An interesting first book for a renowned author. Crome Yellow is a wonderful introduction to Huxley's story-telling talents. The scenes were so meticulously laid out I felt I was watching a movie in my head. Crome was also a wonderful introduction to Huxley's knack for detailed characters. His writing style pulls you into the characters and the world of the book.

Crome was a fabulous exploration of human sexual desire. The yearning, the attempts, the exploits, even the destruction of a man. All who have ever desired another can certainly relate to this one.

The fact that this book is a superb read has already been established. Most notably the author and critic, Cyril CONNOLLY, rated this book as one of the 100 key books of the MODERN MOVEMENT.

Crome Yellow is perfectly suited to the e-book format. Great for reading on short trips, lunch breaks; in fact anytime you can grab a few minutes while on the go. The chapters are short and each stands alone as a complete and well-constructed scene.

Within the first few screens, you'll be captured by the story and wanting more - especially the bizarre instalments on the "History of Crome." Enough said - you'll have to find out for yourself.

This is an essential e-book for any well-stocked PDA e-library.

Crome Yellow was Aldous Huxley's first book. His best books are his early books that he wrote before Brave New World. The young Aldous Huxley was evanescent, fluid, and limitless in his potential. However, as he grew older, especially in his last decades when he lived in California, he became more calcified, his vision narrowed and he became mired by his own mystic obscurisms. And when Huxley 'got' Buddhism, he stopped writing novels and wrote Buddhis tracts, so to speak. Written when he was 27, Crome Yellow centers around a house called Crome hence the title, (like Wuthering Heights centered around a house - Abbey Grange). The house was a gathering place of artists who were vacuous, though in a brilliantly significant way. The main character is Denis Stone, a naive neophyte, much like Huxley must have been at the time. Consequently as Huxley himself grew more sophisticated, so did his characters. Huxley attacks the ennui and malaise existential of life with a kind of righteous indignation that is refreshing. And he uproariously endorses the sentiments of misanthropy that all refined and culture cynics must feel. Huxley spent most of his life playing the expatriate game. In his own words from Crome, Huxley was "one of those distinguished people, who for some reason or other, find it impossible to live in England." Huxley spent most of the 1920's in Italy. It is difficult to believe that Aldous Huxley was just 27 when he wrote this book, for it is written like a 50 yr. old. Crome Yellow is a great introduction to Huxley, as well as a great way to know him better. There could scarcely be a more potent, intense vanguard for the psychedelic revolution, for which Huxley must have been a precursor of.

This book is not what one might assume merely from seeing the title and knowing nothing about it: it is not a sequel to Brave New World - it is not, indeed, a work of fiction. Truly, it is, at most, a cousin to it, and one assumes that Huxley used the title he did mainly for pecuniary reasons. One need not have read the fictional work in order to appreciate this. What the book consists of is a systematic examination of the social and political forces that may one day lead us into the kind of false Utopia present in Brave New World - or, looked at another way, the factors that keep a democracy from flourishing in our present day society (or during the time the book was written.) This book still hits the nail hard on the proverbial head in quite a few of its points: the use of propaganda and, especially, advertising methods in the systematic brainwashing of the masses. Some of the other factors, however, show the book's age. One must realize the time in which this book was published, 1958 - smack dab in the middle of Cold War paranoia and still reeling from WWII (references to both Hitler and Communism are rampant) and before the 60's counterculture and modern postmodern (nice phrase, that) movements gained a true foothold. Consequently, many of Huxley's points still hit home, as they probably always will, while others reek positively of era concerns. Still, Huxley's writing is invariably vibrant and crisp, not to mention immensely readable - he succeeds in making information that may, in essence, be dry to many appear fresh and exciting. I, then, reccommend this book to all who loved the fictional work and are looking for more along the same lines - especially if you're interested in the practical aspects of the theories involved therein - as well as anyone interested in this kind of rigorous social examination.

Although this book was written over 40 years ago, and is a reflection on a book written over 60 years ago the issues it covers are surprisingly relevant in today's society. Throughout the book Huxley contrasts his work with George Orwell's 1984, and the (then) state of the post WW2 world and current scientific discovery. Covering issues such as overpopulation, propaganda, the art of selling and brainwashing as well as drugs and political control he gives prescient warnings to the reader. My personal favourite chapter, The Art of Selling is an excellent analysis of the (then) new art of marketing. The final chapter though, is a call to activism through education of the people. The book is very accessible, and if you have not read Brave New World, you will not be at a disadvantage. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a historical perspective to today's issues.

Some may claim that Aldous Huxley, son of famous Huxley who defended Darwin, indulged in too much experimental psychedelic drug taking. But this book indicates a lucid mind in defense of the individual within an encroaching societal conformity.

The original Brave New World was a science fiction novel on the lines of Orwell's 1984, criticism of societal conformity through a story which predicts society's future demise as a result of the crush of individualism through the necessity of conformed behavior as a means of centralized control of citizens, supposedly for the good of the people, to keep the peace, as it were. Huxlean minds, like Einsteinian minds, cling to old world values (literature, romanticism, philosophy, poetry etc.) as a defense against mechanization of society, which they see as dehumanizing.

Apparently, the response to Brave New World was so keen among the Left, those fearful of American fascism emanating from the Right, that this novel length essay BNW Revisited was published as a means of clarifying further discussion on the topic.

Written during the era when many lived in fear of the McCarthy "witch hunts," this treatise on the perils of conformity through advertising and other shady capitalistic and propagandistic ploys of the wealthy and powerful correctly predicts our current woes with corporate corruption on the macro level of societal influence.

I recommend reading linguistics genius Noam Chomsky for further study on media influence and societal conformity.

There is no question that Aldous Huxley is one of the most important and influential minds of the twentieth century - a prophet, novelist, poet, dramatist and essayist that expressed some of the most interesting and disturbing commentary about the condition of human beings and their relationship to society. Huxley's concerns are our concerns - overpopulation, ecology, eugenics, fair and oppressive government, drug use and the nature of religion and art. He wrote extensively on all these subjects with eerie insight and awareness. Poet and author, Nicholas Murray, provides a window into Huxley's life and character, which shows us an intellectual continually striving for knowledge: intuitive, scientific and otherwise.

As a personality, Murry points out that Huxley was an abstractionist trying to come to terms with his instinctual nature. But Huxley was probably harder on himself than any critic could be. He described himself as a 'cerebrotonic', and defines the type:

"The cerebrotonic is the over-alert, over-sensitive introvert, who is more concerned with the inner universe of his own thoughts and feelings and imagination than the external world...Their normal manner is inhibited and restrained and when it comes to the expression of feelings they are outwardly so inhibited that viscerotonics suspect them of being heartless." (P.3)

Huxley was anything but 'heartless'. If one reads his novels, early poetry and essays, can see that he was a humanist, presenting us with the follies of the human condition with the intention of making the world a better place.

Murry paints us a portrait of a man who wrote because, '...the wolf was at the door.' He was a seeker of knowledge who wanted to join the artistic sensibility with that of the scientific. In fact, one of his last essays, 'Literature and Science' was an attempt at such a synthesis: 'Man cannot live by contemplative receptivity and artistic creation alone...he needs science and technology.' (P.451)

What emerges from this text is an individual with a ravenous thirst for knowledge, an artist/scientist who wanted to pave new paths towards a more understanding world. This is an excellent biography, brilliantly written, of a complex and fascinating being.

Nicholas Murray's new work is the first full-length biography of Aldous Huxley--author of Point Counter Point (1928), a satiric examination of early 20th-century society, and Brave New World (1932), a sharp indictment of modern technology--since the authorized biography by Sybille Bedford, published in two volumes (1973, 1974).

Seeking to justify a new biography of Huxley, Murray points out that the last thirty years have seen the publication of many collected editions of letters and diaries of those who knew him--D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and many others.

Murray also notes that, in addition to these published works, there is now a wealth of unpublished material, which necessitates a bringing up to date of the Huxley story.

"The intimate life of Aldous Huxley and his remarkable wife, Maria, can now be more fully documented," writes urray. "Maria's bisexuality, the extraordinary menage a trois in the 1920s of Aldous, Maria, and Mary Hutchinson ["this extraordinary triangulation"]--absent for obvious reasons from previous biographical accounts--are described here for the first time."

With the key dramatis personae in Huxley's life now deceased, the fully story of one of the most distinguished writers of the 20th century can now be told.

A member of a distinguished scientific and literary family, the British novelist, essayist, poet, and critic Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) was the grandson of the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), a scientist who gained fame as "Darwin's bulldog" (the staunchest supporter of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, and notoriety as a tenacious debater against antievolutionists, including scientists as well as clergy).

Aldous Huxley was also the great-nephew of Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), a literary artist who, incidentally, was the author of this reviewer's favorite poem, "Dover Beach."

Huxley was prevented from studying medicine because of an eye ailment that partially blinded him at the age of 16, causing a lifelong struggle with defective eyesight. Nevertheless, he became a voracious, omnivorous reader, holding his eyes close to the books he read and using a thick magnifying glass. His wife Maria also often read to him.

While still a student at Balliol (Oxford University), Huxley published two volumes of poetry. T. S. Eliot, one of Huxley's friends, observed that Huxley was "better equipped with the vocabulary of a poet than with the inspiration of a oet." "Eliot was almost certainly right," says Murray, "in his view that [Huxley's] talent was for prose."

Murray writes of Huxley's early days at Balliol: "Another inconvenience was having rooms opposite the Chapel, as he confided to his young friend, Jelly D'Aranyi, the concert violinist: 'one is made unhappy on Sundays by the noise of people singing hymns.' Clearly, neither Chapel nor the 'awful noise' of the hymn-singers which 'rather gets on my nerves' would appeal to the grandson of the man who invented the word 'agnostic.' "

Huxley often commented that his forte was not in writing poetry, novels, or plays (to which he devoted much time and energy during his years in Hollywood), but to the writing of essays--the didactic exposition of aesthetic, social, political, and religious ideas.

Indeed, Huxley became of the great essayists of the 20th century (a fact underscored by the completion of an ambitious project by Ivan R. Dee Publishers: a six-volume edition titled Aldous Huxley: Complete Essays, completed last year).

Huxley's most celebrated work, Brave New World, is a bitterly sarcastic account of an inhumane dystopia controlled by technology, in which art and religion have been abolished and human beings reproduce by artificial fertilization. The inhabitants of such a "perfect world" suffer from terminal boredom and ennui.

The title of Huxley's famous novel is taken from Shakespeare's The Tempest (Act V, Scene 1, lines 184-186), in which Miranda says, "O, wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! O, brave new world, / That has such people in 't"

Increasingly convinced that "modern man" suffered from spiritual bankruptcy, Huxley recommended two time-tested antidotes to nihilism: psychedelic drugs (he experimented with mescaline and LSD) and mysticism.

For example, in his novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) he portrays the central character's conversion from selfish isolation to transcendental mysticism, and in The Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956) he describes the use of mescaline to induce visionary states of mind and an expanded consciousness.

"I am not a religious man," wrote Huxley, "in the sense that I am not a believer in metaphysical propositions, not a worshipper or performer of rituals, and not a joiner of churches." And yet, regretting that the modern world lacked potent symbols, "cosmic symbols"--only nationalist flags and swastikas--he said, "One can be agnostic and a mystic at the same time."

In his later years Huxley turned toward an "undogmatic" mysticism found, he believed, in the "wisdom of the East": Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism. He was convinced that the truths of mysticism were profounder than those of science. But he also said, "Man cannot live by contemplative receptivity and artistic creation alone . . . he needs science and technology."

Science and spirituality: these were the twin foci of Huxley's oeuvre. Indeed, his entire life may be viewed as an attempt to synthesize, by literary means, the scientific and the spiritual--to arrive, as it were, at a rapprochement between the "two cultures."

Murray's biography reads like a Who's Who of the rich and famous. In its pages we meet, along with many others, Lady Ottoline Morrell, D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, H. L. Mencken, Anita Loos, Christopher Isherwood, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, Charlie Chaplin, Harpo Marx, and the astronomer Edwin Hubble.

Intelligent and sympathetic, rich and rewarding, Aldous Huxley: A Biography is an engrossing read. Highly recommended!

This small volume (fewer than 60 pages of text) is well worth tracking down through the 'out-of- print' mechanisms. Originally a lecture, the book introduces Piero della Francesca as a "reclusive, silent, rather taciturn friend", but a friend nonetheless. Mr Henessey's rounded analysis and warm descriptions of both the painter and his paintings certainly allow the reader to establish a relationship with Piero. Depsite the author's slightly disparaging remark about "tourists in their rented Fiats" following the Piero della Francesca trail, I urge travellers (Fiat driven, armchair or others) to increase their knowledge, appreciation and sheer enjoyment of Piero by slipping this volume into their luggage or onto the bookshelf. The book is usefully illustrated.

One of the pleasures of a small book is the ability to savour the author's writing. This volume combines Huxley's essay (which makes the startling claim that Piero's Resurrection is the best painting in the world) with Pope-Hennessy's lucid descriptions of Piero's works. The plates are wonderful and well arranged. PH's swipes at Kenneth Clark and John Mortimer would seem churlish in a larger, more ponderous volume, but are merely charmingly opinionated here. A lovely way to spend an hour or two.

I am a high school student who studied this book for an English independent study. It is one of the most intriguing books I have ever read. It is written as a futuristic prediction of what the world might be like if the progess of science and governmental control are not checked. The theory of the government in Brave New World is that in order to ensure a stable society (Utopia) the individual must not exist. I strongly recommend this book as it provokes serious critical thought on the part of the reader.

Brave New World is an awesome book. Not only did it inspire me to begin work on my own, it expanded my thought processes to include the horror of the science that I love so much. Brave New World Revisited is the author's summary notes and explanations for his writing. I am still in the process of reading it, and have found it very interesting. However, he does contradict himself very much within the book. I highly recommend both of these books.

It's not as pessimistic as "1984" nor as cleverly metaphorical as "Animal Farm", but I hold both "Brave New World" and its cousin, the non-fiction analysis of Huxley's text ("Brave New World Revisited") higher in my esteem than either.

Huxley himself was a brilliant man (what else can u expect, descending from Darwin's Bulldog himself?), and BNW is a brilliant novel. It's my favourite kind of book, just bursting at the seams with ideas and thoughts and theories, and told craftily through the eyes of a cast of intriguing characters.

Because, aside from being a brilliant novel, such fantastic three-dimensional creations as Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, Lenina Crowne and John the Savage will win you over forever. That's what makes this prophetic combination of BNW and BNWR so effective; the first shows you a startling vision of the future, and how it affects a wonderful cast you'll come to love; the second is a thought-provoking analysis written some years later, considering just how far the world has progressed towards achieving that 'utopia'. All kids should read this book at some stage. After all, we're the future (apparently), and this is a memorable example of what we do NOT want it to become.

I feel some of the more critical reviewers posting here coming from a very glib place. Maybe 'old man Huxley' is too stuffy (too Victorian?) for the modern, confident, e-informed seeker. I love this book because I know the context of the man's life and where it came from. Discover Huxley! His flaws are obvious, sure, but nothing in comparison to the difficulties he overcame and the giant leap he provided to the thinkers of his generation (and the seekers of the next!) For me the value of this book is in the rich, generous treasure-chest of quotes provided, and finally, for its unusually clear distinction between what is 'psychic' what is 'mystical' and what is 'spiritual.'

I found this book quite accidentally as the last thing on the floor of an aquantances apartment as I was helping him move, and it has totally changed my life. Never before have I come across anything that so eloquently brought together the pure essences of the worlds major religions in their pure and simple truth.This book is bound to upset any adherents to one certain religion, as it uncovers the binding truths of them all. It is no Bible, no Koran, no Torah, no Bhagavad Gita, and yet it is all of them and more. It makes no steadfast claims or demands as many religious/spiritual books tend to do. It gently unfolds its spiritual message in a simple and awe inspiring way. I could not recommend this book highly enough to anyone seeking a spiritual truth. I myself did not know I was, and it showed me more than I could have ever hoped to have seen.

dear reader and spiritual seeker, here you have a comprehensive review of the primal spiritual traditions packed into one book. but more than that, its a guide for the sincere, a treat for the curious, and a true spiritual classic that will out live all who read this review. mr huxley points out that these truths are not self evident to the worldly philosopher or skeptic. these truths only become self evident and experiencial to those who fulfill the necessary conditions, i.e. you will realize these truths for yourself when you become pure in heart, poor in spirit, and truly humbly seek to know God. i own hundreds of "spiritual" books and have read thousands, this one is definitely in my top ten. buy it, read it, give it away. then buy another copy and read it again. the New York Times was right on in calling this book, "the masterpiece of all anthologies."

Creating a depiction of what the future can hold is a task that Aldous Huxley tackled in his 1932 published book, Brave New World. It tells the story of two main characters, Bernard Marx and John ?the Savage.? The rebellious Marx is filled with an inner hatred towards the Utopian society. John is an outsider with many dissimilar views on Utopia. Both live in a controlled world that divides humans into a caste system. The story begins 632 years after the brave new world (Utopia) has existed. Babies are born in test tubes, a person?s future is determined before birth, the state police control the people?s freedom, Soma is a substance that prevents the people from opening their mind, and the new world is ruled by dictators called World Controllers. Huxley enlightens the reader with a curiosity for the new world but does not give Marx or John the influence to change Utopia into democracy (or sanity). Marx is merely a thinker; he does not show any action towards his belief on society. I believe the intensity of the climax would be greater if Marx took initiative with John to spread the word of freedom and democracy. Although John tries to teach society of open-mindedness, he fails and ends up being in the hands of the people. The novel would serve a better purpose in change than in persistence.
With the climax not being fulfilled to my expectations, Huxley does create a forecast when writing about the topic of overpopulation. This is only one example in the novel where Huxley is picked out as a predictor and makes me speculate where our society could be headed. In the 1930?s economists were afraid that the population of life on earth was outgrowing the availability of natural resources (Paul, Warren. Brave New World-Cliff Notes). Huxley foretold this bold statement. In his novel, the depiction of the state police keeping track of how many infants were born and the plan of social role before birth, was comparable to the problem raised in the 1930?s. Issues like overpopulation and human restrictions add great curiosity to the story, making Huxley brilliant at his work. He leaves you wondering what this world may come to if our freedom is ruled by a higher dictatorship. I recommend this novel to anyone seeking a possible outlook on the future of our society.

I read a review someone gave of this book that said Brave New World is "boring" and "absurdly weak." The review stated that "the general portrait of the future is very brief and full of lacunes, [and] one of the characters spent the entire book just quoting Shakespeare." I disagree strongly with this view. I did not find this book to be at all boring; in fact, I thought it was extremely well composed and amazingly detailed in its view of a dystopian future. The above mentioned reviewer's statement that The Savage quotes Shakespeare too much is absurd. Huxley cleverly uses Shakespeare's writing to show the distinct difference between our society today (or how it was in the 1930's, rather) and this anti-utopia that he has created. Shakespeare is known as the greatest writer of all time in the English language for a reason: he wrote about the nature and lives of people in such a way that we can all relate to it. Shakespeare so gracefully characterized human nature; the point that Huxley is trying to make with Shakespeare is that this "Brave New World" has been so dehumanized that they can no longer even relate to basic universal truths such as love, jealousy and unhappiness. It is an extremely powerful way of making his point about his dystopian society. While Huxley's character development is not his strong point, the picture that he paints of a future society is frightening. Ignore the reviewer I referred to. Read this book.

Brave New World is truly a science fiction classic. Its predictions about genetic manipulation applied for "humanity's benefit" really posses that powerfull vision that is an integral part of good science fiction, this in contrast to the now popular "fantastical" science fiction that lacks the science part at all. Just think that this book was written well before the atomic era, and yet how much the author has already anticipated. Simply awesome....

After 100 pages I hated Point Counter Point. It was pretty nicely written, witty and urbane and filled with mildly amusing ponderings of people who like to show off how smart they imagine themselves to be. After the first 100 pages my vague recollection of reading Brave New World sometime years and years ago made my already underwhelming opinion nosedive. I hated the characters: hated their smug, self-righteous, utterly condescending self-importance and I was annoyed with Huxley for creating them.

But I kept going, for an as yet uncertain reason compelled to at least finish it. And nothing changes . . .

The turnaround comes in the slow, very subtle humanizing of these pompous jerks followed by a rapid and all-consuming anatomization of the nuance and flow of their personalities. Regardless of their lofty identities and superior postures, these people are flaked away, pulled apart, itemized and discarded with an ambitious and often roaring insight.

I suspect many of Huxley's other novels resemble this slow-to-appreciate mumble of ramblings, often in dispute, of various social issues as seen by people who hardly care. Having ventured this one I might wish to avoid many of the others. Regardless of this eventual respect I still find myself irritated. Call it three-and-a-half, rounded up because it ends rather cruelly.

I thought Point Counter Point was probably one of the best books that I have ever read. What drew me in the most was the ability Huxley has to portray many characters, all of whom are very different. The subtle way in which Huxley questions the idle spirit of modern man are at once both funny and disturbing. It is amazing how little has changed since the publication of the book...

All in all, I was left feeling awed that someone could write a book that was so good.... and I was sad to have to finish it... it was the type of book you wish could last indefinately.

This striking portrait of early 20th century high society is the first book I read by Aldous Huxley. While exposing the lavish lifestyle of the literary and social elite as one of hypocracy and shared animosity, it also carries a strong philisophical undercurrent. He uses the satirical charaterizations to expound on his personal docterine, and does so in a way that is both accessable and entertaining.
At times the book tended to be a tad meandering, without any real plot-driving focus of conflict, but somehow the lack of a linear plot deveopment is not that big of an issue once you get caught up in the flow of his writing style. I do caution readers to avoid the foreward, as it reveals one of the few major plot developments.
This is one of my all time favorite novels, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys biting satire, brilliant dialogue, and discourses on a variety of subjects that are still applicable nearly a century later. And how can one resist a book that fits in the phrase "the stertorous borborygmy of dispepsia"?

The only other Aldous Huxley book I ever read was "Brave New World," and that was at least ten years ago. For most people, I think that is the only Huxley book they know about. It's a shame, because this book, "Ape and Essence," is a true Huxley gem. The back of the book says Huxley wrote this in 1948 as a response to the use of atomic weapons in WWII and the emerging Cold War. "Brave New World" showed us a future of soma-laden people cared for by the state from cradle to grave. "Ape and Essence" doesn't have anything nearly as pleasant as soma. In this new world, people are ruled by a satanic theocracy after a nuclear war.

The book is pretty easy to describe. Two Hollywood types find a manuscript that dropped off a truck bound for the incinerator. The script is entitled, "Ape and Essence," by a William Tallis. Somebody didn't care much for his script; they marked it incinerate and underlined that word twice. The two read the script and try to find Mr. Tallis, only to discover that he died a few months earlier. What follows this brief introduction is the script, in its entirety.

"Ape and Essence" is about a post-nuclear holocaust world. New Zealand escaped the holocaust, and now they are sending explorers to America to see how the world is coming along. The main character here is Dr. Poole, a botanist. The survivors who roam the ruins of Los Angeles capture Poole and agree to let him live if he can improve crop production. Poole witnesses some unusual behavior amongst the natives, behavior that is explained to him by the archpriest of Belial.

Huxley uses this odd world as a backdrop for his own views on humanity in the 20th century. Huxley feels that mankind never got past the beast (or ape) inside. The beginning of the script shows apes dressed as humans, engaging in such delightful activities as chemical warfare and mass killing. These apes even keep Albert Einstein on a leash, signifying man's inability to use our genius to overcome our basest instincts. While strange at times (almost David Lynch-like), I don't think this is too strange for an intellectual like Huxley. He relies on extreme images to capture his despair over the state of mankind. The time frame in which Huxley writes is telling. It's 1948, only a few years after Hiroshima and just about the time the Cold War is really cranking into gear. Huxley must have been appalled that just a few years after the most destructive war in human history, even more horrors are starting to lurk on the horizon.

Huxley makes special mention of a few of man's ideas that lead to this type of nightmare. Both progress and nationalism are killers of mankind, according to Huxley. Nationalism, or the idea that one state is divinely sanctioned over all others, leads to useless killing. As Africa and the Balkans clearly show today, Huxley is not only insightful for his own time, but also prescient for today, as well.

The idea of progress is just as important. Why, with man's ability to create, does he so often use his talents for destructive purposes? It is progress that led to industrialization, which led to cities full of people with created needs. These needs found expression through war, when one set of people decided to take things from others to fulfill their own needs.

Huxley is insightful and his views on what makes humanity tick are dead on. I thought his use of a movie script to convey his ideas was clever, even though it is uneven at times. Huxley does seem to recognize the growing importance of media in disseminating ideas, and perhaps that is why he chose the format he did. I had to chuckle over the idea of this becoming a film in Huxley's day. The Catholics, who were keeping a close eye on Hollywood at this time, would have had a field day with this script-Satanism and unusual mating rituals would send them into histrionics. You can't go wrong with Mr. Aldous Huxley by your side.

Not as well-crafted as Huxley's better-known _Brave_New_World_, and I think I can guess why. Huxley, despondent over contemporary events and trends, must have felt crushed with utter despair and yet spurred by the conviction that he could not remain silent. Under such stress it's hard to attend to belleletristic niceties. Huxley also was experimenting with form. The story is presented as a stylized movie script, in the same sense that Goethe's _Faust_ is a stylized drama.

Nevertheless, this is a powerful, passionate, and haunting book. I cannot think of any other book which makes such a frighteningly real case for Evil as an operative principle in the world. Even more amazing, this case is presented under the guise of what looks and sounds like a B-grade horror flick. Imagine if, say, Dostoevsky had written his great novels as comic books -- and they still had the same terrifying, probing depth as the novels. That's essentially the effet that Huxley achieves, and it is uncanny.

Huxley is speaking of the condition of modern civilization *as it is*, under a set of grotesque, phantasmagoric masks. Unforgettable.

I remember the first time I tried to read this book and couldn't shake the "Planet of the Apes" image that danced around my head. So I set the book aside, let the images fade. After almost a year I pick up the book never to set it down until the end, and still scenes haunt me. Huxley creates a distopia that equally disturbes and intrigues, frightens and consoles, a world where god is feared and suffering is happiness. "Ape and Essence" is the shadow of "Brave new World," where one's brightest spot is the other's darkest. Truly a novel of ideas.

In the early 1920s, Theodore Gumbril Jr, disenchanted with his teaching job in a boys' school, leaves for London determined to pursue his idea for "pneumatic trousers". After his arrival, Theodore enters the strange world of London's well-to-do dilettantes.

This satirical novel reminded me of Evelyn Waugh's early novels and of some of Anthony Powell's work (perhaps Huxley influenced those authors). "Antic Hay" is not a novel with strong plot development, rather Huxley concentrates on the attitudes of his characters. Theodore Gumbril soon ceases to be the main character of the novel, his importance being no more and no less than several others. This was a bit surprising given his prominence at the start.

Huxley satirises the opinions, actions and mores of the well-heeled young artistic "society" animals of the time. His style is at times very sharp and witty, and I felt that he was trying to scratch beneath the facade of their lifestyle, where lies a bitter meaningless to their existence, and a despair with the society they live in. "Antic Hay" is not, therefore, a novel for people who enjoy fiction based on a strong pplot, but it is an interesting period piece, reflecting the uncertainties and disaffection of one particular part of British society shortly after World War One.

G Rodgers

Huxley I can usually take or leave, but not Antic Hay: there are just too many farces to decipher for me to put it down. Huxley's women are beautiful and easy; his men are amoral and excrutiatingly clever.

But underlying their antics is a novel of incredible complexity. Huxley makes his attentive readers squirm as we recognize our own pretensions and idiocies in his archetypal characters. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

The other gift in this novel is that it has helped me appreciate and understand the work of other writers such as Waugh and Mitford: i.e., in order to enjoy them, you have to suspend your own understanding of life and realize that there actually was a thriving class of people in England who didn't have jobs, relied on servants, and had no lives to speak of. And were bored to tears by their sumptuous privilege, believe it or no.

For modern readers, I'd say this is a pretty tough read. I know a respectable amount of both French and Latin, and I had to look up at least part of most of those passages. But if you're prepping for the vocabulary section of the GRE or the SAT...this book will provide you with myriad words to look up and learn, including the wonderful "callipygous".

Maybe I should give the rest of Huxley's work another reading...

Crome Yellow was Aldous Huxley's first book written when he was 27. The early Huxley was the best: when Huxley was young, he was fluid, enthusiastic, and his potential was limitless. As he grew older, he became more calcified, limited, and he spent the last years of his life in California, mired by his own mystic obscurisms. Crome Yellow centers around a house called Crome (like Wuthering Heights centered around a house -Abbey Grange) Crome was a gathering place of artists. The hero of the story is Denis Stone, a naive neophyte like Huxley was at the time. When Huxley grew more sophisticated, so did his characters. This book attacks the ennui, and existential malaise of life with a righteous indignation that is refreshing. He also uproariously endorses the common feeling of misanthropy that all refined cynics must feel. Huxley played the expatriate game, most of his life, to draw on his own words from Crome, he was "one of those distinguished people who for some reason or other, find it impossible to live in England." He spent most of the 1920's in Italy. Crome Yellow is a great introduction to Huxley, as well as a great way to know him better. It is difficult to believe that Huxley was so young when he wrote this. He writes like a 50 yr. old in this book.