50 Book Challenge #16: That Hideous Strength
#16: That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis (Book three of the Space Trilogy)
While this book had all the elements that I loved in the previous two books (satire, allegory, poetic description), it was really lacking the cohesion of the other two and was generally a disappointing end to the trilogy. Lewis seems very caught up in the politics of academia for the first third of the book, and then suddenly remembers the fantasy genre. The last third of the book features a rather anti-climactic battle that seemed to be a pastiche of several different mythologies.
All that said, there is still a lot of value in the book. There are some deftly drawn characters unlike anything I've read in most literature of the 1940s. Lewis' investigation of the complexities of marriage, while it does not go far enough, asks important questions that blend faith and sociology in provocative ways.
If you have read Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, I would recommend that you finish the trilogy, if for no other reason than plot continuity. I will say that this book does not stand alone as one of Lewis' better works.
16 / 50
(32.0%)
While this book had all the elements that I loved in the previous two books (satire, allegory, poetic description), it was really lacking the cohesion of the other two and was generally a disappointing end to the trilogy. Lewis seems very caught up in the politics of academia for the first third of the book, and then suddenly remembers the fantasy genre. The last third of the book features a rather anti-climactic battle that seemed to be a pastiche of several different mythologies.
All that said, there is still a lot of value in the book. There are some deftly drawn characters unlike anything I've read in most literature of the 1940s. Lewis' investigation of the complexities of marriage, while it does not go far enough, asks important questions that blend faith and sociology in provocative ways.
If you have read Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, I would recommend that you finish the trilogy, if for no other reason than plot continuity. I will say that this book does not stand alone as one of Lewis' better works.
16 / 50
(32.0%)