Light On Dark Water

Perelandra, Again

Sunday Night Journal — May 8, 2011

I was out of town this weekend and didn't get back in time to do any writing, so I am revisiting a couple of old SNJs which had not yet been moved from my original site to this one.

I was thinking about Perelandra the other day after reading someone's comment on Facebook that it is "the most difficult to get through," or something like that, of the trilogy. Well, I don't think any of them is difficult to get through, and I think Perelandra is the best of the three, from both the literary and theological points of view, though only by a slight margin. Not that the others aren't excellent, but Out of the Silent Planet seems a bit lesser in both scope and depth, and That Hideous Strength a bit rougher and less unified.

Both these journals are from 2004, when I was listening to a recording of the space trilogy (a very enjoyable experience which I'd like to repeat): Re-reading Perelandra and Further Thoughts on Perelandra.

Maclin Horton
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11 responses to “Perelandra, Again”

  1. Janet

    Do you think that Tolkien’s Christianity is particularly English?
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Mac

    Yes, although I would be hard put to articulate it. It’s way more northern European than southern.

    Reply
  3. Janet

    Well, that’s interesting. The hobbits, of course, are very English, but the elves seem Scandinavian, and it’s in the elves that I see the Christian elements.
    AMDG

    Reply
  4. Mac

    The hobbits are more obviously and specifically English, but the English are a partly Scandinavian people, too, and I think the vision of a high and noble race seems to have a place in Englishness, too, although it’s less specifically English. But then the elves are in general less earthly than the hobbits.
    But really I was thinking of Tolkien the person as much as of his work, and I don’t know that I could point to anything specific that makes me think that–just a sense of the sort of man he was, from his letters and a biography that I read too many years ago to recall very specifically.

    Reply
  5. Janet

    Well, he was definitely very English. I just never thought about it in relationship to his Christianity before since English Christianity seems Protestant to me even though it isn’t always, of course, which I know from experience since my English friend is Catholic.
    AMDG

    Reply
  6. Mac

    Well, it’s true that English Christianity is mostly Protestant, but English Catholicism has a different temperament, too, I think. I saw a quotation from Newman recently to the effect that certain extravagant devotions were suited to Italy but not to England. That kind of thing is what I mean. Just off the top of my head here (because I haven’t really given this any thought to speak of): if we take Galadriel as having something of Mary about her, it might be a different something than one might find in, say, Italy. More regal, perhaps, and less motherly?

    Reply
  7. Janet

    Yes, I can’t say that I can see English Catholics throwing chickens at a statue of the Blessed Mother.
    I see what you mean. I love those Northern European madonnas–Van Eyck and Van der Weyden and the like and they are much more like Galadriel than Mediterranean madonnas.
    When I was growing up, I lived in these two different worlds. My father’s mother was very Italian in her devotions, although she never did the chicken thing, 😉 and my mother’s parents were originally Episcopalian, although they converted when I was about three. I didn’t really understand why they were so different when I was little, of course, but there was always a very marked difference. When I read what Lewis had to say about thick and thin religions, I immediately recognized that this was what I had experienced.
    I think I always preferred the thin, but I feel at home in the thick, too. It was good to have both. I think Lewis said that too, although he was definitely thin.
    AMDG

    Reply
  8. Janet

    The title of this thread produces an amusing sidebar.
    AMDG

    Reply
  9. Mac

    So it does.
    Converting from Episcopalian to Catholic would have been a pretty rare thing back then. And they converted together? That should be an interesting story.
    All together, that should leave you with a pretty balanced sort of faith or at least devotional life, which it seems to have done.
    I remember that Lewis applied the thick & thin referred to totally different religions (or in the thin case maybe philosophies), saying Christianity includes both. I can’t remember whether he talks about that distinction within Christianity, but it certainly applies, with liberal Protestantism way out on the thin side. I’m sure he didn’t talk about it within Catholicism although it applies there, too, though the arc of the pendulum is narrower–I mean, Catholicism doesn’t let you get really far away from the thick.

    Reply
  10. Janet

    The thick/thin thing is implicit in Til We Have Faces. I know he talked about it in an essay, but I have no idea where.
    Basically their conversion came about as a result of my mother marrying a Catholic. It is a kind of interesting story, but I’m going to check with Mother and get the facts straight before I write about it.
    AMDG

    Reply
  11. Paul

    For some reason, the conversation about English Catholicism very much brings this to mind: http://books.google.com/books?id=EgUFAAAAQAAJ&dq=rosary%20intitle%3Amonth&pg=PA481#v=onepage&q&f=false

    Reply

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