Perelandra

I'm just going to gloss over my review of Perelandra (1943), number two in Lewis' space trilogy, because it's not a book that inspires much secular discussion. Perelandra is a 1940's conception of a water-covered Venus, populated by one naked green woman, a devil-possessed bad guy from Out of the Silent Planet, and maybe Jesus(?). After his return from Malacandra (Mars), our good man Ransom decides to rocket through the sunlit vacuum of outer space to Venus, which turns out to be the allegorical heaven-and-hell planet of Perelandra (1943). His experiences on Perelandra reek with Greek mythology, replete with Aphrodite-isms, a River Styx, and a wounded heel. The naked green woman is an innocent virgin and Ransom is really kind of into it, so he dedicates most of his time and energies on Perelandra to cock-blocking the devil.

While all three books in Lewis' space trilogy are clearly allegorical, Perelandra serves as little else, existing solely as a setting for Lewis to display his conceptualization of a universal Christian morality. It is a Christian schema and nothing more.