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Day Seven of 30 Day Book Challenge: Most underrated book
That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis…
…is the most underrated book of an underrated trilogy. Admittedly, it isn’t difficult to see why. Though the first two books in the series are science-fiction of the otherworldly type, this book never leaves 20th century England; and while in both Perelandra and Out of the Silent Planet the reader is instantly whisked away into interplanetary adventure, their thicker successor starts in with a lengthy description of Gregorian architecture and college politics. But even these perceived failings take on their own peculiar charm when this book is set in the right light, appreciated for what it is: “a modern fairy-tale for grownups”. Horrors abound, hilarities conquer, history mingles mysteriously with legend… and deep in the dirt of an ancient university, Merlin stirs in his slumber.
All day the wind had been rising and they found themselves looking out on a sky swept almost clean. The air was intensely cold, the stars severe and bright. High above the last rags of scurrying clouds hung the Moon in all her wildness—not the voluptuous Moon of a thousand southern love-songs, but the huntress, the untameable virgin, the spear-head of madness.
pardon me while i flail around a bit. i love this book. the precise reason it’s so terrifying is its being set on earth. perelandra and malacandra are lovely and far away, but when the head is being possessed just over there in the basement of st. anne’s… oy.
also, mr. bultitude. forever and ever, amen.
