That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy, Book 3) by C.S. Lewis Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy, Book 3)
Book Review: Powers, principalities, and gnostics
Summary: 5 Stars
Having enjoyed this novel again and again for a generation, I believe that it is prophetic and even more relevant today than when it was written. Now that recent filmings of Lord of the Ring and the first Narnia book have delighted critics and the public alike, is it too much to hope for a high-quality cinematic version someday of _That Hideous Strength_? Lewis would be most pleased, I daresay, if any such adaptation were set in our own time, because we need its messsage now.
By the time Mark Studdock arrives at Belbury, he is a confirmed brown-nose with considerable experience in pursuing his life's ambition: joining the esoteric Inner Circle of whatever. It is striking, then, how much difficulty he has in the NICE even determining who is in this group. Feverstone, Filostrato, Hardcastle, and Straik, for instance, all confide to him that their own respective purviews are of the institute's essence, while various other departments are peripheral or merely for public consumption. By the end of the book, the chaos proclaims that none of these figures, nor anyone else, is effectively in charge.
In this respect, Lewis brilliantly anticipated insights that the late William Stringfellow would articulate in the 1960s and 70s: that institutions are among the contemporary world's most characteristic manifestations of the demonic "powers and principalities" mentioned in the Bible. They inevitably take on lives of their own and go off the rails. Eventually they justify any and all means towards the end of their own survival and hegemony. They enslave and "deplete the personhood of" every human being involved with them-- even (and perhaps especially) those who imagine that they are in control.
Of course, the church as an institution being hardly exempt from these problems, clergy would react to Stringfellow's analysis with hostility proportionate to their power. Ironically, the works of this theologian long lay in unread obscurity in seminary: while students in, of all places, law school continued to turn to them when they wanted to learn how corporate structures really operate. As we 21st-century Americans find ourselves steeped in the waking nightmare of an unfolding vindication of Stringfellow's prophetic thought, it is heartening at least to see a growing interest in it-- books lately republished and his ideas taken up and further developed e.g. by Walter Wink. For an illustrative novel, however, _That Hideous Strength_, written by C.S. Lewis some 25 years earlier, may yet be unsurpasssed.
Some commentators have incomprehensibly indicated that the NICE people were materialists. Pas du tout. They are probably ex-materialists, but by the time we meet them are devotees of the occult. The reader grasps the inevitability of this progression. As Muggeridge (and perhaps Chesterton earlier) observed, those who cease to believe in God don't believe in nothing. Rather, before long they'll believe in anything. Lewis must have been aware of the occult dabbling practiced by high-level Nazi figures. While there are always atheistic individuals, it is unlikely, despite their best efforts, that their grandchildren will inherit a trait that requires so much mental assiduity to maintain. There have been no viable large atheistic societies. The Belburians, however, present themselves as materialists and are not prepared, and would probably never be prepared, to publicize their real allegiance: it is esoteric, elite, and exclusive by its very nature, not to be shared by the likes of you and me.
Sitting in the garden, one of them exclaims, "Bloody racket those birds make!" Such a sentiment is revealing and chacteristic of one who, as the novel describes in detail, far from being a materialist, has cultivated a disgust for all things physical and who dreams of transcending it. Add this trait to a quest for esoteric knowledge and we have the two most classic marks of the gnostic.
I have no doubt that Lewis intended the book partly as a warning against this mode of thought, which Christian orthodoxy has found profoundly and decisively incompatible. He illustrates what kind of people are tempted to take it up, why they do so, and to what bad ends it will lead. Since Lewis's death, it has become fashionable among post-modernists and certain feminists to express their pique and scorn for Christianity by affecting a sympathetic reconsideration of gnosticism, suggesting that its eclipse was only an historical accident or the effect of a political power play. We could do with this book as an antidote.
Book Review: Dystopia-C.S. Lewis Style
Summary: 5 Stars
This work deserves to be understood in the context of works like "1984" and "Brave New World." More than strictly "science fiction," it is a dystopia written during World War II with a profound grasp of Totalitarianism and Communism. The book is packed with social and spiritual insight ranging from marriage, academic life, moral education, Humanism, human frailty, to the dangers of political power gone too far.
Many C.S. Lewis fans will read this with Narnia or the first two science fiction works in mind, and this reviewer encourages them to not do so. As other reviewers have noted, it is a confusion if not a disappointment if read with the wrong expectations. Though some of the characters and themes are carried over from the first two science fiction books, it stands by itself.
It is my opinion that there is a great deal to learn from the good dystoipas and that they are neglected to our own detriment. This is one of the great ones and is something to be soaked in and learned from.
Book Review: What to read after Narnia
Summary: 5 Stars
C.S. Lewis would not have named this series the Space Trilogy. He used the term Deep Heaven for "the packed reality that men call empty space." Everyone else doesn't have a problem with the title so much as the fact that the boxed set of the three books is continually out of print.
Of the three books, I think the second, Perelandra, alternately called Voyage to Venus, is the best. Yet the effect of reading the trilogy together and in order is better than that book alone. The first book, Out of the Silent Planet, is gripping so far as it goes. A friend of mine said the second book, Perelandra, was the best book she'd ever read. But I'd never considered the third book, That Hideous Strength on its own merits until I read an essay by philosophy prof Richard Purtill entitled "That Hideous Strength: A Double Tale." Before that I viewed the last book as starting rather slow, even though it picks up half way through and pulls the three books through to a dazzling ending.
The trilogy is written at a higher reading level than the Narnian Chronicles (the latter were meant for kids), although it's arguably easier to read than The Lord of the Rings. Note: Purtill's essay is scheduled to be included in the revised edition of Lord of the Elves and Eldils: Philosophy and Fantasy in Lewis and Tolkien due out sometime in 2006, along with his most popular essay, "Did C.S. Lewis Lose His Faith?" which argues against the view implied in the film Shadowlands that he did.
The Narnian film may be introducing readers to the books, which, whatever one thinks of the film, is a good thing. But readers closing the Chronicles will be glad to find their way into Lewis' Deep Heaven and the rest of his fiction.
Book Review: Best of the three...
Summary: 5 Stars
For a poetic, yet precise, elucidation on the nature of evil, especially as it is seen in 'everyday' life, there are few works that surpass this one. As with "Screwtape," it should be read as a vehicle for self-reflection; but unlike "Screwtape," there is much beauty and grace as well, reminiscent of "The Last Battle" from Narnia.Book Review: One of the best in Christian literature
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read this book several times and each time I pick it up find it hard to put it down. C.S. Lewis' satirical insights and observations of human nature are not only the stuff of genius but just as relevant now as they were sixty years ago.
The story is engaging from the very beginning, even though it starts "innocently" enough with the course of a young married couple who put their own selfish ambitions ahead of each other. They are drawn into spiritual worlds quite opposite from one another and the story just continues to build in scale and tension as it heads for its climax. C.S. Lewis was a marvel in particular of his understanding of how evil minds operate (see "The Screwtape Letters"), their political machinations, and how they can suck others into a web of self-destruction by appealing first and foremost to the ego.
I am not surprised to read some of the reasons for some of the negative reviews posted here as they reflect common disappointments with this, the third book in the so-called "Space Trilogy." For one, this third book is different in tone and setting and use of characters than the previous two, perhaps undermining expectations for readers of the first two novels. Don't let that affect your judgment of the book because it is a brilliant conclusion to the series, and one of the reasons I think so is because of the differences I mentioned. A recurring theme in C.S. Lewis' writings is how people put God in a box with preconceived notions of religiosity and that theme is constantly visited in "That Hideous Strength". So it is only appropriate if this book does not fit in with readers' preconceived notions of plot and setting!
Further, if one does not approve of Lewis' depiction of the roles of husband and wife, then one must also take issue with the Bible itself, for it is from that source that Lewis draws his point of view on the subject.
Wonderful, entertaining and wise, "That Hideous Strength" is full of the kind of clever insights and different ways of looking at things that make C.S. Lewis' writings so endearing. It is my favorite book in the series.