There was, by no means, certainty of an allied victory, even though the British had performed well in North Africa and were now bombing Berlin. German troops had lost ground in Russia as well as in Italy during 1943, but the Axis still held the vast majority of European countries in an iron grip. It is well worth remembering that Lewis wrote this extraordinary novel during one of the darkest periods of the Second World War. Its characters are far more realistic, and the setting-far from being medicated pristine world of Huxley’s or the grim soiled world of Orwell’s-of post-war Britain is genius, in its execution as well as in Lewis’s presumption. In terms of depth, style, and audacity, That Hideous Strength is superior to its closest dystopian rivals, Brave New World and 1984. Lewis finished his greatest novel, That Hideous Strength, on Christmas Eve, 1943. Though it would not see publication until August 1945, C.S.
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