Sunday, April 22, 2018

Review: That Hideous Strength

That Hideous Strength That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This final volume of Lewis's space trilogy was very different than the other two. To begin with, it was longer than both the first two combined. This is certainly connected with the fact that the pacing of the story was significantly slower than the first two volumes. In fact, it wasn't till around page 300 that some of the more extreme fantastic element began to show up. What it did have going for it was an incredibly insightful analysis of some fairly typical characters and what motivates them. This kind of raw and honest analysis that we would like to admit is not true of ourselves was present in the other books. However, here Lewis works it over. While I did very much enjoy the book (especially near the end), the pacing was a bit too slow for me. All the minute details of the life of a college don—something Lewis knew about intimately—lost their quirky attraction after the first 100 pages. That to say, it's hardly feasible to think of reading the first two books and not finishing out the trilogy, but this was my least favorite of all three (but still a pretty great book).

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