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That hideous strength

a modern fairy-tale for grown-ups

First published 1987 · 544 pages

A slow-burn collision of mundane bureaucratic evil and ancient Arthurian magic set against the backdrop of a sleepy English university town.

What it feels like

Reading this novel feels like watching a quiet, foggy English morning slowly give way to an apocalyptic storm. It begins as a dry, biting satire of academic politics and the petty ambitions of university life, but a sense of creeping dread soon infects the narrative as sterile, technocratic evil takes root. The atmosphere is a striking contrast between the cold, bureaucratic nightmare of the institutional antagonists and the warm, fire-lit domesticity of the resistance. The prose is erudite and philosophically dense, demanding patience as it weaves theological allegory with Arthurian mythos. It will deeply satisfy readers who love mid-century dystopian fiction and do not mind a steady, deliberate build toward a chaotic, mythic, and awe-inspiring climax.

Mood
  • creeping dread
  • mythic
  • eerie
  • cozy-yet-threatened
Tone
  • satirical
  • philosophical
  • ominous
  • earnest
  • allegorical
Pace
steady
Themes
the banality of evil · spiritual warfare · nature versus technocracy · corruption of academia · myth breaking into reality
The writing
Erudite and philosophically dense, seamlessly shifting from dry, biting social satire to soaring, apocalyptic lyricism.
The arc
Begins in the mundane frustrations of academic politics and marriage, descending into bureaucratic terror before culminating in a chaotic, awe-inspiring clash of mythic forces.
Who it's for
Fans of mid-century British literature who enjoy their dystopian sci-fi steeped in Arthurian legend, theological allegory, and sharp academic critique.
Content notes
  • animal cruelty
  • violence
  • dated gender roles

About the book

2. That hideous strength: a modern fairy-tale for grown-ups Add to My List by Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples), 1898-1963.... That hideous strength: a modern fairy-tale for grown-ups / C.S. Lewis....

Publisher, Date: New York: Scribner Classics, 1996.

Contributor biographical information Description: 380 p.; 25 cm.

Local Availability 0 (of 1) System Availability 0 (of 1)

Call Number: F Lew 1996

Summary Table of Contents Large Cover Image Book Discussion Guides More titles like this More authors like this Librarian's View Edition: 1st Scribner Classics ed. ISBN: 0684833670 System Availability: 1 Current Holds: 0 Availability Full Display Place Request Hide Details Summary Written during the dark hours immediately before and during the Second World War, C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, of whichThat Hideous Strengthis the third volume, stands alongside such works as Albert Camus'sThe Plagueand George Orwell's1984as a timely parable that has become timeless, beloved by succeeding generations as much for the sheer wonder of its storytelling as for the significance of its moral concerns. For the trilogy's central figure, C. S. Lewis created perhaps the most memorable character of his career, the brilliant, clear-eyed, and fiercely brave philologist Dr. Elwin Ransom. Appropriately, Lewis modeled Dr. Ransom on his dear friend J. R. R. Tolkien, for in the scope of its imaginative achievement and the totality of its vision of not one but two imaginary worlds, the Space Trilogy is rivaled in this century only by Tolkien's trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Readers who fall in love with Lewis's fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia as children unfailingly cherish his Space Trilogy as adults; it, too, brings to life strange and magical realms in which epic battles are fought between the forces of light and those of darkness. But in the many layers of its allegory, and the sophistication and piercing brilliance of its insights into the human condition, it occupies a place among the English language's most extraordinary works for any age, and for all time.InThat Hideous Strength,the final installment of the Space Trilogy, the dark forces that have been repulsed inOut of the Silent PlanetandPerelandraare massed for an assault on the planet Earth itself. Word is on the wind that the mighty wizard Merlin has come back to the land of the living after many centuries, holding the key to ultimate power for the force that can find him and bend him to its will. A sinister technocratic organization that is gaining force throughout England, N.I.C.E. (the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments), secretly controlled by humanity's mortal enemies, plans to use Merlin in their plot to "recondition" society. Dr. Ransom forms a countervailing group, Logres, in opposition, and the two groups struggle to a climactic resolution that brings the Space Trilogy to a magnificent, crashing close.

Description from Open Library.

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