But I couldn't make it through That Hideous Strength, I put it down baffled and bored one day, and never picked it up again. Now I'm thinking I was too young for it, particularly growing up so far away from the novel's setting in England.

The first two novels take place in Mars and Venus, so there's a sense of adventure. But in That Hideous Strength, the mannerisms and situations and dialogue styles are akin to something like Brideshead Revisited in Oxford and/or Cambridge.

While a British boy might get the whole thing intuitively, I grew up in Mexico, so had no mental compass of that world at that age. It was all as confusing to me then as God Emperor Of Dune was later.

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I really loved the sense of adventure in both. A lot of people dislike That Hideous Strength relative to the others, so I don't think you're alone. I actually loved it, but I was a bit older when I read it. I felt like it was a rare example building an atmosphere of dread and foreboding. However, it's been many years since I read it. My own opinion of it may be different now.