XPost: alt.books.cs-lewis, rec.arts.books   
   From: hayesstw@telkomsa.net   
      
   On Fri, 20 Feb 2015 19:17:54 -0800, The Horny Goat    
   wrote:   
      
   >As a longtime science fiction fan I very much DIDN'T like Perelandra   
   >which struck me as Lewis' attempt to right Orwellian style science   
   >fiction and not as well done as the original. I thought that series   
   >was well written but NOT good science fiction (and I have read a lot   
   >of it in a lot of sub-genres). I would say the same about Margaret   
   >Atwood's SF efforts.   
      
   "Perelandra" was the first work of Lewis's fiction that I read, and I   
   wasn't very impressed with it. Almost immediately after that I read   
   "Out of the silent planet", which I liked much more, but it also   
   helped me to make more sense of "Perelandra" because it gave some of   
   the background of where Weston and Ransom were coming from.   
      
   I don't think "Perelandra" can be compared to Orwellian-style science   
   fiction at all.   
      
   Having said that, there is one comparison I would make, though. Some   
   people have, in this thread and elsewhere, mentioned "allegory" in   
   connection with Lewis's fiction, but I don't think that is accurate.   
   Orwell's "Animal Farm" is allegory, but none of Lewis's fiction is.   
      
   A better comparison might be with Swift's "Gulliver's travels", where   
   Swift set his stories in unknown lands. By the time Lewis wrote, the   
   geography of earth was much better known, and so he shifted the   
   setting to other planets. And it was perhaps from the Houyhnhnms that   
   Lewis got the concept of hnau.   
      
   I've read all three of Lewis's "Cosmic trilogy" several times, and   
   Perelandra is still the one I like least, but one of the best bits in   
   it is the way he conveys the idea of the banality of evil.   
      
   Bear in mind that "Perelandra" was first published in 1943, long   
   before Orwell, so it, and not Orwell, is the "original", if you are   
   making that comparison. It was also 20 years before Hannah Arendt's   
   book on "The banality of evil", and though Lewis did not use that   
   term, he did put across the concept pretty well.   
      
      
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   Steve Hayes   
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