Perelandra = love

Listening to: "Lille" by Lisa Hannigan

"The cord of longing which drew him to the invisible isle seemed to him at that moment to have been fastened long, long before his coming to Perelandra, long before the earliest times that memory could recover in his childhood, before birth, before the birth of man himself, before the origins of time. It was sharp, sweet, wild, and holy, all in one..." - Perelandra, Chapter 8

I'm loving the second book in Lewis' Space Trilogy.

I love how a parallel is drawn between Perelandra and the Garden of Eden.

I love how, in Perelandra, all pleasures are good and holy - and how, because of this, Ransom realizes that the goodness would be ruined if he were to impulsively repeat said pleasures. It's like Lewis' going Theology of the Body on us!

I love the blatantly Marian portrayal of the Lady - in fact, it took me while to realize that she's an Eve-character, and not a Mary-character.

I LOVE his portrayal of Satan. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. It feels weird saying that, but yeah - I mean, it sends shivers down my spine, which is why I love it. You get the feeling that Lewis was a man who had an incredible understanding of the Truth, and he was not afraid to communicate it very clearly through his art.

I love his ongoing commentary on holy longing. I say ongoing because this is something that pervades all of his works, and which you won't come across to such an extent in any other author's works. Seriously. I have no words. Just love.


Works cited in this post: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength . C. S. Lewis. Quality Paperback Bookclub (New York): 1997. 724 pages.