tek's rating: see introduction

That Hideous Strength (pub. 1945)
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The third and final book in the Space Trilogy is set entirely on Earth, so on the whole, it will be grounded far more in that which is familiar to the reader than were the first two books. At least at first; though the further into the book you get, the stranger it all becomes. Anyway, there's a brief preface to the story (dated 1943), which I rather liked, including, as I mentioned earlier, a bit about the nature of fairy-tales. Lewis also mentions other writers: Olaf Stapledon (with whose works I am shamefully unfamiliar), and more importantly, J. R. R. Tolkien (with whose works I am of course familiar). There are some things mentioned in this book which are based on conversations Lewis had previously had with Tolkien, and I suppose he intended some vague connection between this book and the ones Tolkien was working on. But it's best, I think, to pay that as little mind as possible. Whatever hint of a connection there might be between the works of Lewis and Tolkien, I daresay it is... non-canonical.

Anyway, the central characters of this book are a young couple, Mark and Jane Studdock, who have been married for six months. From the beginning of the story, it is evident that marriage has not turned out to be what Jane had thought it would. She sees very little of her husband, who doesn't talk to her much when he is home; so, of course she's not really happy. But soon the narrative moves on from these thoughts, to tell of a nightmare Jane had recently had, which she recalls upon seeing in the morning paper a picture of a prisoner named Alcasan, who had just been guillotined; the man's face was one she'd seen in her nightmare. The dream had later segued into something else entirely, though we'll eventually see that both parts of the dream held greater significance than Jane could have possibly imagined.

Mark, meanwhile, is a sociologist, and a fellow of Bracton College, at the University of Edgestow. He's only fairly recently become a member of "the Progressive Element," which is the inner circle at Bracton. It's important to note that all his life, Mark has striven- often against his own natural preferences- to be part of one kind of inner circle after another. Even if he tends to find the actual people and business of such circles unpleasant, I suppose one can say he finds pleasure just in the idea of being an insider rather than an outsider. Anyway, we meet several other members of the Progressive Element, though I'm afraid I couldn't really keep good track of who any of them were, aside from Bracton's sub-warden, a man named Curry. There was also a man called Lord Feverstone, who is rarely actually at Bracton, rather spending most of his time in London. Mark learns from Curry, early in the book, that Feverstone had fought for Mark's appointment as a Fellow, while most of the others had favored another man, named Denniston. (We learn later in the book that Feverstone is an alias, and the man is actually someone we'd met in a previous book. This somewhat surprised me, as I thought at first that his personality was different than it had been before, but ultimately I suppose it made sense. And, really, it's not so much his personality that was different, but that he seemed a bit more intelligent, or at least of a higher class, now.) Anyway, I suppose none of the other members of the group are that important to the story, so I won't mention them, specifically.

Well, the group has a meeting about various issues, one of which is the proposed sale of some college land, chiefly including Bragdon Wood, to the N.I.C.E. (the National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments), an organization which was supposedly going to revolutionize the way scientific research was carried out. It soon turns out to be pretty much impossible to vote against the sale. Anyway, we then see Jane visiting old friends of hers, a teacher named Dr. Cecil Dimble, and his wife, Margaret. Dr. Dimble talks a bit about Merlin, who, according to legend, is buried under Bragdon Wood; but not dead, merely sleeping. This all leads Jane to tell the Dimbles about the dream she'd had, which leads them to encourage her to visit someone else....

Well, that weekend, Feverstone takes Mark to Belbury, where the N.I.C.E. is currently headquartered, to meet the Deputy Director, John Wither. (The Director is an older popular scientific journalist named Horace Jules, though he has no real knowledge of what the Institute is actually about; Wither is the one who's really in charge.) Mark meets various people at Belbury... much like the people at Bracton, there tend to be more than I can keep track of clearly, and again, most of them aren't that important, in the long run. There's a professor named Filostrato, who is of some importance in explaining certain ideas to Mark, though ultimately he's rather a dupe, as is a reverend named Straik. Aside from Wither, the most important person Mark meets is Miss Hardcastle (aka "the Fairy"), who is the head of the Institutes's private police force. She's a rather overbearing, powerful woman, and we'll eventually see that she's fond of torture. But she provides Mark with more information than anyone else at the Institute does. I should particularly mention that Wither himself is prone to speaking in a most confusingly and frustratingly vague manner. I find it terribly amusing how he can say so much without ever really saying anything, in his effort to avoid details of any kind (and later on, we learn just why he's like this). But while it was fun for me to read, at the same time I always felt bad for Mark, who was unable to ever get a straight answer from him about anything, most importantly A: whether he was in fact being offered a job at all, and if so B: what precisely that job actually was. So, he spends much of his time at Belbury feeling very uncomfortable and eventually, very nervous about his future, when it becomes apparent that if he didn't get the job there, the N.I.C.E. would see to it he didn't have a job to go back to at Bracton, either.

Meanwhile, Jane goes to a place called St. Anne's, to meet with a woman named Grace Ironwood, on the recommendation of the Dimbles. She tells Miss Ironwood about her dreams, which Ironwood tells Jane are actually visions; this prophetic dreaming is a hereditary faculty. Jane could be of use to the company at St. Anne's, or she could fall into the hands of their enemies. But Jane doesn't believe in any of this, and just wants the dreams to stop. Meanwhile, she also meets a young woman at St. Anne's named Camilla Denniston. And soon after Jane's visit, she learns that the Dimbles have been turned out of their house. The two of them will have to go stay at the Manor at St. Anne's, as will Ivy Maggs, who had worked for Jane a couple days a week as a domestic. It seems the N.I.C.E., once it has obtained the land at Edgestow, sends in all kinds of laborers and construction equipment, which all causes progressively worse and worse trouble for the University and pretty much the whole town, many of whom become homeless.

Anyway. Things at Belbury, as I've suggested, quickly become confusing, and in fact rather ominous. I started thinking that, even though the story is set on Earth, in a way the N.I.C.E. was as different from anything with which Mark might be familiar as Mars or Venus were to Ransom, in the first two books. And eventually, things at St. Anne's will become just as strange for Jane... but I'm getting just a bit ahead. As I said, she didn't want to have anything to do with them. But one day, she happens to meet up with Camilla Denniston and her husband, Arthur (an old friend of Mark's, who I suppose was the same Denniston that Curry had said nearly got the post Mark ended up with at Bracton). From them, Jane learns a bit more about the company at St. Anne's, the Director of which is a man called Mr. Fisher-King. (The explanation of how he'd assumed that name was a bit interesting, if hurried, and it makes me wonder if it might contain some kernel of a possible future story in Lewis's series, though of course this is all there is.) They try to convince her to come see their chief- also called the Pendragon- but some of the things they say rather put her off, including the fact that it would be preferable to obtain Mark's permission (or at least clear lack of objection) for her to join them. What's more, there's a lot they can't tell her about their society until she actually joins them, and she doesn't want to join them without knowing more about them. But at least she promises to tell them if she has any more dreams (which she already has).

As I've indicated, Miss Hardcastle is really the only one of any use to Mark in figuring out what he's meant to be doing at Belbury. Under her direction, he eventually begins writing some articles which are meant to make the general public see various matters the way the N.I.C.E. wants them to see them (including things such as disturbances at Edgestow, before they actually happen). And he finally begins to be accepted into the inner circle there, which I've mentioned is the kind of thing he always pursued. So he becomes happier, for a time. Meanwhile, Jane has more dreams, and finally goes back to St. Anne's. Of course there's a certain degree of familiarity there, with the Dimbles and the Dennistons, though she's soon a bit confused by the fact that Mrs. Maggs is an equal there, rather than a servant. There's also a man named Andrew MacPhee, who is there essentially as a skeptic (he'd been mentioned briefly in the previous book, though his name was spelled McPhee). And there are various animals about the Manor, most notably a bear called Mr. Bultitude. They all seem obedient to the humans, particularly the Director of the company, who Jane finally gets to meet. He produces some confusing feelings in Jane, who likes him and wants to please him, but at the same time, much of what he says is contrary to what she's always believed, about various matters, including marriage. (I myself cannot fully accept what he says, things that on the surface I find somewhat offensive, though I think upon deeper reflection, the things he says don't mean exactly what they seem to mean, at first.) In any event, it's not so much his beliefs or Jane's that are important, but those of his "old-fashioned" Masters. (I think it's safe to spoil you by saying that his Masters turn out to be eldila, and further, that Fisher-King himself is actually Ransom, who has been much changed by his adventures on Malacandra and Perelandra, and by the years since then interacting with eldila on Earth).

Well, I feel like I've already said quite a lot, possibly too much, but at this point I've merely gotten you halfway through the book, and barely set things up for you. I've left out a fair bit, but from this point on, I feel I should leave out a great deal more. What happens in the remainder of the book is the really weird stuff. I suppose I can say there's another man at Belbury named Frost, who is roughly as important as Wither (and like Wither, his own motivations are interesting to learn about), and who Jane has seen in some of her dreams. And there is a Head who is occasionally spoken of, which at first Mark assumes to mean Jules (who does eventually show up, toward the end), but he was wrong about that. I'd really not like to spoil anything about the Head, or... the ultimate goals of the N.I.C.E. As for the company at St. Anne's, there's stuff, in the end, about the nature of Britain as opposed to the Logres (a word with which I'm not really familiar, though it refers to the realm of King Arthur, I guess). And of more immediate importance, there's the possibility that Merlin will awake, and the N.I.C.E. desire to use him for their own purposes, though he could just as well side with the company at St. Anne's. Though what exactly he could do for either side is... well, it's not as straightforward as you might guess. Anyway, the climax of the conflict... seemed too easy to me. And kind of strange, possibly a bit amusing- or even ridiculous- though I suppose it did rather make a kind of sense, given various things that had been previously established in the story, things which seemed almost random, earlier. But at any rate, good triumphs, although certain evil forces are still out there. The whole story is but one early battle in a war that's likely to go on for a very long time, so it's rather a shame there can be no more told of any future battles....

Meanwhile, what was always most important to me about this book was, of course, Mark and Jane. They're both caught up in separate worlds, equally strange to them, and frightening, and dangerous. But the thing is... they seem to have loved each other before they were married, and yet since their marriage began, they've lost that love, and neither seems to have ever truly known the other, nor themselves, nor what marriage itself should actually be. So... what really matters is what they each learn in the course of their separate experiences, which will ultimately make them more understanding of themselves and each other, and bring them together, in the end... not so much "back" together, as truly together for the first time. And I must say, I really loved the way it all ended, on a sweetly humorous note....

I guess that's all I can say, then. There's lots of weirdness. A fair bit of humor, which I quite liked. Lots of terribly important drama that doesn't ultimately seem to amount to much, at least not in quite the way one might expect (assuming one had the capacity to expect anything of any degree of specificity, from all this weirdness); I rather relate to MacPhee's view of everything. ...And, finally, there's a happy ending. As I said, I wish there could be more stories in this series, but... as far as the book itself is concerned, it's a good end.