking that in there, millions of miles deep where I can never, never get back to it, there’s a place I know, and flowers at that very moment growing over Meldilorn, and friends of mine, going about their business, who would welcome me back….”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Ransom has come full circle to a concept from the first book:

“A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hmán, as if pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing.”

C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet

• This is the scene where Jupiter is mentioned again.

“Or to be back there of an evening when Jupiter was rising, too bright to look at, and all the asteroids like a Milky Way, with each star in it as bright as Venus looks from Earth! And the smells! It is hardly ever ut of my mind.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• This scene reflects “Out of the Silent Planet”…

How can one ‘get across’ the Malacandrian smells? Nothing comes back to me more vividly in my dreams . . . especially the early morning smell in those purple woods…

C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Postscript)

Imagine the Milky Way magnified—the Milky Way seen through our largest telescope on the clearest night… It is too bright to look at for long, but it is only a preparation. Something else is coming…. now the true king of night is up, and now he is threading his way through that strange western galaxy and making its lights dim by comparison with his own. 

C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (Postscript)

05. “Shipping out to Perelandra”

Q. Ransom explains that he’s being sent to Perelandra – what we call Venus. Why does Ransom think he’s being sent?

• It seems that the battle is heating up, and that the “silent planet” isn’t going to be so silent anymore. The quarantine is coming to an end. Due to this changing structure, Ransom is being sent as an instrument.
• Ransom also explains that the enemy is being less covert than usual.

“If you remember, before I left Malacandra the Oyarsa hinted to me that my going there at all might be the beginning of a whole new phase in the life of the Solar System–the Field of Arbol. It might mean, he said, that the isolation of our world, the siege, was beginning to draw to an end.”
“Yes. I remember.”
“Well, it really does look as if something of the sort were afoot. For one thing, the two sides, as you call them, have begun to appear much more clearly, much less mixed, here on Earth, in our own human affairs–to show in something a little more like their true colours.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Again, this book has to be read in the context of the time period it was written in: World War II. Lewis gives credence to this theory in the chapter, since the siege of Moscow is taking place right as Lewis is writing “Perelandra”.

“You or I could contribute no more to it than a flea could contribute to the defence of Moscow.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Lewis and his fellow Inklings wonder if something new spiritually is taking place with the second world war.

06. “Ransom’s Role on Venus”

Q. What has Ransom got to do with this upcoming attack on Perelandra?

• Ransom is speculating. He doesn’t fully know what his purpose is, though he believes it will be small. He believes that part of the reason he is being sent is because he is a philologist, and knows the language. In the face of this uncertainty, Ransom trusts that what will come will come.
• Andrew points out that around this time, Jack is writing “The Weight of Glory”. He would argue in this book that it was not mere chance that brought Ransom to Malacandra, but design. Even the Dark Eldila (Satan) is a tool in a greater plan.

07. “Spiritual Battles and Megalomania”

Q. Lewis tries to object to this Perelandra plan and Ransom admits to the whole thing feeling absurd. Why does Ransom think it’s all a little absurd?

• Ransom sees that it’s ridiculous to have a mild-mannered philologist be sent to battle the “powers and principalities”.

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:12

• Lewis tends to spiritualise the physical. Here, he is trying to connect what is happening spiritually, and how one is to physically respond.

Q. Why might it not actually be that absurd and what’s Lewis’ objection?

• The Bible talks about very ordinary people doing what Ransom is every day. He seems to quibble with the translation of quibbles with the translation of Ephesians 6:12, suggesting instead “hyper-somatic beings at great heights”. Somatic relates to the body.
• Ransom thinks that it is megalomania to think that any of us have a place in this fight.
• Lewis says that since the battle is changing, the method that the battle is fought in might also change. Matt brought up the television series The Chosen, which highlights how God uses the most ordinary.
• Andrew argues that Ransom is wrong, that it is not megalomania. In “The Weight of Glory”, Lewis says that we are too short-sighted.

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

• Ransom suggests that the previous mode of battle has been in place since the Fall, but David wondered if that was right or not.

08. “Why Ransom?”

Q. As I mentioned in the 100-word summary, Ransom thinks he’s been selected for the job, not for any particular excellence, but simply because of the linguistic skills he picked up on Malacandra after being kidnapped and taken there. If that’s the case, what’s the implication about Perelandra?

• Andrew pointed out that modernists distrust language, and Lewis claimed that “devils are unmaking language”.

Now I see that, all along, I was assuming a posterity
Of gentle hearts: someone, however distant in the depths of time,
Who could pick up our signal, who could understand a story. There won’t be.
Between the new Hominidae and us who are dying, already
There rises a barrier across which no voice can ever carry,
For devils are unmaking language. We must let that alone forever.

C. S. Lewis, Re-adjustment

• Ransom discovered that Hressa-Hlab (Old Solar) was once the universal language of the solar system. He feels slightly disappointed that he won’t have to learn a new language!
• Remember that the hrossa’s word for “to eat” contains consonants unreproducible by the human mouth? Probably wasn’t Old Solar then as it would need to be spoken by humans on Thulcandra.
• Sunibur, the language of the Sorns and the language of the Pfifltriggi are far less ancient, no earlier than ~500 million years ago, which is when the Cambrian Period began. It’s ancient but less ancient!
• Last Sunday, the Byzantine Church celebrated the first six ecumenical councils (end in AD 681). They had Dominicans visiting at David’s parish, so his pastor there referred to them as a “new” order since they were founded in the 11th Century!

09. “Venusian Expectations”

Q. Lewis then asks Ransom what he’s expecting to find. What does Ransom say?

• Ransom has no idea what’s in store for him on Perelandra.

“But you’ve no idea what you are to do, or what conditions you will find?”
“No idea at all what I’m to do.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Above all else, Ransom has learned to trust in what will come, and is armed with the knowledge that there is a spiritual hierarchy. Well … also a knowledge of the temperature conditions … he was “unashamed”.

“As to conditions, well, I don’t know much. It will be warm: I’m to go naked.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Ransom says astronomers don’t know too much about it given the thick atmosphere. There’s an open question as to whether it revolves on its own axis and at what speed. Lewis cites Giovanni Schiaparelli (a real astronomer) who thought it took a trip around the sun to rotate on its axis, with one side of the planet always facing the sun and another always facing away from it.

“You’d come to a county of eternal twilight, getting colder and darker every mile you went. And then presently you wouldn’t be able to go further because there’d be no more air”.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• This is a reference to “The Great Divorce”, as the souls walk nearer to the light it becomes more and more like morning. Obviously the bit about air was incorrect science; unlike David, he did not grow up watching Star Trek.
• The text speaks of Ransom’s eyes sparkling, suggesting he’s looking forward to the adventure and Lewis feels a vicarious thrill, that is until Ransom says something else, and he feels a thrill of a very different kind…

His eyes sparkled, and even I, who had been mainly thinking of how I should miss him and wondering what chances there were of my ever seeing him again, felt a vicarious thrill of wonder and of longing to know. Presently he spoke again.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

10. “Jack’s Job”

Q. Ransom implies that Lewis has a role to play in this adventure, so he immediately feels very differently! What is Jack’s job?

• Jack is meant to wait until Ransom’s return, when the Oyarsa will give him a signal. The amount of time that he will be away is indeterminate, so Ransom instructs him to appoint someone else to cover for him in case Lewis passes away before Ransom comes back. Basically, the book has apostolic succession in it!

Ears to hear and eyes to see— both are gifts from the LORD. If you love sleep, you will end in poverty. Keep your eyes open, and there will be plenty to eat!

Proverbs 20:12-13

• Apparently Ransom isn’t going to need air, food, or water as he’ll be in a form of suspended animation. The Oyarsa of Malacandra will take the coffin himself (although for some reason can’t avoid trees and buildings).

11. “Feelings, nothings more than feelings…”

Lewis asks how he feels about this and Ransom gives the example which Lewis himself gives in “Mere Christianity” about faith – you can believe in anaesthetics but panic when the mask is put over your face. He seems to regard this as good practice.

12. “Bring a doctor”

• Narrator-Lewis suggests that he bring Humphrey the doctor with him. Like Lewis, this is a real character. According to Sarah O’Dell, it’s Dr. Robert Havard who was once called “Humphrey” by Hugo Dyson and the nickname stuck! He was the resident “medical person” around the Inklings.

13. “Where there’s a Will, there’s a motive”

Q. Ransom covers a few more practical matters before setting off … What does he tell Lewis?

• Ransom has left Lewis out of his will because he doesn’t want anyone suspecting that Lewis was “acting nefariously” because of Ransom’s disappearance.

“I’d like to have left you something. The reason I haven’t, is this. I’m going to disappear. It is possible I may not come back. It’s just conceivable there might be a murder trial, and if so one can’t be too careful. I mean, for your sake.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Matt noted that Ransom’s disposition going in is that he might die, but he shows no fear. Andrew added that time might move differently on Perelandra than on earth.
• Andrew talked about a letter that Lewis wrote to his brother Warnie, where he mentioned all of the four loves.

We laid our heads together and for a long time we talked about those matters which one usually discusses with relatives and not with friends.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Lewis discovers far more about Ransom – in particular, his charities and those he cares for. This put Andrew in mind of Owen Barfield, who administered Lewis’ Agape fund for those in need.

I got to know a lot more about Ransom than I had known before, and from the number of odd people whom he recommended to my care, “If ever I happened to be able to do anything,” I came to realise the extent and intimacy of his charities.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

14. “Take Off!”

Q. When Ransom says that they must prepare for his departure. Lewis assumes he’s not leaving until the Oyarsa returns. What does Lewis then discover?

• Narrator-Lewis learns that time works differently for the Oyarsa; he’s never really waiting.

“We must be going soon,” said Ransom.
“Not till he–the Oyarsa–comes back,” said I–though, indeed, now that the thing was so near I wished it to be over.
“He has never left us,” said Ransom, “he has been in the cottage all the time.”
“You mean he has been waiting in the next room all these hours?”
“Not waiting. They never have that experience. You and I are conscious of waiting, because we have a body that grows tired or restless, and therefore a sense of cumulative duration. Also we can distinguish duties and spare time and therefore have a conception of leisure. It is not like that with him. He has been here all this time, but you can no more call it waiting than you can call the whole of his existence waiting. You might as well say that a tree in a wood was waiting, or the sunlight waiting on the side of a hill.” Ransom yawned. “I’m tired,” he said, “and so are you. I shall sleep well in that coffin of mine. Come. Let us lug it out.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Andrew pointed out that the event mirrors the suddenness of the Ascension into Heaven.
• Narrator-Lewis is sick following the departure.

Next moment I was alone. I didn’t see how it went. I went back indoors and was sick. A few hours later I shut up the cottage and returned to Oxford.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

15. “Ransom Returns”

Q. After an apparently dark year or so, the Oyarsa appears to Lewis and he takes that as a single to return to the cottage with Humphrey the doctor. Why does Lewis initially cry “Good God! All smashed to bits” and what was his mistake? 

• Narrator-Lewis initially mistakes red stuff in the coffin to be blood, but it is really flowers. Ransom does have a cut on his foot though.

“Good God! All smashed to bits,” I cried at my first glance of the interior.
“Wait a moment,” said Humphrey. And as he spoke the figure in the coffin began to stir and then sat up, shaking off as it did so a mass of red things which had covered its head and shoulders and which I had momentarily mistaken for ruin and blood. As they streamed off him and were caught in the wind I perceived them to be flowers.
… “Hullo, you’ve cut your foot,” said Humphrey: and I saw now that Ransom was bleeding from the heel.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Lewis is not just cursing; this is a phrase similar to what Orual says in “Till We Have Faces”. It is more of a faith cry. He is probably saying that God is good, and yet he does not know what is going on.

Q. How does Ransom respond?

• Having just returned to earth and endured space travel, Ransom steps out of the coffin and is concerned for them, thinking that they look in poor health.

He blinked for a second or so, then called us by our names, gave each of us a hand, and stepped out on the grass.
“How are you both?” he said. “You’re looking rather knocked up.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• As people become holier, they often become more concerned with the state of affairs of others, rather than themselves. Ransom has encountered a pre-fallen creation, and as he immerses himself in that environment, he becomes a more beautiful creation himself. And indeed, Ransom appears to be in great physical shape as well!

I was silent for a moment, astonished at the form which had risen from that narrow house–almost a new Ransom, glowing with health and rounded with muscle and seemingly ten years younger. In the old days he had been beginning to show a few grey hairs; but now the beard which swept his chest was pure gold.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Two

• This imagery reminded Andrew of the end of “The Silver Chair”, and the healing and rejuvination of King Caspian with the blood of Aslan.

Then Eustace set his teeth and drove the thorn into the Lion’s pad. And there came out a great drop of blood, redder than all redness that you ahve ever seen or imagined. And it splashed into the stream over the dead body of the King. At the same moment the dolful music stopped. And the dead King began to be changed. His white beard turned to gray, and from gray to yellow, and got shorter and vanished altogether; and his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened up, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped up and stood before them – a very young man, or a boy.

C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, The Healing of Harms

• Ransom is cold – it’s hot on Venus! – and asks for some hot water and clothing.

“Ugh, it’s cold down here,” said Ransom. “I hope you’ve got the boiler going and some hot water–and some clothes.”
“Yes,” said I, as we followed him into the house. “Humphrey thought of all that. I’m afraid I shouldn’t have.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

16. “Vegan Ransom?”

• For some reason, he doesn’t feel like eating meat, but rather fruit or bread. It gives off an earthy sense, and might symbolise Ransom’s harmony with living things.

Ransom was now in the bathroom, with the door open, veiled in clouds of steam, and Humphrey and I were talking to him from the landing. Our questions were more numerous than he could answer.
“That idea of Schiaparelli’s is all wrong,” he shouted. “They have an ordinary day and night there,” and “No, my heel doesn’t hurt–or, at least, it’s only just begun to,” and “Thanks, any old clothes. Leave them on the chair” and “No thanks. I don’t somehow feel like bacon or eggs or anything of that kind. No fruit, you say? Oh well, no matter. Bread or porridge or something” and “I’ll be down in five minutes now.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

Wrap-Up

Concluding Thoughts

Q. As they sit down with tea, Ransom begins to tell his story… Is there anything else you’d like to share before we close?

Ransom joined us, fully dressed, and I poured out the tea. And all that day and far into the night he told us the story that follows.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (Chapter 2)

• Andrew shamelessly plugged his weekly live-streamed C. S. Lewis class at Church of the Messiah.

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