C. S. Lewis's PKD novel

[Extollager]

C. S. Lewis has been a favorite author of mine since I was a kid in the Sixties, while I only started reading PKD extensively in the past few years. But it seems to me one could make an argument, not entirely a whimsical one, that Lewis's That Hideous Strength is his proto-PKD novel. (It was published in 1943, and Lewis died 20 years later. It's pretty likely that Lewis read some PKD stories because, although this isn't widely known, he read a lot of American magazine SF.)

THS is about a conspiracy between State-sponsored science and occult powers to remake the Earth one day -- banishing organic life from it as much as possible. The Head of the agency that is the vanguard of this enterprise is, indeed, a head, the decapitated head of a French criminal who was guillotined. Technically, this head is an instrument by which certain hidden powers communicate their wishes. It's early days in the plan, in the novel, and so mostly what we see done is the destruction of beautiful college grounds and village homes, and the cowing or co-optation of any resistance. One of the main characters, Mark Studdock, is a penurious young sociologist who finds himself becoming a shill for the organization, writing journalistic materials in styles ranging from vulgar populism to highbrow. The other main character is his pretty but bored stay-at-home wife, Jane. She is more intelligent than her husband. In a PKD novel she would have an affair. She does find herself falling in love with another man. Other characters include a butch female police interrogator, a defrocked clergyman whose imagination is captivated by dreams of an eschaton issued in by violence, a "eunuch" named Filostrato, and a deputy director whose mental processes have so little connection with reality that he bilocates, his wraith being seen wandering about from time to time. The good characters include a bear called Mr. Bultitude and at least one sequence is narrated from close to his point of view. Jane is having clairvoyant dreams and helps the good characters find Merlin, who has revived. Still other characters include the tutelary spirits of the planets.

I could also see Lewis's novel The Great Divorce as Dickian, but I'll forbear to comment on it now.

Does anybody know if PKD ever read and commented on That Hideous Strength?

 

[dask]

I checked the basic references close at hand and found nothing. If he did I wouldn't be surprised if it's found in some obscure story introduction or bio in an out of print paperback that got poor circulation upon initial release.

 

[Extollager]

Thank you, Dask! I'm much obliged for your effort even though so far nothing has turned up to indicate that PKD read the book. Not that I ever thought it "influenced" him; but if he did read it, I'd like to know what he thought.

Incidentally Lewis's novel contains an interesting sequence in which Mark is subjected to an attempt to manipulate his mind, in an "Objectivity Room" with surrealistic paintings on the walls and a curious pattern of dots on the ceiling -- does the pattern correspond or not, with the dots on the table top? He can't keep himself from trying to work it out....

 

[River Boy]

I'm not so sure, CS Lewis was as influenced by his friends' ideas as by other writers. Tolkien himself, whose ideas can clearly be seen in Out of Silent Planet and Perelandra, believed That Hideous Strength to have shown Lewis becoming 'Williamsified' - in reference to their friend Charles Williams.

I have to agree with this, that Arthurian Legend comes into play seems a clear giveaway. I think Williams' writings are quite incredible - black magic and mind control are quite common in them - but I'm not sure Lewis quite pulled off the last of this trilogy and should have stuck closer to the visionary writing of the first two.

 

[Extollager]

I'm not so sure, CS Lewis was as influenced by his friends' ideas as by other writers. Tolkien himself, whose ideas can clearly be seen in Out of Silent Planet and Perelandra, believed That Hideous Strength to have shown Lewis becoming 'Williamsified' - in reference to their friend Charles Williams.

I have to agree with this, that Arthurian Legend comes into play seems a clear giveaway. I think Williams' writings are quite incredible - black magic and mind control are quite common in them - but I'm not sure Lewis quite pulled off the last of this trilogy and should have stuck closer to the visionary writing of the first two.

While I don't love them as I do That Hideous Strength, I do reread Williams's novels too.

I'd never thought of Williams and PKD together, but I could see something in that idea. Take some ordinary people and set the Archetypes loose on 'em (The Place of the Lion) -- hmm! And it's true that Williams, like PKD, was very interested in esoterism.

 

[dask]

I did find in an interview Dick did with Charles Platt in DREAM MAKERS that when he was twelve not only was he "addicted" to sf he also read Proust and Joyce.