S8E8 – Perelandra – Chapter 6: “Falling Like Lightning From Heaven”

Ransom and the Queen discuss planetary rules, go for a cruise, and encounter an old enemy who fell out of Deep Heaven…

S8E8: Chapter 6 – “Falling Like Lightning From Heaven” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

Quote of the Week

“In your own world also they ruled once: but not since our Beloved became a Man. In your world they linger still. But in our world, which is the first of worlds to wake after the great change, they have no power. There is nothing now between us and Him.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

Chit-Chat

• There’s a section of this chapter that reminded Matt of the dialogue in the movie Nefarious. To be analysed later…
• Andrew showed off his three new pocket rosaries from The Catholic Woodworker. He also gave an update on the upcoming first spiritual biography of C. S. Lewis, “Early Prose Joy”.
• For those who are feeling a little disoriented in the weeks following the presidential election, check out this piece David wrote back in 2016, called Polycarp and the Presidency. No matter who sits in the oval office, Jesus Christ is always King.
• Matt is reading “Harry Potter” for the first time. He thought the ending of the book was reminiscent of “Out of the Silent Planet”, with the wisdom of death. David recommended he listen to The Literary Life podcast.

Toast

• We’re all drinking Best Day Brewing Kölsh Beer, courtesy of Dave Gonzalez, who gave a generous monetary gift.

Discussion

Chapter Summary

The Green Lady returns, planning to search for the King on the nearby “Fixed Land”. She summons fish which transport her and Ransom. They climb to the top of a mountain where they catch sight of an object in the sea which earlier they saw fall from the sky. Ransom begins to understand the reason he was sent to this planet… As night starts to fall, the Lady seeks to leave the Fixed Land, as she is not allowed to sleep there. Ransom tries to prevent her from meeting Weston, but the three of them come face-to-face on the shore.

01. “Post-Interview Rituals”

Q. After he leaves the Green Lady, how does Ransom respond? What does Perelandra seem to be doing to him?

• Ransom wants to go through “ritual of relaxation which a man performs on finding himself alone after a rather trying interview”, like lighting a cigarette and running his hands through his hair. However, he doesn’t feel alone.

As soon as the Lady was out of sight Ransom’s first impulse was to run his hands through his hair, to expel the breath from his lungs in a long whistle, to light a cigarette, to put his hands in his pockets, and in general, to go through all that ritual of relaxation which a man performs on finding himself alone after a rather trying interview. But he had no cigarettes and no pockets: nor indeed did he feel himself alone. That sense of being in Someone’s Presence which had descended on him with such unbearable pressure during the very first moments of his conversation with the Lady did not disappear when he had left her. It was, if anything, increased.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• It appears that on Perelandra there is less distance between humanity and God; His presence is more tangible and imminent than it is on Thulcandra.
• He realises that resisting the presence and attempting to assert independence is painful, like swimming against a current. When he relents, he feels relief. It acts like Narnian air, reforming him.

At first it was almost intolerable; as he put it to us, in telling the story, “There seemed no room.” But later on, he discovered that it was intolerable only at certain moments–at just those moments in fact (symbolised by his impulse to smoke and to put his hands in his pockets) when a man asserts his independence and feels that now at last he’s on his own. When you felt like that, then the very air seemed too crowded to breathe; a complete fulness seemed to be excluding you from a place which, nevertheless, you were unable to leave. But when you gave in to the thing, gave yourself up to it, there was no burden to be borne. It became not a load but a medium, a sort of splendour as of eatable, drinkable, breathable gold, which fed and carried you and not only poured into you but out from you as well. Taken the wrong way, it suffocated; taken the right way, it made terrestrial life seem, by comparison, a vacuum. At first, of course, the wrong moments occurred pretty often. But like a man who has a wound that hurts him in certain positions and who gradually learns to avoid those positions, Ransom learned not to make that inner gesture. His day became better and better as the hours passed.

• Andrew connected the eating analogy to “The Great Divorce”, and teaching the ghosts to think less of themselves.

“You cannot take it back. There is not room for it in Hell. Stay here and learn to eat such apples. The very leaves and the blades of grass in the wood will delight to teach you.”

C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

02. “Fixed Land”

Q. As Ransom explores, he discovers a large collection of islands around him, but what does he also see?

• Far in the distance, he sees a land structure that is more reminiscent of Thulcandra; a “mountainous island” that appears to be fixed in place. Needless to say, Ransom really wants to explore it.

Some of it was inhabitable land. He felt a great desire to explore it. It looked as if a landing would present no difficulties, and even the great mountain itself might turn out to be climbable.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

03. “Planetary Sleeping Rules”

Q. Ransom doesn’t see the Queen until the following day. When she does arrive (accompanied by a small zoo!), she doesn’t seem too interested in talking to him. What does she say her plan is?

• She is still looking for the King. The Lady’s plan is to scale the mountain summit to get a better view and try to determine his location. Ransom wants to go with her, feeling nostalgic for the fixed land of Thulcandra.

Q. How does the Queen respond to the news that Thulcandra/Earth is only fixed land?

• The Lady explains that the inhabitants of Perelandra are forbidden by Maleldil to sleep or dwell on the fixed land. She learns from Ransom that there are different rules for different worlds.

“Where, then, do you live in your world?” she asked.
“On the lands.”
“But you said they are all fixed.”
“Yes. We live on the fixed lands.”
For the first time since they had met, something not quite unlike an expression of horror or disgust passed over her face.
“But what do you do during the nights?”
“During the nights?” said Ransom in bewilderment. “Why, we sleep, of course.”
“But where?”
“Where we live. On the land.”
She remained in deep thought so long that Ransom feared she was never going to speak again. When she did, her voice was hushed and once more tranquil, though the note of joy had not yet returned to it.
“He has never bidden you not to,” she said, less as a question than as a statement.
“No,” said Ransom.
“There can, then, be different laws in different worlds.”
“Is there a law in your world not to sleep in a Fixed Land?”
“Yes,” said the Lady. “He does not wish us to dwell there. We may land on them and walk on them, for the world is ours. But to stay there–to sleep and awake there . . .” she ended with a shudder.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• The lady seems confused as to how everyone on earth fits on the fixed land and so asks the population of earth. Ransom doesn’t know (it’s 8 billion) but she doesn’t seem particularly interested in numbers. Ransom explains that there are many large fixed lands. The Queen responds:

“How do you endure it?” she burst out. “Almost half your world empty and dead. Loads and loads of land, all tied down. Does not the very thought of it crush you?”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Ransom explains that we like it, while Perelandra would fill us with dread. She felt that she was learning too much all at once.

“Where will this end?” said the Lady, speaking more to herself than to him. “I have grown so old in these last few hours that all my life before seems only like the stem of a tree, and now I am like the branches shooting out in every direction. They are getting so wide apart that I can hardly bear it. First to have learned that I walk from good to good with my own feet . . . that was a stretch enough. But now it seems that good is not the same in all worlds; that Maleldil has forbidden in one what He allows in another.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Ransom tries to dismiss his world’s state, but the Lady learns from Maleldil that this was intentional, though He won’t say why this is so. It appears that Maleldil is letting the Lady trust that His commands are always good.

“Perhaps my world is wrong about this,” said Ransom rather feebly, for he was dismayed at what he had done.

“It is not so,” said she. “Maleldil Himself has told me now. And it could not be so, if your world has no floating lands. But He is not telling me why He has forbidden it to us.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

Q. The queen says “Where will this end? … First to have learned that I walk from good to good with my own feet . . . that was a stretch enough. But now it seems that good is not the same in all worlds; that Maleldil has forbidden in one what He allows in another.” What does this mean and is Lewis advancing a form of moral relativism?

• Morality is the same on different planets. However, Maleldil asks different things of his servants, much like the way the covenant in scripture alters throughout time. This reminded Andrew of Diggory in “The Magician’s Nephew”.

“Just think of what another world might mean–you might find ANYTHING!”

C. S. Lewis, Diggory Kirk, The Magician’s Nephew

Q. What does the Queen say about earth’s (i.e. Ransom’s) talking?

• That we talk a lot, or rather talk even when we have nothing worth contributing:

“Oh, Piebald, Piebald,” she said, still laughing. “How often the people of your race speak! … you were wondering, as I was, about this law which Maleldil has made for one world and not for another. And you had nothing to say about it and yet made the nothing up into words.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

Q. The Queen is confused by Ransom’s comment that Maledil’s command to not sleep on the fixed land is not a hardship. Why?

• Unlike the Lady, Thulandrans have a fallen will, and therefore find it hart to obey God’s commandments. We have to train ourselves to do so throughout our conversion.
• God’s way is the right way, and is meant to bring us joy. It’s not a set of arbitrary rules laid out to kill our fun. She assumes that Maleldil’s commands are a delight, comparing it to her telling the beasts to walk on their heads. They wouldn’t think it “hard”, but a “delight”.

The law of the Lord is perfect,
    refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
    giving joy to the heart.

Psalm 19:7-8

Q: She starts to wonder whether there are two kinds of bidding. What does she mean? Could it be this question of agency again?

• Matt and David referred to an example given in “Mere Christianity”:

Is this state of affairs in accordance with God’s will or not? If it is, He is a strange God, you will say: and if it is not, how can anything happen contrary to the will of a being with absolute power?
But anyone who has been in authority knows how a thing can be in accordance with your will in one way and not in another. It may be quite sensible for a mother to say to the children, “I’m not going to go and make you tidy the schoolroom every night. You’ve got to learn to keep it tidy on your own.” Then she goes up one night and finds the Teddy bear and the ink and the French Grammar all lying in the grate. That is against her will. She would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the other hand, it is her will which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing arises in any regiment, or trade union, or school. You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book II Chapter III

• Ransom tries to advance the wisdom of some of earth’s wise men, but the Queen says they should wait for the King.

04. “The Arrival”

Q. What then do they both see? How do they react? What are the allusions?

• Matt interviewed Christiana Hale in season six for an After Hours conversation on her book, explaining Lewis’ concept of “Deeper Heaven”.

Then, quite involuntarily, he added in English, “By Jove! What was that?” She also had exclaimed. Something like a shooting star seemed to have streaked across the sky, far away on their left, and some seconds later an indeterminate noise reached their ears.
“What was that?” he asked again, this time in Old Solar.
“Something has fallen out of Deep Heaven,” said the Lady. Her face showed wonder and curiosity: but on earth we so rarely see these emotions without some admixture of defensive fear that her expression seemed strange to him.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• This scene reminded David of season one of The Rings of Power, when Gandalf arrived on Middle Earth.

• There are strong Biblical allusions here too, particularly regarding the gospel of Luke, and the Apocalypse.

And [Jesus] said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”

Luke 10:18

The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the fountains of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many men died of the water, because it was made bitter.

Revelation 8:10-11

• Fun (and chilling) fact from Andrew: “Wormwood” in Russian is “Chernobyl”. They talked about the craziness of the Cold War era, and believing the end of the world was at hand. David suggested the fiction read “The Late Great Planet Earth” by Hal Lindsey to get a sense of it.

05. “Searching for the King…”

Q. The subject returns to finding the King. Why does she want to go to the fixed land and how will they get there?

• The Lady wants to climb the summit to see if she can see other floating islands where he might be.
• Ransom seems wary about swimming that distance, but the Lady says there’s no need; they’ll ride fish.

“Let us do this,” said Ransom. “If we can swim so far.”
“We shall ride,” said the Lady. Then she knelt down on the shore–and such grace was in all her movements that it was a wonder to see her kneel–and gave three low calls all on the same note. At first no result was visible. But soon Ransom saw broken water coming rapidly towards them. A moment later and the sea beside the island was a mass of the large silver fishes: spouting, curling their bodies, pressing upon one another to get nearer, and the nearest ones nosing the land.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• The fish, according to artists renditions, look something like a crossover between a tadpole and a dolphin.

• The scene has echos of a 12th century author named Alanus ab Insulis. In “The Allegory of Love”, Lewis translates a passage of his work “The Complaint of Nature”.

…The fishes, even, swimming up to the eyebrows of the waves, so far forth as the lumpish kind of their sensuality suffered them, foretold by their glad cheer the coming of their lady [the virgin Natura]…

Alanus ab Insulis (translation by C. S. Lewis), The Complaint of Nature

Q. What do you make of her selection of the fish?

• She tries to be fair in her selection.

“Was that why you took so long to choose the two fish, Lady?” he asked.
“Of course,” said the Lady. “I try not to choose the same fish too often.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• As they set off towards the island, the unselected fish trail after them.

He noticed with interest that the whole school of rejected fish were still with them–some following, but the majority gambolling in wide extended wings to left and right.
“Do they always follow like this?” he asked.
“Do the beasts not follow in your world?” she replied. “We cannot ride more than two. It would be hard if those we did not choose were not even allowed to follow.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

06. “Fixed Land Ahoy!”

Q. How does Ransom respond to arriving on the island?

• Ransom is overjoyed to be on stable ground again.

Ransom slipped both his legs to one side of his fish and groped down with his toes. Oh, ecstasy!–they touched solid pebbles. He had not realised till now that he was pining for “fixed land.”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• The style of this chapter reminded Andrew of “The Grapes of Wrath”, weaving between narrative and explanatory sections.

Q. Anything you think that’s worth commenting on about their ascent to the mountain summit?

• We discover the origin of Ransom’s new nickname, “Piebald”:

They were white beasts with black spots–about the size of sheep but with ears so much larger, noses so much mobile, and tails so much longer, that the general impression was rather of enormous mice.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Another fun fact from Andrew: Lewis had mice in his room, and enjoyed them.
• As they climb, Ransom wishes he wasn’t climbing naked and that he had a pair of trousers!
• The Green Lady is exceptionally graceful and strong.

He saw her pull, apparently intending to lift her whole weight on her arms and swing herself to the top in a single movement. “Look here, you can’t do it that way,” he began, speaking inadvertently in English, but before he had time to correct himself she was standing on the edge above him.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Ransom cuts himself when he climbs after her, which draws the Lady’s curiosity regarding blood and pain.

His own climb was a less dignified affair, and it was a panting and perspiring man with a smudge of blood on his knee who finally stood beside her. She was inquisitive about the blood, and when he had explained the phenomenon to her as well as he could, wanted to scrape a little skin off her own knee to see if the same would happen. This led him to try to explain to her what was meant by pain, which only made her more anxious to try the experiment. But at the last moment Maleldil apparently told her not to.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

07. “The View from the Summit”

Q. What do they see from the top?

• First, they see a plateau that appears to be a sacred space, with spire-like piers. It reminded David of Numenor’s worship space in “The Silmarillion”.

He took a few paces forward into the cathedral spaciousness of the plateau, and when he spoke his voice woke echoes.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Ransom wonders if, because she’s not allowed to sleep on land, she doesn’t like it so much, but he’s wrong.

…a glance at the Lady’s face told him he was wrong. He did not know what was in her mind; but her face, as once or twice before, seemed to shine with something before which he dropped his eyes.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Matt tries to interpret what her facial expression means. It is reminiscent of “The Great Divorce”, and the holiness emanating from the saints, like the character Sarah Smith. Andrew mentioned the description of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Revelation.

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

Revelation 12:1

• Andrew compared the woman’s unveiled face to Psyche from “Till We Have Faces”.
• The holiness of the woman, combined with the environment of the mountain summit, reminded David of Moses’ shining face when he talked to God on Mount Sinai:

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. And when Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. 

Exodus 34:29-30

• There are more references to heraldry:

Behind them lay the group of islands from which they had set out that morning… The richness of its colours–its orange, its silver, its purple and (to his surprise) its glossy blacks–made it seem almost heraldic.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• The pair notice something in the water…

Ransom shouted and the Lady pointed almost at the same moment. About two miles off, dark against the coppery-green of the water, there was some small round object. If he had been looking down on an earthly sea Ransom would have taken it, at first sight, for a buoy.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

08. “The Return of Weston?”

Q. The Lady assumes that they’re seeing what fell out of the Heavens earlier. What does Ransom suspect?

• He assumes that he is about to reunite with his old foe, Weston, due to the “perfectly spherical” shape of the object. He relives the events on Malacandra, along with Weston’s plan and philosophy, to subjugate other races across the universe.
• Lewis’ mentioning of “Interplanetary Societies” has a personal touch; he and Arthur C. Clarke, the author of “2001: A Space Odyssey”, were correspondents, and Lewis’ wife attended meetings at the British Interplanetary Society with Clarke as well. The authors’ friendship is detailed more in “From Narnia to Space Odyssey”. The first letter begins with Clarke writing to Lewis disagreeing about this passage in “Perelandra”.

Q. What does Ransom think his own mission on Perelandra is and how does he react to it?

• He realises rather quickly that he is meant to protect the Lady from Ransom’s intentions. However, he feels wholly inadequate.

A terrible sense of inadequacy swept over him. Last time–in Mars–Weston had had only one accomplice. But he had had firearms. And how many accomplices might he have this time? And in Mars he had been foiled not by Ransom but by the eldila, and specially the great eldil, the Oyarsa, of that world.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

09. “Where Are the Eldila?”

Q. Hoping to have some backup from the eldila, Ransom asks the Lady whether they exist on this planet. What does she say?

• She is unfamiliar with them, and receives word from Maleldil, explaining why she has never met one.

“That is all the old order, Piebald, the far side of the wave that has rolled past us and will not come again. That very ancient world to which you journeyed [Malacandra] was put under the eldila. In your own world also they ruled once: but not since our Beloved became a Man. In your world they linger still. But in our world, which is the first of worlds to wake after the great change, they have no power. There is nothing now between us and Him.”

C. S. Lewis, The Green Lady, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Ransom tells her about the fall of Satan, an eldil who cling “to the old good instead of taking the good that came”. Since the lady has been talking about how the angels’ “glory was to cherish us and make us older till we were older than they–till they could fall at our feet”, it seems that Lewis is attaching to the idea that Satan fell because he rejected God’s plan to raise man to glory.
• There are echos of “The Screwtape Letters”. When the man dies, Screwtape says:

This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him.

C. S. Lewis, Screwtape, The Screwtape Letters

• Andrew talked about the scriptural rationale for the fall of Satan.

How you have fallen from heaven,
    morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
    you who once laid low the nations!
 You said in your heart,
    “I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
    above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
    on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.^[b]
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
    I will make myself like the Most High.”
But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
    to the depths of the pit.

Isaiah 14:12-15

10. “The Perfect Hostess”

Q. They see the object in the sea split into two and Ransom guesses that Weston has a boat. Why is he concerned? 

• If Weston has a boat, he’s separating himself from his vessel, meaning he’ll be unable to leave.

Then it dawned on him that Weston–if it was Weston–probably knew the watery surface he had to expect on Venus and had brought some kind of collapsible boat. But could it be that he had not reckoned with tides or storms and did not foresee that it might be impossible for him ever to recover the space-ship? It was not like Weston to cut off his own retreat. And Ransom certainly did not wish Weston’s retreat to be cut off. A Weston who could not, even if he chose, return to Earth, was an insoluble problem.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• He’s also worried that the Green Lady will meet him.

“This man–he is a friend of that eldil of whom I told you–one of those who cling to the wrong good.”

C. S. Lewis, Ransom, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Again, the feeling of inadequacy falls on him.

…what could he, Ransom, possibly do without support from the eldila? He began to smart under a sense of injustice. What was the good of sending him–a mere scholar–to cope with a situation of this sort? Any ordinary pugilist, or, better still, any man who could make good use of a tommy-gun, would have been more to the purpose. If only they could find this King whom the Green Woman kept on talking about.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• Clearly, there is a change in tone from the heavenly-seeming beginning of the book. Andrew talked about how this changed mirrored his experience reading “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”. The appearance and presence of evil can begin to unravel the bonds of fellowship and the environment of peace.

Q. There’s the sound of waves and the lady realises that it is nearly night and therefore time to leave the Fixed Land. How does the Lady respond to Ransom’s attempts to stop her meeting Weston?

• She wants to meet him, to welcome him…

“I am Lady and Mother of this world. If the King is not here, who else should greet a stranger?”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• …and perform a spiritual work of mercy by teaching him…

“Then I must explain it to him,” said the Lady. “Let us go and make him older,”

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

Q. What does Ransom try to do in response? How does that work out for him?

• Ransom tries to run ahead to intercept Weston, but the Lady is right on his heels!

Q. So how does the chapter end?

• It is Weston, but he’s changed.

It was certainly Weston, though his face had something about it which seemed subtly unfamiliar.

C. S. Lewis, Perelandra, Chapter Six

• He’s also wearing a pith helmet, imagery which echos British colonialism.

“May I ask you, Dr. Ransom, what is the meaning of this?”

C. S. Lewis, Weston, Perelandra, Chapter Six

Wrap Up

Concluding Thoughts

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