That Hideous Strength - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Young academic Mark Studdock has just risen to the position of Senior Fellow in sociology at Bracton College in the University of Edgestow, just when it is engaged in selling off a portion of its land, Bragdon Wood, to a new scientific Institute the NICE (National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments) whose personnel already includes staff of the college. The sale is agreed to but the college Warden wants to back out of the deal. The sub-warden, Curry, Mark Studdock and some NICE insiders have a dinner together to decide how to keep the deal alive. Curry is proud of having brought the NICE to Edgestow believing it to mark the beginning of the "really scientific era". There is discussion of Mark being employed as a sociologist at the NICE, initiated by Lord Feverstone.

Meanwhile Mark's wife, Jane, who is also a scholar, has been having peculiar nightmares that trouble her, one in particular involving a severed head. She meets the wife of an old tutor from her recent graduate student days, Mrs. Dimble, who is being evicted from her property due to sale of land to the NICE. When Jane talks about her dreams, Dimble leads her to seek counsel with a Miss Ironwood who lives in a mansion in the nearby town of St. Anne's.

Mark spends an evening getting acquainted with the top brass at the NICE at their current headquarters in Belbury. He has great difficulty trying to figure out the exact nature of the job they want him to do. The lines of authority seem poorly defined, while at the same time the NICE is convinced the future of the human race depends on their success. Mark meets a scientist named Bill Hingest who is both with Bracton College and the NICE but is resigning the latter and warns Mark to get out as soon as possible.

At the same time, Jane finally works up the courage to visit Miss Ironwood at St. Anne's. She is greeted by Camilla Denniston, the spouse of the man who almost got Mark's appointment instead of him. She says they have been expecting Jane at St. Anne's. She leads her through the large house to meet Miss Ironwood. She is dressed just as Jane had dreamed of her. She is convinced that Jane's dreams are visions of genuine events. When Jane returns, she discovers that her maid, Ivy Maggs, has also been evicted from her dwelling by the NICE, and has gone to live at the Manor at St. Anne's with the Dimbles.

Mark is given the task of writing propaganda to support NICE's plan for the demolition of a scenic village called Cure Hardy so that a river can be diverted through its original location. This will be rationalized by presenting natural settings as unsanitary and by a philosophy of "liquidation of anachronisms" such as the "backward labourer" or the "wastefully supported pauper". Mark journeys to Cure Hardy to write the report that will justify the demolition. During this time, he discovers that the man who resigned from the NICE, Hingest, has been mysteriously murdered shortly after departing the headquarters.

The next morning he returns to NICE determined to find out the exact nature of his work and to whom he is supposed to be reporting. His official boss, Steele, seems to have no idea what is going on. Mark demands to see the Deputy Director but is put off. He runs into the head of the NICE's private police force, a mannish woman named Fairy Hardcastle, who insists he must not worry about this sort of thing, and that the NICE is not run along conventional bureaucratic lines. In a later interview with the Deputy Director, John Wither, he is told that "elasticity" is the cornerstone of the Institute, and that they have no watertight compartments.

Fog comes in on the towns of Edgestow and Belbury while there is an increase in violent incidents in the town, many apparently engineered by the NICE.

Jane develops further personal ties to the group in the mansion at St. Anne's. She is introduced to Dr. Elwin Ransom who is the protagonist of the first two books in Lewis' space trilogy. He has previously traveled to Mars and Venus, both of which are unaffected by the Biblical Fall of Man. He is now the legitimate king or Pendragon of the nation of Logres, the legitimate heir of King Arthur. Also living at St. Anne's is a Mr. MacPhee who is politely skeptical of Ransom's claims.

At Belbury Mark has a conversation with the Italian physiologist Dr. Filostrato. He admires the "purity" of the moon given that it has no organic life. He declares that underground is a race that has almost broken free of the organic, free of Nature. Mark is then introduced to the "Head" of the NICE. They have preserved the head of a recently executed scientist and restored the head to life with artificial scientific devices, where blood and air are pumped through it. It becomes clear that the NICE is engineering the creation of a new species relatively free of the organic.

Meanwhile the NICE police have completely taken over the entire town of Edgestow, and have attempted to arrest Jane.

Jane tells the group at St. Anne's that she has had dreams of a place in which the NICE have been digging up the grave of a long-buried man. Believing they know the actual place, the company of St. Anne's travel there. They believe the NICE is looking for the body of the magician Merlin, who was buried but not actually dead. It is revealed that the NICE are mainly interested in Jane, for her psychic abilities, and are afraid of her getting into the wrong hands. Mark, now trying to leave the NICE, is arrested in Edgestow on trumped-up charges of the murder of Bill Hingest, and is brought back to NICE headquarters at Belbury, though he does not originally realize that is where he is. When he does, it becomes clear to him the NICE killed Hingest as well.

On a stormy night, both the company of St. Anne's and Belbury personnel are on the trail of Merlin who has apparently revived. He has taken the clothes of a tramp through his powers of hypnosis, and gotten hold of a wild horse. He meets the company of St. Anne's, but rides away. Members of the NICE locate the tramp and mistakenly believe him to be Merlin.

Merlin arrives at St. Anne's on his own. Ransom reveals that there are Satanic forces behind the NICE. He further reveals that Merlin is to be possessed by the angelic powers called eldils that guide each of the planets of the solar system. Until now Earth had been under a quarantine with a rule that the dark demonic forces that govern Earth could not travel beyond the orbit of the moon, and the angelic powers ruling the rest of the solar system could not come to Earth. However, since the forces of darkness broke the lunar barrier in the events of the earlier books, it is now possible for the good angelic forces to come to Earth.

At St. Anne's, Jane Studdock has two very powerful mystical experiences, the first with the earth-bound counterpart of the ruling angel of Venus, and the second with God. This occurs at the same time that Mark at NICE is being initiated by Professor Frost into a dark ritual meant to cultivate absolute objectivity by killing human emotion relegated to the status of a mere "chemical phenomenon".

The angelic spirits that possess Merlin are guardians of each of the planets of the solar system and correspond to some gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. Merlin then disguises himself as a Basque priest and answers an advertisement put out by the NICE as an interpreter of ancient languages. Later, he is brought to interview the tramp who the NICE still believe may be the real Merlin. Both Merlin and the tramp are brought to attend a celebratory dinner put on by the NICE in honor of the public head of NICE, a science popularizer named Horace Jules. At that dinner, Merlin pronounces upon them the same curse that was placed on the Tower of Babel, causing all present to speak unintelligible gibberish. There are also massive earthquakes which ruin the building as well as much of the town of Edgestow, and cause the deaths of most of the NICE personnel and the liberation of many caged animals upon whom they were conducting experiments. Many of the animals make their way back to St. Anne's. The angel of Venus now lingers as Ransom is now meant to be transported back to that planet, known to the rest of the solar system as Perelandra. The presence of Venus puts many of the animals who are there into an amorous mood. Mark, who escaped the massacre at NICE, arrives on his own at St. Anne's and sees a vision of Venus, who leads him into a new bridal chamber that Jane has been preparing for him. The couple are re-united.