Christianity and beyond
I finally finished C. S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength, the final book of his "Cosmic Trilogy". My slowness in reading this was not due to lack of interest, but rather lack of time; I have become very frustrated over the last week as I was forced to read the last hundred pages in ten- and twenty-page increments during brief pauses in the general chaos.
I very highly recommend this trilogy, and especially this book -- though you really need to have read the first two to understand it. Those who are not Christians, or even not Christians of Lewis's particular variety, may well be put off by his very Christian themes. These are implicit (though obvious) in Out of the Silent Planet, but become overt to the point of annoyance (to me, at least) in Perelandra. In That Hideous Strength, Christianity itself becomes a metaphor or echo of something deeper and more profound, and that deeper source is one I can recognize and accept. In particular, there are musings on the nature of true will in this book that I will be pondering for weeks if not years. There is also the best portrayal of a transformative religious experience I have ever seen in fiction; like the ones I know about, it comes not at a moment of great crisis or great beauty, but between one step and the next, under quite ordinary circumstances. Lewis clearly knew what he was writing about.
There is a great deal of Arthurian imagery in this book (the leader of the "good" faction initially goes by the alias Mr. Fisher-King, just for example). I ran across someone's English paper from 22 years ago which discusses Arthurian themes in That Hideous Strength. Don't read it until after you read the book, as it reveals most of the plot.
I discovered that paper while doing web searches for Lewis's divine names for the planets, which I find beautiful and compelling:
Sol = Arbol
Mercury = Viritrilbia
Venus = Perelandra
Earth = Thulcandra
Mars = Malacandra
Jupiter = Glund
Saturn = Lurga
Someone should add this column to 777. I also need to find some time to work with these names, and see what turns up.
I very highly recommend this trilogy, and especially this book -- though you really need to have read the first two to understand it. Those who are not Christians, or even not Christians of Lewis's particular variety, may well be put off by his very Christian themes. These are implicit (though obvious) in Out of the Silent Planet, but become overt to the point of annoyance (to me, at least) in Perelandra. In That Hideous Strength, Christianity itself becomes a metaphor or echo of something deeper and more profound, and that deeper source is one I can recognize and accept. In particular, there are musings on the nature of true will in this book that I will be pondering for weeks if not years. There is also the best portrayal of a transformative religious experience I have ever seen in fiction; like the ones I know about, it comes not at a moment of great crisis or great beauty, but between one step and the next, under quite ordinary circumstances. Lewis clearly knew what he was writing about.
There is a great deal of Arthurian imagery in this book (the leader of the "good" faction initially goes by the alias Mr. Fisher-King, just for example). I ran across someone's English paper from 22 years ago which discusses Arthurian themes in That Hideous Strength. Don't read it until after you read the book, as it reveals most of the plot.
I discovered that paper while doing web searches for Lewis's divine names for the planets, which I find beautiful and compelling:
Sol = Arbol
Mercury = Viritrilbia
Venus = Perelandra
Earth = Thulcandra
Mars = Malacandra
Jupiter = Glund
Saturn = Lurga
Someone should add this column to 777. I also need to find some time to work with these names, and see what turns up.