That Hideous Strength

That Hideous Strength
First edition cover
Author(s)	C. S. Lewis
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Series	Space Trilogy
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel, dystopia
Publisher	The Bodley Head
Publication date	1945
Media type	Print (Hardback and Paperback)
Pages	384 pp
ISBN	N/A
Preceded by	Perelandra

That Hideous Strength (subtitled A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups) is a 1945 novel by C. S. Lewis, the final book in Lewis's theological science fiction Space Trilogy. The events of this novel follow those of Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra (also titled Voyage to Venus) and once again feature the philologist Elwin Ransom. Yet unlike the principal events of those two novels, the story takes place on Earth rather than in space or on other planets in the solar system. The story involves an allegedly scientific institute, the N.I.C.E., which is a front for sinister supernatural forces.

The novel was heavily influenced by the writing of Lewis's friend and fellow Inkling Charles Williams, and is markedly dystopian in style. In the book's preface Lewis acknowledges science-fiction writer Olaf Stapledon and his work: "Mr. Stapledon is so rich in invention that he can well afford to lend, and I admire his invention (though not his philosophy) so much that I should feel no shame to borrow."

In the foreword, Lewis states that the novel's point is the same as that in his non-fiction work The Abolition of Man, which argues (against a grammar book of the time) that there are natural laws and objective values, which education should teach children to recognise.

The novel's title is taken from a poem written by David Lyndsay in 1555, Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteour, also known as The Monarche. The couplet in question, "The shadow of that hyddeous strength, sax myle and more it is of length", refers to the Tower of Babel.

Plot summary

The young sociologist Mark Studdock has just risen to the position of Senior Fellow in sociology at the University of Edgestow, during a controversy over selling a portion of its land, Bragdon Wood, to a new scientific institute, the N.I.C.E. (National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments), whose staff already includes faculty of the college. Mark Studdock and some N.I.C.E. insiders discuss how to keep the deal alive, and at Lord Feverstone's suggestion discuss a possible post for Mark at the N.I.C.E.

Meanwhile Mark's wife, Jane, who is also a scholar, has been having peculiar nightmares, one involving a severed head. She meets Mrs. Dimble, the wife of one of her former tutors, who is being evicted from her property due to sale of land to the N.I.C.E. When Jane talks about her dreams, Mrs. Dimble leads her to seek counsel with a Miss Ironwood who lives in the Manor in the nearby town of St. Anne's. An argument between Jane and Mark shows how their marriage is deteriorating.

Mark spends an evening getting acquainted with the top brass at the N.I.C.E. at their headquarters near Edgestow. Here and throughout his time with them, Mark can never find out what his duties or place in the organisation are, and he is alternately in and out of favour. Mark meets a scientist named Bill Hingest who is resigning from the N.I.C.E. and warns Mark to get out.

At the same time, Jane works up the courage to visit Miss Ironwood at St. Anne's. Miss Ironwood is dressed just as Jane had dreamed of her. She is convinced that Jane's dreams are visions of genuine events.

Mark learns that Hingest has been mysteriously murdered.

At St. Anne's, Jane is introduced to Dr. Elwin Ransom, who is the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis' space trilogy. He has become the legitimate king or Pendragon of the nation of Logres, the heir of King Arthur, and is the Director of the group living in the Manor.

Mark writes newspaper articles for the N.I.C.E. for use after a riot in Edgestow that they plan to start. The riot comes off, and the N.I.C.E. police take over Edgestow. They arrest Jane, whom the N.I.C.E. are interested in (as revealed later) for her psychic abilities, which they fear will get into their opponents' hands. The head of the N.I.C.E.'s private police force, a woman known as "Fairy" Hardcastle, starts to torture Jane but has to release her because of the riot.

Mark is introduced to the "Head" of the N.I.C.E., which is the head of a recently guillotined scientist (as Jane dreamed) that has been restored to life with artificial devices.

From Jane's dreams that people were digging up the grave of a long-buried man and that the man had left. Ransom concludes that the N.I.C.E. is looking for the body of the magician Merlin, who was buried in Bragdon Wood in a timeless state, not dead. Jane will guide members of the group to the place she dreamed of.

Mark leaves the N.I.C.E. but is arrested in Edgestow on trumped-up charges of murdering Bill Hingest and is brought back to N.I.C.E. headquarters. He realises that the N.I.C.E. killed Hingest.

That night in a storm, both the company of St. Anne's and N.I.C.E. personnel are on the trail of Merlin, who has apparently revived. He has taken the clothes of a tramp through his powers of hypnosis and got hold of a wild horse. He meets the company of St. Anne's but rides away. Members of the N.I.C.E. capture the tramp, believing him to be Merlin.

Merlin arrives at St. Anne's on his own. Ransom reveals that there are Satanic forces behind the N.I.C.E. and that Merlin is to be possessed by the angelic powers, called Oyéresu (singular "Oyarsa"), that guide the planets of the solar system and thus correspond to Greek gods and goddesses. Earth had been in quarantine: the demons that govern Earth could not travel beyond the orbit of the moon, and the Oyérasu could not come to Earth. However, since the forces of darkness broke the lunar barrier in the earlier books, the Oyérasu too can cross the barrier.

At St. Anne's, Jane has two mystical experiences, the first with the earth-bound counterpart of the Oyarsa of Venus, and the second with God. At the same time, Mark at the N.I.C.E. is initiated in a dark ritual meant to cultivate absolute objectivity by relegating emotion to the status of a mere "chemical phenomenon".

Merlin is possessed by the Oyéresu. He disguises himself as a Basque priest and answers the N.I.C.E.'s advertisement for an interpreter of ancient languages. He interviews the tramp, whom the N.I.C.E. still believe may be the real Merlin. Merlin and the tramp are brought to a dinner in honour of the public head of the N.I.C.E. There Merlin pronounces upon them the curse of Babel, causing all present to speak gibberish, and liberates many animals on which the N.I.C.E. were conducting experiments. The bigger animals kill most of the N.I.C.E. staff. Earthquakes ruin the building as well as much of Edgestow and kill Feverstone. Merlin helps Mark escape and sends him to St. Anne's.

The angel of Venus lingers at the Manor, as Ransom is now to be transported back to that planet. Mark arrives at St. Anne's, and a vision of Venus leads him into a bridal chamber that Jane has been preparing for him.

Context in Space Trilogy

Elwin Ransom, introduced in this story in Chapter 7, is the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis's space trilogy and his point of view dominates their narrative. Lord Feverstone (formerly Dick Devine) was a villain in the first novel who, along with Professor Weston, had abducted Ransom to Mars. When Feverstone speaks in That Hideous Strength of Weston having been murdered by "the opposition", he is speaking of Ransom having killed Weston on Venus in the second novel. The first two books fully explicate Lewis's mythology (based on a combination of the Bible and Elizabethan astrology) according to which each planet of the solar system has a guiding angelic spirit that rules over it. This mythos is re-introduced gradually in this story, whose protagonists, the earthbound Mark and Jane Studdock, are unaware of these realities when the story opens.

Characters

• Mark Gainsby Studdock – Protagonist; sociologist, and ambitious to the point of obsession with reaching the "inner circle" of his social environment.
• Jane Tudor Studdock – Protagonist; Mark's wife. Jane is supposedly writing a Ph.D. thesis on John Donne, but since her marriage she has become effectively a housewife. In the course of the book she discovers herself to be a clairvoyant.
• vagabond tinker – mistaken by the N.I.C.E. for Merlinus Ambrosius when the latter steals his clothes and horse at his camp in Bragdon Wood.

N.I.C.E.

The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments ("N.I.C.E.") is a scientific and social planning agency, furtively pursues its program of the exploitation of nature and the annihilation of humanity. The Institute is secretly inspired and directed by fallen eldila, whom they refer to as "Macrobes", superior beings. Their takeover of Edgestow and its surrounding area shows the manner in which they use human pride and greed to get what they want. After the N.I.C.E. would achieve its ends, the earth would only belong to the "Macrobes".

• François Alcasan – "The Head", a French scientist executed for murder early in the book. His head is recovered by the N.I.C.E. and appears to be kept alive by the technology of man while actually having become a communication mechanism for the Macrobes.
• John Wither – Long-winded bureaucrat, Deputy Director of the N.I.C.E. He is the true leader of the N.I.C.E. and a servant of the Macrobes. Long association with them has "withered" his mind, and his speech and thinking are characterized by vagueness and jargon. He hardly ever sleeps, but instead maintains a continual dreamy wakefulness that affords him the ability to maintain a shadowy, supernatural presence throughout the Institute.
• Professor Augustus Frost – A psychologist and assistant to Wither, he is the only other N.I.C.E member who knows the true nature of the Head and of the Macrobes. He views emotions and values as mere chemical phenomena to be ignored as distractions from scientific inquiry. He is coldhearted and unemotional and he has an exact, precise manner of speech and thinking.
• Miss/Major Hardcastle (a.k.a. "The Fairy") – The sadistic head of the N.I.C.E. Institutional Police and its female auxiliary, the "Waips". Torture is her favorite interrogation method, and she takes special, sexual pleasure in abusing female prisoners.
• Dr. Filostrato – An obese Italian eunuch physiologist who has seemingly preserved Alcasan's head. He believes the Head to be truly Alcasan. His ultimate goal is to free humanity from the constraints of organic life.
• Lord Feverstone (Dick Devine) – The politician, recently ennobled businessman, and nominal academic who lures Mark into the N.I.C.E. Feverstone was one of the two men who kidnapped Ransom in Out of the Silent Planet, and the person responsible for getting Mark Studdock his fellowship at Bracton. A classic sociopath, he is motivated in all circumstances by the perceived benefit to himself. Although he is aware of the Macrobes, having encountered their benign counterparts on Mars, he has no interest in them.
• Reverend Straik – the "Mad Parson". He believes that any sort of power is a manifestation of God's will. Straik is ready to obliterate that "organisation of ordered Sin called Society." When Mark objects that he must not want to preserve Society because he believes in an afterlife, Straik objects that Jesus's real teaching was justice here and now. Emphasis on an afterlife has, he thinks, emasculated and sidetracked the real meaning of Jesus's teaching. This belief, along with other beliefs, makes him a suitable candidate for introduction to the Macrobes. Straik was "a good man once", but became deranged by the death of his daughter.
• Horace Jules – A Cockney novelist, tabloid reporter, and pseudo-scientific journalist who has been appointed Director of the N.I.C.E. He studied science at the University of London, but clearly never advanced beyond an elementary level. He fondly imagines himself to be the actual leader of the N.I.C.E., but as he is not aware of its true nature he is easily manipulated by Wither and Frost. He has a strong anti-clerical bias and objects to Wither appointing "parsons" (such as Straik) to the Institute. He is in part a caricature of H.G. Wells, whose book The Shape of Things to Come presented the systematic persecution of Christianity (and all other religions) by a future world government as a positive activity.

St. Anne's

• Dr. Elwin Ransom (also known as "the Pendragon" and "the Director") – A former Cambridge don who heads the community at St. Anne's. He alone communicates with the benevolent eldila, whom he met during his earlier voyages to Malacandra and Perelandra (Mars and Venus). He has changed his surname to Fisher-King and has a wound in his foot, received on Venus, that will not heal till he returns there. His heavenly experiences have made him a kingly figure among his small band of followers, and he attributes his following to a divine Power, presumably Maleldil (Jesus Christ).
• Grace Ironwood – The seemingly stern but kind psychologist and doctor who helps Jane interpret her dreams. Her name is probably inspired by the Járnviðr ("Iron-Wood") of Norse mythology, its bleak connotations ameliorated by the Christian name "Grace".
• Dr. Cecil Dimble – Another academic, an old friend of Ransom, and close adviser on matters of Arthurian scholarship and pre-Norman Britain. He is fond of Jane Studdock, who was once his student, and feels guilty that he dislikes her husband Mark.
• Margaret "Mother" Dimble – The wife of Cecil Dimble. The Dimbles have no children, much to their sadness, but have compensated by their kindness to students. She is very maternal, and shows fondness towards Cecil's male and female students alike.
• Ivy Maggs – Formerly a part-time maid for Jane Studdock; now driven out of the town by the N.I.C.E. and living at St. Anne's. Jane is puzzled at first by her status as an equal at the house. Ivy's husband, Tom, is in prison for petty theft.
• Merlinus Ambrosius – The wizard Merlin, awakened and returned to serve the Pendragon and save England. Receives the powers of the Oyéresu. He has been in a deep sleep since the time of King Arthur, and both sides initially believe he will join the N.I.C.E. His appearance at St. Anne's comes as a surprise.
• Andrew MacPhee – A scientist, skeptic, and rationalist, who is a close friend of Dr. Ransom and joins him at St. Anne's. Though not religious, he is deeply influenced by his Presbyterian family background. His uncle was a high official in the Scottish Presbyterian Church, and, allowing for the differences in religious profession, was equally skeptical. He is mentioned parenthetically in Perelandra, and he appears in The Dark Tower. MacPhee, like Ransom, was an officer in the First World War. MacPhee desires to fight the N.I.C.E. with human powers. He is an argumentative character who claims to have no opinions, merely stating facts and illustrating implications. His position in the establishment is to be skeptical, testing every hypothesis and Jane's dreams; however, the awakened Merlin believes MacPhee to be Ransom's "fool" (jester), because MacPhee is "obstructive and rather rude...yet never gets sat on". The character may have been based on William T. Kirkpatrick, former headmaster of Lurgan College and an admired tutor of the young Lewis.
• Mr. Bultitude – Last of the seven bears of Logres, who escaped from a zoo and was tamed by Ransom, who has regained man's legendary authority over the beasts. He is captured by the N.I.C.E., escapes, and destroys the Head.
• Arthur Denniston – An academic at Edgestow and a former friend of Mark Studdock from student days. He and Mark were rival candidates for a fellowship at Bracton College, which Mark won through the influence of Lord Feverstone. They drifted apart before Jane entered the picture and Studdock became obsessed with reaching the "inner circle" at Bracton.
• Camilla Denniston - The wife of Arthur Denniston, very tall and beautiful. She is the first person Jane meets at St. Anne's.

Reception

Some two years before writing Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell reviewed That Hideous Strength for the Manchester Evening News commenting: "Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr. Lewis attributes to his characters [the N.I.C.E. scientists], and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realizable". The review was written shortly after the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which it refers to.

However, Orwell argued that Lewis's book "would have been stronger without the supernatural elements". Particularly, Orwell objected to the ending in which N.I.C.E. is overthrown by divine intervention: "[Lewis] is entitled to his beliefs, but they weaken his story, not only because they offend the average reader’s sense of probability but because in effect they decide the issue in advance. When one is told that God and the Devil are in conflict, one always knows which side is going to win. The whole drama of the struggle against evil lies in the fact that one does not have supernatural aid".

In popular culture

• Physicist Freeman Dyson cites That Hideous Strength and the N.I.C.E. on pages 141–143 of his book A Many-Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe (University of Virginia Press, 2007) as an example of theofiction.
• The post-hardcore band Thrice based their song "That Hideous Strength" (a b-side from their The Illusion of Safety recordings and released on their EP, If We Could Only See Us Now) on Lewis's novel.
• Christian Progressive Death Metal band Becoming the Archetype's 2008 album Dichotomy is based heavily on the book.
• English electronic musician Belbury Poly takes his name from the town of Belbury. Many of his peers on the Ghost Box Music label pay similar homage to Lewis' mythology of Belbury.
• The progressive rock band Glass Hammer has a song titled That Hideous Strength on their concept album Perelandra, which is based on the stories of The Space Trilogy and The Chronicles of Narnia.

Publication history

• 1945, UK, The Bodley Head, N/A, Pub date ? December 1945, hardback (first edition)
• 1946, USA Macmillan Publishing Co. New York, NY
• 1996, USA Scribner Classics
• 1996, USA, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-684-83367-0, pub date 28 October 1996, hardback
• 1996, USA, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 0-684-82385-3, pub date 1 June 1996, paperback

• 1946 Paperback edition abridged by the author published in the USA under the title The Tortured Planet by MacMillan and under its original title in Britain by PAN books.

External links

• Notes on Quotations & Allusions in That Hideous Strength
• That Hideous Strength title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database