Perelandra

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1. HideousKojimaDec 2023
   That Hideous Strength is a good book, but it's just bizarre compared to the previous two books in the trilogy (and admittedly Perelandra gets pretty bizarre in the final 20% or so of the book). But my favorite lesson is from Perelandra: Sometimes you can't beat the devil in a battle of wits, sometimes you just gotta beat him to death.
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2. topynateDec 2023
   Perelandra's devil – the Un-Man – struck me on first reading as an excellent early depiction of a hostile, alien form of intelligence, superior but purely instrumental. Lewis was very early in working out the implications of that – nowadays the Rationalists and a lot of others would agree that there can be entities with superhuman intelligence that don't intrinsically value their intelligence, and that such beings would have almost irresistible persuasive ability if given the opportunity. (Lewis differs in also giving the Un-Man genuinely supernatural abilities with which it attempts to overawe the protagonist.)

   "it regarded intelligence simply and solely as a weapon… Thought was for it a device necessary to certain ends, but thought in itself did not interest it. It assumed reason… externally and inorganically…"

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3. jimmygrapesJun 2022
   Perelandra (the second book in the "Space Trilogy") by C. S. Lewis is probably the most impactful book I've read in recent years. I read it once when I was in my early teens and it made no sense and was quite the slog, and I certainly didn't understand the underlying concepts at the time.

   Re-reading it in my late 30s blew my mind. I wish I had the words to describe why. Best I can do is that it solidified (dare I say explained) many of the spiritual aspects I have been struggling with lately.

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4. lancefisherOct 2020
   I really liked Perelandra and the space trilogy books from C.S. Lewis. Recommend read if your interested in exploring the Christian worldview and thoughts on aliens.
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5. hcrispOct 2020
   That Hideous Strength is, to me, the most challenging of his space trilogy. I liked Perelandra best, but only after reading it a second time when a friend pointed out that it was a reimagining of the garden of Eden (I was too young to pick up on that during the first read). Out of the Silent Planet is interesting since the reference is to Earth and how it remains "silent" to those outside of it who choose to avoid its rampant evil.

   Incidentally the trilogy came about when C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien agreed to write separate sci-fi series - Lewis would write a space trilogy and Tolkien a time-travel one [0]. Tolkien was to write of a traveler from England who visited Numenor (the land of Aragorn's sires) before it drowned in a fate similar to Atlantis. Lewis completed his, but Tolkien did not although much of the material was published in a volume on the history of Middle Earth by his son, Christopher. (Lewis referred to his friend as "that great but dilatory and unmethodical man".) Tolkien's experiment did result in the development of the idea of the Fall of Numenor which did get incorporated into the Lord of the Rings saga.

   [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Road_and_Other_Writ...

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6. RcouF1uZ4gsCDec 2018
   Think about your life. With some good luck, you may live 100 years. That is approximately 1% of human civilization (~10,000 years) which is around 5% of the time there have been humans humans (~200,000 years) which is around 0.1% of the time there have been mammals (~200,000,000 years) which is around 5% of the time that earth has been around( 4.5 billion years) which is around 33% of the time the universe has been around.

   In this regard, I like this quote from Perelandra by CS Lewis: "Be comforted, small immortals. You are not the voice that all things utter, nor is there eternal silence in the places where you cannot come."

   Take joy in your life now, what you learn now, and your significance to those around. Don't read and learn because you feel it necessary, read and learn because it genuinely interests you.

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