That Hideous Strength

That Hideous Strength

First edition cover
Author	C. S. Lewis
Language	English
Series	Space Trilogy
Genre	Science fiction novel, dystopia
Publisher	The Bodley Head
Publication date	1945
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (Hardback and Paperback)
Pages	384 pp
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 elsewhere in the solar system. The story involves an ostensibly 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 1943 non-fiction work The Abolition of Man, which argues that there are natural laws and objective values that 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 book, written during the final period of World War II, takes place at an undetermined year "after the end of the war".

Mark Studdock is a young academic who has just become a Senior Fellow in sociology at Bracton College in the University of Edgestow. The fellows of Bracton are debating the sale of a portion of college land to the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), whose staff already includes some college faculty. The sale is controversial since the land in question (Bragdon Wood) is an ancient woodland believed to be the resting place of Merlin. After the deal is struck, a N.I.C.E. insider called Lord Feverstone proposes a possible post for Mark at the Institute. (It is gradually revealed that Feverstone is the new title of Richard Devine, who accompanied Professor Weston on the trip to Mars in Out of the Silent Planet, but not on the trip to Venus in Perelandra.)

Mark's wife Jane (a PhD student at the university) has suffered a peculiar nightmare involving a severed head. She meets Mrs. Dimble, the wife of one of her former tutors, who is being evicted due to sale of land to the N.I.C.E. When Jane talks about her dreams, Mrs. Dimble leads her to seek counsel from 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.

Lord Feverstone introduces Mark to the N.I.C.E., where he becomes acquainted with the top brass at their headquarters at Belbury, near Edgestow. Mark can never find out what his place in the organisation is; he has no office, is given no duties for some time, and seems to be alternately in and out of favour. A scientist named Bill Hingest, who is resigning from the N.I.C.E., warns Mark to get out. That night, Hingest is mysteriously murdered.

At the same time, Jane works up the courage to visit Miss Ironwood at St. Anne's. Miss Ironwood, who is dressed in black just as Jane had dreamed of her, is convinced that Jane's dreams are visions of genuine events. Later, Jane is introduced to Dr. Elwin Ransom, the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis's space trilogy. He has become the Pendragon or heir of King Arthur, the ruler of the nation of Logres, which is described as the good side of Britain. More mundanely, he is the Director of the group living in the Manor at St. Anne's. He is in communication with the Oyéresu (singular "Oyarsa"), angelic beings who guide the planets of the Solar System. Earth has been in quarantine: its rebellious Oyarsa (who is the Devil) and his demons could not travel beyond the orbit of the Moon, and the other Oyéresu could not come to Earth.

Mark is finally given work: to write pseudonymous newspaper articles supporting the N.I.C.E., including two for use after a riot they intend to provoke in Edgestow. The riot takes place as planned, allowing the N.I.C.E.'s private police force to take over the town. 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. police, a woman known as "Fairy" Hardcastle, starts to torture Jane but is forced to release her when rioters turn in her direction.

Mark is once again out of favour in the N.I.C.E., but after a conversation with an Italian scientist named Filostrato he is introduced to the Head of the Institute. This turns out to be a literal head – that of a recently guillotined French scientist (as Jane dreamed) which Filostrato erroneously believes he has restored to life by his own efforts.

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 Merlin, who truly is buried in Bragdon Wood, though not dead but in a timeless state. Jane will guide members of the group to the place she dreamed of.

The N.I.C.E. bosses now try to strengthen their hold over Mark by showing him trumped-up evidence that he murdered Bill Hingest. This backfires, as the crisis finally gives Mark the courage to leave Belbury. He returns to Edgestow in search of Jane only to find their apartment empty and the town under N.I.C.E. control. Later he meets Cecil Dimble, one of the St. Anne's community, who despite his misgivings offers to help him. Mark deliberates too long over Dimble's proposal and he is found and arrested for Hingest's murder.

That night, during a heavy 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 acquired 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.

Mark, while contemplating his upcoming trial and execution, discovers that he has not been arrested by the real police but by officials of the N.I.C.E. who (he now guesses) are the true murderers of Hingest. To his surprise he is told that he is to be initiated into the group's inner ring. In preparation for this he begins a bizarre program of training intended to cultivate absolute objectivity by relegating emotion to the status of a chemical phenomenon. He outwardly participates in these rituals (knowing that he will otherwise be killed) but inwardly begins to reject everything the N.I.C.E. stands for.

Merlin arrives at St. Anne's ahead of his pursuers, where he and Ransom converse in Latin. Ransom reveals that there are Satanic forces behind the N.I.C.E. and that Merlin is to be possessed by the Oyéresu; since the forces of darkness broke the lunar barrier in the earlier books, the heavenly beings may also cross the barrier and intervene in human affairs.

Jane has two mystical experiences; the first with the earth-bound counterpart of the Oyarsa of Venus, and the second with God. After discussions with Mrs. Dimble and the Director, she becomes a Christian.

Merlin, now possessed by the Oyéresu, disguises himself as a Basque priest and answers the N.I.C.E.'s advertisement for an interpreter of ancient languages. He hypnotises and interviews the tramp (who the N.I.C.E. still believe may be the real Merlin) and the two of them are brought to a banquet. There Merlin pronounces the curse of Babel upon the assembled N.I.C.E. leaders, causing all present to speak gibberish, and also liberates the many animals on which the N.I.C.E. were experimenting. The bigger animals kill most of the N.I.C.E. staff.

As earthquakes destroy the building, Lord Feverstone flees to Edgestow but is killed when that too is engulfed. Merlin helps Mark escape and sends him to St. Anne's. The Oyarsa of Venus lingers at the Manor, as Ransom is now to be transported back to that planet. When Mark arrives, 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 in the mistaken belief that the Martians required a sacrifice. When Feverstone speaks in That Hideous Strength of Weston having been murdered by "the opposition", he is speaking of Ransom having killed Weston (who had become possessed by a devil) on Venus as described in Perelandra. The first two books fully explicate Lewis's mythology (based on a combination of the Bible and medieval astrology) according to which each planet of the solar system is ruled by an angelic spirit. 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.

Setting

The novel is set in post-war England, in the fictional English town of Edgestow, in approximately 1948 according to the internal timeline of 'The Cosmic Trilogy'. The story takes place inside the University of Edgestow, within the nearby town, at the new N.I.C.E. headquarters and at St. Anne's Manor.

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 PhD 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 clairvoyant.

N.I.C.E.

The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.) is a scientific and social planning agency, furtively pursuing 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 characterised by vagueness and jargon. He hardly ever sleeps, but instead maintains a continual dreamy wakefulness that perhaps affords him the ability to maintain a shadowy, supernatural presence throughout the Institute. In the final destruction, "he understood what was happening...better than anyone else.... Therefore he knew that everything was lost. It is incredible how little this knowledge moved him...because he had long ceased to believe in knowledge itself.... He had willed with his whole heart that there should be no reality and no truth, and now even the imminence of his own ruin could not wake him."
• 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, cigar-chewing 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, though it's really controlled by the "Macrobes". 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 shrewd sociopath, he focuses in all circumstances on gaining wealth, comfort, and influence. "He had also a perfectly clear conscience.... He had never slandered another man except to get his job, never cheated except because he wanted money, never really disliked people unless they bored him." Although he is aware of the Macrobes, having encountered their benign counterparts on Mars, he has no interest in them. Always ready to betray his confederates, "he knew that the Belbury scheme might not work, but he...had a dozen lines of retreat kept open." In the final destruction, "His nerves were excellent.... He stood [in hiding] during the whole massacre,...something like a smile on his face.... When it was all over he said to himself, 'Well, I’m damned!' It had certainly been a most extraordinary show."
• 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 and other beliefs make 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 is merely a figurehead. As he is unaware of the organization's 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.
• William (Bill) Hingest – A distinguished chemist who is recruited by the N.I.C.E. but soon decides to resign, since he had expected N.I.C.E. to be about science, but finds a nefarious political conspiracy instead. He makes no secret of his disdain for the Institute, which leads to his murder by N.I.C.E. agents.
• 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.

St. Anne's

Mr Bultitude the bear plays an important role in the story's climax

• 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 until 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, sceptic 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 sceptical. 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 sceptical, 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.

Critical analysis

Themes

A significant element (Lewis rated it as "second in importance") is to illustrate the destructive folly of desiring to gain the power and prestige of belonging to a ruling clique or inner circle. In chapter 12 Ransom makes a passing reference to Owen Barfield's "ancient unities" when discussing the feelings of the bear "Mr Bultitude". On a lighter note, MacPhee, a resident of St Anne's Manor, expounds in Chapter 8 on the impossibility of men and women collaborating on housework, since "women speak a language without nouns".

Philosophy

Somewhat like the early Gnostics, the main antagonists of That Hideous Strength despise the human body and all organic life as frail, corrupted, and unworthy of pure mind. Like modern transhumanists, they believe that humanity can be perfected by migrating out of flesh and blood.

Lewis portrays the consequences of these ideas as a dystopian nightmare: by rejecting God and His creation, the N.I.C.E inevitably fall under the dominion of demons (whom they imagine to have discovered under the guise of "macrobes"). Lewis had hinted at such themes before in The Screwtape Letters, in which the senior demon Screwtape tells his nephew that their goal is "to emotionalise and mythologise their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, a belief in [demons] (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in [God]. [...] If once we can produce our perfect work—the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls 'Forces' while denying the existence of 'spirits'—then the end of the war will be in sight." Lewis's attack is not on science as such, or scientific planning, but rather the kind of totalitarian planned society idealised by Nazism and Bolshevism: "the disciplined cruelty of some ideological oligarchy."

In contrast, Lewis portrays reality as supporting Christian tenets such as the inherent sinfulness of humanity, the impossibility of humans perfecting themselves apart from God, the essential goodness of the physical body (though currently corrupted by sin), the omnipotence of God against the limited powers of evil, and the existence of angels and demons. Within this Christian framework, Lewis incorporates elements of the Arthurian legend as well as Roman mythological figures. In this way, Lewis integrates Christian, Roman, and British mythological symbolism, true to his identity as a British Christian student of antiquity.

Development

Lewis started writing That Hideous Strength during World War Two, finishing the first draft in 1943. During the War, Lewis taught at Oxford University and among other writing projects worked on the last two books of his "Space Trilogy"–Perelandra (1943) and That Hideous Strength.

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." However, Orwell still maintained that the book was "worth reading".

Leonard Bacon, reviewing That Hideous Strength, described the book as "a ghastly but in many places a magnificent nightmare". He criticised the character of Studdock as uninteresting, noting that "it is hard to get excited about the vagaries of a young, insecure and ambitious academic figure whose main concern is to get into an inner circle, any inner circle", but praised the plotting of the book: "The hunt of Ransom's remnant for the real Merlin while the villains capture the false one is as vivid as a passage in Stevenson." Although Bacon regarded the book as somewhat inferior to its two predecessors, he concluded: "This is just the sort of thing that pleases Mr. Lewis's admirers. And they are right to admire him. Win, lose or draw—and the reviewer doesn't think that this book is wholly victorious—Mr. Lewis adds energy to systems he comes in contact with."

Floyd C. Gale wrote that the book "bears the authentic stamp of its creator's awesome imagination".

J. B. S. Haldane published two essays attacking Lewis's negative views on science and progress, as he saw them; the first was entitled "Auld Hornie, F.R.S.". Lewis's response remained unpublished in his lifetime.

Alister McGrath says the novel "shows [C. S. Lewis] to have been a prophetic voice, offering a radical challenge to the accepted social wisdom of his own generation".

Publication history

Lewis made minor alterations between the first British and American editions. For example, some of the Latin is corrected, and a scene where Merlin hides in the hedgerow was removed by Lewis.

• 1945 (December), UK, The Bodley Head, hardback (first edition)
• 1946, US, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York City
• 1946 Paperback edition, abridged by the author, published in the United States under the title The Tortured Planet by Macmillan and under its original title in Britain by PAN books
• 1996, US, Scribner Classics
• 1996 (1 June), US, Simon & Schuster, paperback, ISBN 0-684-82385-3
• 1996 (28 October), US, Simon & Schuster, hardback, ISBN 0-684-83367-0
• 2012 (April), US, HarperCollins, e-book, ISBN 9780062196941

External links

• That Hideous Strength at Faded Page (Canada)
• Notes on Quotations & Allusions in That Hideous Strength
• That Hideous Strength title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database