Just as Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra differed so dramatically from each other, That Hideous Strength differs from the first two books in the trilogy. The third book in the series is described as a “modern day fairy tale.” Instead of centering around Dr. Ransom, the protagonist of the first two books, the main characters of this story involve the young couple Jane and Mark Studdock. Mark is a professor who spends a large amount of time at his university leaving a lonely Jane at home wondering if marriage was the right idea.
The book starts out as more of political intrigue story involving an “inner circle” of professors and their interactions with a secret society called the N.I.C.E. (National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments) which is soon revealed to be a covert organization seeking to build a modern-day Tower of Babel and exert it’s control over humankind and even achieve immortality. The story slowly builds as Mark becomes more and more entangled in intrigue and deceit within the society and his wife Jane becomes associated with a secret group of friends opposing the N.I.C.E. when they learn of her ability to see the future in her dreams.
From here the story wanders into mythic territory when we learn that Ransom is the Pendragon (and also the Fisher King?) and he becomes associated with Merlin, who has returned to England. Lewis seems to try to tie together every myth, alluding to Atlantis, Greek gods (by way of his elidil from Mars and Venus from previous books), and even the Numinor from Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t delve into too much depth about how all the myths tie together and the reader (me) is sometimes left scratching their head wondering what this all has to do with the story. Lewis also uses the opportunity to take dead-aim at academia and present the “worst-case scenario” of an elitist intelligencia that has no regard for ethics or morals. Lewis attacks the moral relativism, athiesm, and a careless regard for human life found in the college leadership and the N.I.C.E. and while it seems almost prophetic to the current liberal-arts enivronment on campuses world-wide, I’m not sure it could ever be as severe as Lewis portrays.
The second half of the book moves quickly and becomes an action filled page-turner as the works of the N.I.C.E. begin to turn on themselves and unravel. Here, more than anywhere else in the story, the term “fairy-tale” becomes applicable. I’m not sure what to make of That Hideous Strength in light of how it fits into the other books. While Mark and Jane are characters that the reader can identify and empathize with, it’s difficult sometimes to feel for the one-sided villians of the story. Even the character of Dr. Ransom, a person who gripped the reader’s attention through the first two books, seems distant and even his ultimate conclusion seemed almost anti-climatic to me.
As always, Lewis’ criticisms of contemporary philosophy is enjoyable, but is not dealt with nearly as much depth as some of his better works. The books seemed a trilogy only very loosely and instead seem almost three different stories using common characters and a common mythology. While the story itself comes to a satisfying conclusion, the trilogy itself seems to leave a lot left to be discovered. I enjoyed the book, but I was left wondering “why end the series this way?” and I was left with lots of unanswered questions about the mythology Lewis composed in the three books.