That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

(Book Review)

This is the 3rd and final book in Lewis’s space trilogy. However it differs a lot from the previous books both in terms of tone and plot.

This book is often referred to as C.S. Lewis’s “worst and most enjoyable book”. It is made up of several different diverse elements. Whether they all come together succinctly as a whole may be questioned, but there’s no lack of material here to keep your interest while reading it. Consider all the different themes and plot elements in this book:

* The conclusion of the “Space Trilogy” and the fates of the characters left over from the first two books.

* More spiritual warfare

* The resurrection of Merlin, and a tie-in with the legend of King Arthur

* References to the fall of Numinor and a tie in to the Middle Earth of JRR Tolkien

* a dystopian police state future society, which is rumored to have influenced George Orwell’s writing “1984". This book was published in 1945 just a few years before “1984", and George Orwell gave it a (mostly) favorable review in “The Manchester Evening News”. (Read George Orwell’s review of this book here.)

* Similar to the animal characters in the “Narnia” series, intelligent animals play a large part in this book, in particular a bear named “Mr. Bultitude”.

* Leather clad female police squads with a tendency towards sadism

* And a bit (perhaps more than a bit actually) of the horror genre thrown in at the conclusion.

So you see what I mean. If you’ve not read this book yet, I reckon there’s at least one element above that might tempt you into checking it out.

I don’t agree with Lewis’s politics across the board (we’ll get to more of that below), but I do think that, unfortunately, we are once again living in a time when his and Orwell’s warnings about torture and police states are becoming relevant.

For instance, in “That Hideous Strength” one of the characters writes an editorial defending the police actions which reads in part, “I’ve one bit of advice. If you hear anyone backbiting the police, tell him where he gets off. If you hear anyone comparing them to the Gestapo or the Ogpu, tell him you’ve heard that one before. If you hear anyone talking about the liberties of England...watch that man. He’s the enemy.”

To my ear, this sounds remarkably like John Ashcroft’s famous comments: “To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.”

Also, as in “1984" and “It Can’t Happen Here”, torture plays an important part in Lewis’s dystopian society, and a lot of the problems associated with torture are examined. From a practical point as well as an ethical point. The characters discuss the problems of the reliability of information obtained from torture, and what happens when the victim legitimately has nothing to confess. Lewis also shows how quickly torture can devolve from dispassionate government policy to pure sadism.
“You won’t find anyone can do a job like mine well unless they get some kick out of it,” the chief torturer asserts at one point. All of this is of course relevant to our current national debate.

(Side note: do you ever have one of those moments of clarity where you wake up and say to yourself: “I can’t believe we’re actually debating this. How did we as a nation get to the point where we are even discussing torture as an option?”)

Other points of Lewis’s philosophy I’m less enthusiastic about. Parts of this book read like a polemic against feminism. I’m beginning to think I was too lenient to Lewis in my review of “Perelandra”. There’s even a speech in this book on the importance of obedience and submission in marriage.

As for the actual story itself:
Although this is part of Lewis’s “Space Trilogy”, all the action in this final book takes place on earth. And, although there are references to events in the previous two books, this is a fairly self contained story, and can be read on its own if you want to skip the first two books, and jump into the meat of the trilogy. (For my money, this book was the most interesting of the 3, although there are a number of people who like “Perelandra” the best because of the imaginative imagery Lewis uses in creating the Paradise water planet.)

I mentioned that “Out of the Silent Planet” was very narrative driven, and that was true. This book is written in a much different style though, and is dialogue driven. Which I think makes for much more interesting story. The quips the characters make to each other also allows for C.S. Lewis’s wit and humor to shine through in this book a lot more.
Also more dialogue means more opportunities for Lewis’s characters to use colorful language. I really wish I had known about these books back when I was going through the Christian school system.

The big problem plot wise is the problem with most religious literature: the climax is spoiled by divine intervention. This may work as theology, but it is problematic in novels. I noticed around 4th or 5th grade that most of the stories in the “adventure magazines” I got from my Sunday School classes always relied not on the characters struggling through, but on direct or indirect divine intervention in the final act. I have since then done my best to avoid religious literature like the plague.

C.S. Lewis is a more talented writer than most Christian novelists, and so the enjoyment of reading his prose somewhat makes up for this, but this kind of “deus ex machina” type ending is a real problem. (If you read the review by George Orwell linked above, you’ll notice he also cites this as his main criticism, but I’ll have you know I thought of it independently.)

Of course this isn’t always unique to Christian literature. You’ll notice I had the same criticism of Stephen King’s “The Stand”.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
"More Cowbell" is a line from an April 8, 2000 Saturday Night Live comedy sketch about the recording of the song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult. The sketch featured guest host Christopher Walken as music producer Bruce Dickinson and Will Ferrell as fictional cowbell player Gene Frenkle. The line itself has grown into a pop culture catch phrase.

Link of the Day
More Tom Tomorrow
But were we right enough?
There’s a very silly debate going on in the blogosphere right now about whether those of us who opposed the war from the start deserve credit for our prescience if, in many cases, we did not predict every single thing that would go wrong in exactly the precise order it would do so. (You can catch up on this, if you care, by reading this from Tbogg and this from Atrios.)
Well, two things. First: Lord knows, I’ve been wrong often enough in my life and in my work, but at the risk of straining a muscle as I pat myself on the back, let me direct you for the umpteenth time to this cartoon from April of 2003, which predicted the next four years with the sort of eerie accuracy that Nostradamus could only have envied.
I will pause as the shivers run up and down your spine.
Okay then. Clearing throat, moving along: it’s also worth directing your attention to Roy Edroso, who responds to the silliness rather definitively, here.
(Read the rest of the post here)

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis: Book Review (Scripted)

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

(Book Review)

Continuing on through Lewis’s “Space Trilogy”, this is now the second book in the series.

As Phil points out, this book is in many ways superior to its predecessor “Out of the Silent Planet”. The first book didn’t really have much of a plot other than “Man travels to new planet and encounters many strange things.” In this book, now that the set-up has been established, the story line starts to pick up a little. It does take place on a completely different planet, but many of the characters are the same: the unlikely hero Dr. Ransom, the evil Dr. Weston, and C.S. Lewis himself, who continues the conceit he established in the first book of writing himself as a minor character into his own series.

The religious themes are also a lot stronger in this book. In the previous book, only slight references are made to God or Dr. Ransom’s religious faith. The Christian overtones were there, but it was possible to ignore them and still enjoy the book, just like the Narnia Chronicles. This book, on the other hand, is very blatantly and very explicitly about spiritual warfare on another planet.

If you go into any Christian bookstore, there is a lot of Christian fiction dealing with spiritual warfare. Most of it absolute crap. (I had to read “This Present Darkness” by Frank Peretti in high school, and absolutely hated it. Also reference the “Left Behind” Series). I think spiritual warfare might be to Christian writing what sex scenes are to secular books: it’s something everyone wants to write about, but almost no one can do well.

Lewis seems to be one of the few who can do it well. Partly by keeping it simple. (There’s only one demon to keep track of here, as opposed to a whole hierarchy as in Peretti’s book). But also because Lewis has pioneered his own genre which might be labeled “Theological Science Fiction”. Lewis takes well known parts of the Christian doctrine, and uses the medium of Science Fiction to play the “what if” game with them.

In the previous book, Lewis explored a world and civilization which predated the creation and fall of man. This time it is the opposite. The world of Perelandra is younger than Earth, and asks the question: if God created again after the fall on Earth, how would his new creation be different? In this new world the story of the Garden of Eden and the temptation is reenacted, but in a different setting and with different results.

I didn’t agree with everything in this book, but I found it possible to look over what I disagreed with and still enjoy the book. In particular, Lewis has gotten a lot of criticism for his portrayal of gender roles in this book. At various points he seems to implying that God has assigned women the role of housekeeper and child bearer, and the temptation to expand from these roles is the Devil’s handiwork. But all of this is very slight, and I suspect that it wouldn’t be such a big deal if Lewis wasn’t already under fire for his portrayal of women in his other books. It's about what I expected from a book written in the 1940s. I’m sure it would be different if it were written today.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
The lecture by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that inspired "Mother Nature's Son" also inspired John Lennon's unreleased song "Child of Nature," the tune of which he later re-used to completely different effect in "Jealous Guy."

Link of the Day (slash mini-rant)
U.S. first ladies to be honored on coins: Not to be outdone by their husbands, the first ladies are getting their chance to shine on the nation's coins. Starting next year, Martha Washington, Abigail Adams and all the rest will begin appearing on a new series of gold coins.
It will be the first time in history that the U.S. Mint has produced a series featuring women.

Does anyone else think this is the lamest idea ever? The US mint wants to create some diversity, and the best idea they can think of is a series of women famous for being good wives to the Presidents?
And what is this obsession with the President's and their family? Are they our royal family? Are we going to have a mint next with the daughters of Presidents? Personally I like the idea of Japan and other countries which have artist and authors on their currency instead of politicians. Elected officials? Okay, I can live with that. The wives of elected officials? Come on!
The sad thing is, if the US mint wanted to do a series of women, there is no shortage of brave women activists in US history. I guess some of them might have been controversial, but you can't tell me anyone is rushing out to get the new Abigail Adams coin.

Message to the next generation of American Girls: Work hard, and you too might someday marry someone famous.

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis: Book Review (Scripted)

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

(Book Review)

Yet another book which has been on my list for a long time, I’m finally getting around to reading C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy.

Interestingly enough, C.S. Lewis begins this book by acknowledging his debt to H.G. Wells. H.G. Wells was one of my favorite science fiction authors as a child, but one does not often associate the socialist, atheist Wells with C.S. Lewis. However if nothing else the styles of both authors are very similar. In both of their writings, the voice of the narrator is very strong.

Obviously the nature of popular fiction has changed over the years. Most contemporary fiction relies heavily on dialogue and the voice of the characters to further the plot. Lewis and Wells instead rely much more on the voice of the narrator (as some of you may remember from childhood and the Narnia books). Since it was a long time since I read Narnia, I found this style a bit jarring at first, but it grew on me as I stuck with the book.

Like many children, I grew up with Lewis’s Narnia series, and only afterwards realized the religious symbolism in the books. As an adult, I catch onto it much more quickly, and there are a lot of religious themes in Lewis’s books (to state the obvious). I wouldn’t call Lewis’s religious themes subtle, but it wasn’t overbearing either. It’s definitely a lot better than the “Left Behind” series. Lewis avoids a lot of sermonizing and preaching in his books.

Instead, the philosopher theologian in Lewis explores a lot of interesting questions. Like, how do Angels talk without physical bodies? I mean how do they manipulate sound waves without a physical device?

Or, if you grew up in the church, and if you were a science fiction fan, perhaps you used to wonder, “If there is life on other planets, did they experience sin like we on earth did, or are they still in the Garden of Eden pre-fall stage. And if so, what would happen if they ever interacted with our earth?” I know I used to ask that question a lot in Sunday School. I never did get a good answer back then, but Lewis posits one possibility in this book about what might occur.

There's not much of a plot to this book. A man goes to Mars, he sees many interesting things and learns about an alien race, and he comes back. There is a certain wonder at a new world lived through the eyes of the main character, but it's nothing science fiction fans haven't already seen many times before. I'm assuming this book is mainly just the set up for the rest of the books in the trilogy. In fact in the afterward, Lewis pretty much says as much.

On a side note: Phil once said in his blog, “When I first decided I wanted to be a writer, I argued endlessly (and predictably) with my parents about what's appropriate to describe: Should characters be depicted in the act of cussing? violence? sex? Since I was raised fundamentalist I actually felt like I had to expend energy defending the position that not every character in a work of fiction needs to talk and act like a nun.”

Since I had a similar background, I thought it was interesting that Lewis used the words: "damn", "hell", "God", and "Lord" as exclamations in this book. Nothing compared to the latest rap albums I’ll grant you, but it would have been more than enough to get me disciplined at the Christian Middle school I attended.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
"Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" is a simple twelve-bar blues song, featuring a constant hammering on the piano topped by McCartney's increasingly histrionic singing. It may be an attempt by McCartney to imitate or parody John Lennon's raw, stripped-down songs such as "Yer Blues" or "Don't Let Me Down." Paul played all the instruments himself (except for the drums, performed by Ringo Starr), and recorded the song without the other Beatles. John was upset that Paul would do a song as controversial as this without him, and most likely this contributed to growing tensions within the band. It is rumored that this sparked his interest to produce Revolution 9 with Yoko.
Lennon was said to have been fond of sarcastically citing "Why Don't We Do it in the Road" as the "best song Paul ever wrote."

Link of the Day
More Japanese Music.
あの人の手紙 "The letter from that Guy". From 1972 during the new folk music revival in Japan. Check it out here. I think you'll agree it's pretty catchy. The guy on the left is actually from Oita Prefecture.

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis: Book Review (Scripted)