That Hideous Strength
| That Hideous Strength | |
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 First edition cover |
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| Author(s) | C. S. Lewis |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Space Trilogy |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel, dystopia[1] |
| 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 (a.k.a. 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 the 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."[2]
In the foreword, Lewis states that the novel's point is the same as that in his non-fiction work The Abolition of Man.
The 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.[3]
Plot summary
Young academic Mark Studdock has just risen to the position of Senior Fellow in sociology at Bracton College in the University of Edgestow, just when it is engaged in selling off a portion of its land, Bragdon Wood, to a new scientific Institute the NICE (National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments) whose personnel already includes staff of the college. The sale is agreed to but the college Warden wants to back out of the deal. The sub-warden, Curry, Mark Studdock and some NICE insiders have a dinner together to decide how to keep the deal alive. Curry is proud of having brought the NICE to Edgestow believing it to mark the beginning of the "really scientific era". There is discussion of Mark being employed as a sociologist at the NICE, initiated by Lord Feverstone.
Meanwhile Mark's wife, Jane, another scholar, has been having peculiar nightmares that trouble her, one in particular involving a severed head. She meets the wife of an old tutor from her recent grad student days, Mrs. Dimble, who is being evicted from her property due to sale of land to the NICE. When Jane talks about her dreams, Dimble leads her to seek counsel with a Miss Ironwood who lives in a mansion in the nearby town of St. Anne's.
Mark spends an evening getting acquainted with the top brass at the NICE at their current headquarters in Belbury. He has great difficulty trying to figure out the exact nature of the job they want him to do. The lines of authority seem poorly defined, while at the same time the NICE is convinced the future of the human race depends on their success. Mark meets a scientist named Bill Hingest who is both with Bracton College and the NICE but is resigning the latter and warns Mark to get out as soon as possible.
At the same time, Jane finally works up the courage to visit Miss Ironwood at St. Anne's. She is greeted by Camilla Denniston, the spouse of the man who almost got Mark's appointment instead of him. She says they have been expecting Jane at St. Anne's. She leads her through the large house to meet Miss Ironwood. She is dressed just as Jane had dreamed of her. She is convinced that Jane's dreams are visions of genuine events. When Jane returns, she discovers that her maid, Ivy Maggs, has also been evicted from her dwelling by the NICE, and has gone to live at the Manor at St. Anne's with the Dimbles.
Mark is given the task of writing propaganda to support NICE's plan for the demolition of a scenic village called Cure Hardy so that a river can be diverted through its original location. This will be rationalized by presenting natural settings as unsanitary and by a philosophy of "liquidation of anachronisms" such as the "backward labourer" or the "wastefully supported pauper". Mark journeys to Cure Hardy to write the report that will justify the demolition. During this time, he discovers that the man who resigned from the NICE. Hingest, has been mysteriously murdered shortly after departing the headquarters.
The next morning he returns to NICE determined to find out the exact nature of his work and to whom he is supposed to be reporting. His official boss, Steele, seems to have no idea what is going on. Mark demands to see the Deputy Director but is put off. He runs into the head of the NICE's private police force, a mannish woman named Fairy Hardcastle, who insists he must not worry about this sort of thing, and that the NICE is not run along conventional bureaucratic lines. In a later interview with the Deputy Director, John Wither, he is told that "elasticity" is the cornerstone of the Institute, and that they have no watertight compartments.
Fog comes in on the towns of Edgestow and Belbury while there is an increase in violent incidents in the town, many apparently engineered by the NICE.
Jane develops further personal ties to the group in the mansion at St. Anne's. She is introduced to Dr. Elwin Ransom who is the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis' space trilogy. He has previously traveled to Mars and Venus, both of which are unaffected by the Biblical Fall of Man. He is now the legitimate king or Pendragon of the nation of Logres, the legitimate heir of King Arthur. Also living at St. Anne's is a Mr. MacPhee who is politely skeptical of Ransom's claims.
At Belbury Mark has a conversation with the Italian physiologist Dr. Filostrato. He admires the "purity" of the moon given that it has no organic life. He declares that underground is a race that has almost broken free of the organic, free of Nature. Mark is then introduced to the "Head" of the NICE. They have preserved the head of a recently executed scientist and restored the head to life with artificial scientific devices, where blood and air are pumped through it. It becomes clear that the NICE is engineering the creation of a new species relatively free of the organic.
Meanwhile the NICE police have completely taken over the entire town of Edgestow, and have attempted to arrest Jane.
Jane tells the group at St. Anne's that she has had dreams of a place in which the NICE have been digging up the grave of a long-buried man. Believing they know the actual place, the company of St. Anne's travel there. They believe the NICE is looking for the body of the magician Merlin, who was buried but not actually dead. It is revealed that the NICE are mainly interested in Jane, for her psychic abilities, and are afraid of her getting into the wrong hands. Mark, now trying to leave the NICE, is arrested in Edgestow on trumped-up charges of the murder of Bill Hingest, and is brought back to NICE headquarters at Belbury, though he does not originally realize that is where he is. When he does, it becomes clear to him the NICE killed Hingest as well.
On a stormy night, both the company of St. Anne's and Belbury 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 gotten hold of a wild horse. He meets the company of St. Anne's, but rides away. Members of the NICE locate the tramp and mistakenly believe him to be Merlin.
Merlin arrives at St. Anne's on his own. Ransom reveals that there are Satanic forces behind the NICE. He further reveals that Merlin is to be possessed by the angelic powers called eldils that guide each of the planets of the solar system. Until now Earth had been under a quarantine with a rule that the dark demonic forces that govern Earth could not travel beyond the orbit of the moon, and the angelic powers ruling the rest of the solar system could not come to Earth. However, since the forces of darkness broke the lunar barrier in the events of the earlier books, it is now possible for the good angelic forces to come to Earth.
At St. Anne's, Jane Studdock has two very powerful mystical experiences, the first with the earth-bound counterpart of the ruling angel of Venus, and the second with God. This occurs at the same time that Mark at NICE is being initiated by Professor Frost into a dark ritual meant to cultivate absolute objectivity by killing human emotion relegated to the status of a mere "chemical phenomenon".
The angelic spirits that possess Merlin are guardians of each of the planets of the solar system and correspond to some gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. Merlin then disguises himself as a Basque priest and answers an advertisement put out by the NICE as an interpreter of ancient languages. Later, he is brought to interview the tramp who the NICE still believe may be the real Merlin. Both Merlin and the tramp are brought to attend a celebratory dinner put on by the NICE in honor of the public head of NICE, a science popularizer named Horace Jules. At that dinner, Merlin pronounces upon them the same curse that was placed on the Tower of Babel, causing all present to speak unintelligible gibberish. There are also massive earthquakes which ruin the building as well as much of the town of Edgestow, and cause the deaths of most of the NICE personnel and the liberation of many caged animals upon whom they were conducting experiments. Many of the animals make their way back to St. Anne's. The angel of Venus now lingers as Ransom is now meant to be transported back to that planet, known to the rest of the solar system as Perelandra. The presence of Venus puts many of the animals who are there into an amorous mood. Mark has now arrived on his own at St. Anne's and sees a vision of Venus who leads him into a new bridal chamber that Jane has been preparing for him. The couple are re-united.
Context in Space Trilogy
Elwin Ransom, introduced in this story in Chapter 7, is the main 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 the now-deceased 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)[4] according to which each of the planets of the solar system has a guiding angelic spirit that rules over it. This mythos is re-introduced slowly and gradually in this story whose main 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 the social environment to which he has been granted preliminary admittance.
- Jane Tudor Studdock— Protagonist; Mark's wife. Jane is supposedly a research student 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."), 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 is a case in point of 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", the fallen eldila.
- John Wither — Long-winded bureaucrat and "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-term association with the Macrobes has "withered" his mind, and his speech and thinking are characterized by vagueness and jargon. He does not engage in a normal sleep cycle, but 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 pleasure in abusing female prisoners. It is clearly implied that she is a sadomasochistic lesbian.
- Dr. Filostrato — An obese Italian eunuch physiologist, who has seemingly preserved Alcasan's head. He does not understand the Head's nature and believes it 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' real teaching was justice here and now. Emphasis on an afterlife has, he thinks, emasculated and sidetracked the real meaning of Jesus' 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 novelist, tabloid reporter, cockney, and pseudo-scientific journalist who has been appointed the nominal Director of the N.I.C.E. He once studied science at the University of London, but clearly never advanced beyond an elementary level. He fondly imagines himself to be the de facto leader of the N.I.C.E., but as he is not even 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.[5] Wells's "The Shape of Things to Come" has a future world government which systematically persecutes Christianity (and all other religions), presented as a positive activity.
St. Anne's
- Dr. Elwin Ransom (a.k.a. "The Pendragon", "Mr. Fisher King" 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). Ransom's heavenly experiences have made him a kingly figure among his small band of followers, and 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 (literally "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 particular fondness towards Cecil's female students.
- Ivy Maggs — Formerly a part-time domestic servant 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 eldila. 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" (i.e. 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.
- 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, described as being very tall and beautiful. She is the first person Jane meets when visiting St. Anne's for the first time.
Reception
Some two years before writing his own 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".[6] It is noteworthy that the review was written in the direct aftermath of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which are referred to in the text.
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. organization 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.[7]
- 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.
- 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 by C. S. Lewis.
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.
References
- ^ Tom Moylan, Raffaella Baccolini (2003). Dark horizons: science fiction and the dystopian imagination. Taylor and Francis Books. ISBN 0-415-96613-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=8N51QpEDEfoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
- ^ That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups, C. S. Lewis, Simon and Schuster, 1996, ISBN 0-684-83367-0, ISBN 978-0-684-83367-5, 384 pages, pp. 7-8
- ^ Lyndsay's Middle Scots usage of strength was in the now archaic meaning of "fortress, stronghold", see also OED s.v. strength, n.: "10.a. A stronghold, fastness, fortress. Now arch. or Hist., chiefly with reference to Scotland."
- ^ The origins of Lewis's mythology are most thoroughly explored in the book Planet Narnia by Michael Ward although this work is mainly concerned with the Narnia series. Many readers of Lewis's nonfiction study of Elizabethan cosmology The Discarded Image have inferred that this is the source of much of the mythos of the space trilogy.
- ^ echoesacrosstime.blogspot.com gives a very detailed analysis of this.
- ^ "The Scientist Takes Over", review of C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (1945) by George Orwell, Manchester Evening News, 16 August 1945, reprinted as No. 2720 (first half) in The Complete Works of George Orwell, edited by Peter Davison, Vol. XVII (1998), pp. 250–251.
- ^ The passage in 2007 book is an expansion of Dyson's 2002 review of John Polkinghorne's The God of Hope and the End of the World (Yale University Press, 2002), which mentions Lewis but not this book or its N.I.C.E. organization.
External links
- Notes on Quotations & Allusions in That Hideous Strength
- That Hideous Strength publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
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