One of the pleasures of going to church right now is that we are taken along by an older woman. She picks up an even older woman and then they come our way and we with them do go. I listen to them speaking, their accents, their idioms, the rhythm of their speech and exclamations, their anecdotes. It would be a rich thing to capture and reproduce; it is enough of a rich pleasure merely to hear them speaking in low voices from the front seats.
The pleasure of this afternoon was to have an impending three-hour class canceled so that I could devote the whole thing to re-reading the bulk of Perelandra. I thought I had read this book too much recently: I had got a jolly decent recording out from the Minneapolis Public Library and had listened to the whole trilogy through three times. But no, it is interesting and unanticipated. It isn’t that there is much to forget, but there are so many details to notice. Lewis has all these allusions: I wonder about them, if he is playing and being merely clever, sometimes. An example: his old friend the dragon. Upon examination I find the allusion fits with the idea of never repeating, of unending, infinite wonder and, of course, personal reassurance. It comes when Ransom has arrived at the decision to fight, and hard upon a mention of the enemy.
Not merely being clever, and a great deal of theology about temptation and the devil in that book. I suppose the first time I found much of it decorative, interesting, unusual and ignorable. The theology has been growing on me through the readings, especially this time.
One final observation about life in Bogota, and how I am enjoying it. I listened to Beethoven this morning, but as I left and most of the day I kept humming Brahms. Brahms, Brahms, Brahms, Brahms, Brahms, Brahms, Brahms. His music, that is. I keep putting on other music—with satisfaction—but my mind turns and returns to Brahms. What does it mean? I do not know.
