Matt Jones' Random Acts of Verbiage

Things have been a bit slow around here as I have been a bit busy (well busier than usual). My parents are moving this weekend so I am down in southern WA helping them get ready… and going to Lonely Forest shows… and reading Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow again. I would also like to point out that I, yes I, went to a karaoke party at a new friend’s house in Bellingham last Sunday and actually sang a (yes, only one) song! It was Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” Glenn and I sang it together. It was good times. We swayed.

So on with C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength. This is the third, and final, book in Jack’s Space Trilogy (Previous posts: Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra). I actually finished last month but have kept putting this off. For me, this was the most difficult of the three to get through and is distinctly different (is that redundant?) from the first two. It is definitely the most intellectual of the bunch (not to say that that is the reason it was difficult for me, nor am I saying the first two were not intellectual). Lewis is all about words and language and that passion was quite evident in this work. Since the pacing was slower and there was not the big adventure and off world excitement, the narrative and plot was driven much more by discourse and philosophical arguemnts (often somewhat pretentiously [intentionally of course]).

There are only a few passages that I want to point out from the book. The first comes when Jane Studdock (one of the main characters) meets Ransom (who has been permanently changed since his visit to Venus/Perelandra) for the first time.

And Jane heard her own voice saying, “Yes, sir,” soft and chastened like Miss Ironwood’s voice. She had meant to say, “Good evening, Mr. Fisher-King,” in an easy tone that would have counteracted the absurdity of her behavior on first entering the room. But the other was what actually came out of her mouth. Shortly after this she found herself seated before the Director [Ransom]. She was shaken: she was even shaking. She hoped intensely that she was not going to cry, or be unable to speak, or do anything silly. For her world was unmade: anything might happen now. If only the conversation were over! - so that she could get out of that room without disgrace, and go away, not for good, but for a long time.

This isn’t a very important passage but I thought it was interesting in the light of the larger narrative of the story relating to good against evil. Here, in the presence of the “good” (although not completely comforatable), Jane’s “world was unmade: anything might happen”. I liked that quote. When we step into all that is good, our world is unmade.

The second passage follows shortly after the first and deals with love and marriage (sorry, it is a bit long):

“Child,” said the Director, “it is not a question of how you or I look on marriage but how my Masters [essentially God] look on it.”

“Someone said they were very old fashioned. But -”

“That was a joke. They are not old fashioned; but they are very, very old.”

“They would never think of finding out first whether Mark [Jane's husband] and I believed in their ideas of marriage?”

“Well - no,” said the Director with a curious smile. “No. Quite definitely they wouldn’t think of doing that.”

“And would it make no difference to them what a marriage was actually like - whether it was a success? Whether the woman actually loved her husband?”

Jane had not exactly intended to say this: much less to say it in the cheaply pathetic tone which, it now seemed to her, she had used. Hating herself, and fearing the Director’s silence, she added, “But I suppose you will say I oughn’t to have told you that.”

“My dear child,” said the Director, “you have been telling me that ever since your husband was mentioned.”

“Does it make not difference?”

“I suppose,” said the Director, “it would depend on how he lost your love.”

Jane was silent. Though she could not tell the Director the truth, and indeed did not know it herself, yet when she tried to explore her inarticulate grievance against Mark, a novel sense of her own injustice and even a pity for her husband, arose in her mind. And her heart sank, for now it seemed to her that this conversation, to which she had vaguely looked for some sort of deliverance from all problems was in fact involving her in new ones.

“It was not his fault,” she said at last. “I suppose our marriage was just a mistake.”

The Director said nothing.

“What would you - what would the people you are talking of - say about a case like that?”

“I will tell you if you really want to know,” said the Director.

“Please,” said Jane reluctantly.

“They would say,” he answered, “that you do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never attempted obedience.”

Something in Jane that would normally have reacted to such a remark with anger or laughter was banished to a remote distance (where she could still, but only just, hear its voice) by the fact that the word Obedience - but certainly not obedience to Mark - came over her, in that room and in that presence, like a strange oriental perfume, perilous, seductive, and ambigous…

“You do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never attempted obedience.” I think that statement is something that needs to be deeply pondered, whether married or not, it applies to all relationships, romantic or otherwise.

Don’t let my difficulty in getting through this stop you from reading it. Just because it was more difficult does not mean it wasn’t just as rewarding (or more so) than the first two. The story itself really is quite interesting in its dealings with good and evil and the ethics of control and submission, not to mention horrible science experiments. The story does boil down to “which side are you on?” Do you strive for good or does your work promote evil? Lewis is able to show that evil doesn’t always shout “here I am!” but will look like a good place to be. It might not be as simple as saying “well of course I strive for good.” Redemption can be had and is offered to all, regardless of how steeped in depravity and evil and denial you had been. [A side note here that is relevant: Go read Donny's Ramblings: Diary of a FORMER Pornographer. Donny is who I wrote about in XXXchurch and a Pornographer's Conversion and his blog is a very interesting read about his new life and the story of his exit from the world of pornography. Go read, encourage, and be encouraged.]

The final act of redemption comes in the form of Jane and Mark’s reunion. We aren’t told what happens after, the chances are it wasn’t perfect and that their relationship would still struggle. Redemption does not mean that everything is made perfect, it means we are still broken but redemption that all will eventually be made whole (go read the lyrics to “Everything’s Broken (Redeemed)”).

And Jane went out of the big house… First she thought of the Director, then she though of Maleldil [God]. Then she thought of her obedience and the setting of each foot before the other became a kind of sacrificial ceremony. And she though of children, and of pain and death. And now she was half way to the lodge, and thought of Mark and of all his sufferings. When she came to the lodge she was surprised to see it all dark and the door shut. As she stood at the door with one hand on the latch, a new thought came to her. How if Mark did not want her - not tonight, nor in that way, nor any time, nor in any way? How if Mark were not there after all? A great gap - of relief or of disappointment, no one could say - was made in her mind by this thought. Still she did not move the latch. The she noticed that the window, the bedroom window, was open. Clothes were piled on a chair inside the room so carelessly that they lay over the sill: the sleeve of a shirt - Mark’s shirt - even hung over down the outside wall. And in all this damp too. How exactly like Mark! Obviously it was hight time she went in.

fin

Things were set right. A very interesting book to say the least and an appropriate, if different, end to the trilogy.

This is the courtesy of Deep Heaven: that when you mean well, He always takes you to have meant better than you knew.

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Matthew Jones