Aldous Huxley: A Biography
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Aldous Huxley: A Biography
by Sybille Bedford
3.98 · Rating details · 128 ratings · 13 reviews
In this dazzling conjunction of subject and author, the great English novelist Aldous Huxley, the wholly civilized man, is brought wholly alive in a magnificent full-scale biography by the brilliant English novelist Sybille Bedford, an intimate friend of the Huxleys through four decades. With a pointillistic richness of moment, place, and talk, she re-creates not only the private Huxley and the literary Huxley but the entire intellectual and social era to which he was central. Despite the almost total loss of his sight at age sixteen, Huxley became a titan and cultural hero of the decades after World War I, on terms with the outstanding writers and artists of his day, from D. H. Lawrence to Stravinksy and Auden. He had two separate and large careers as Crome Yellow and Point Counter Point, flag-bearer of England s Bright Young People through the 1920s, and romancer of glittering women; and later, in America, as the increasingly philosophical and utopian thinker, and a pioneering explorer of the frontiers of the human mind. Drawing on his letters and diaries, the memories of his intimates, and her own sharp and sensitive comprehension of Huxley s writings, Mrs. Bedford has written a masterful biography. "Her novelist s eye," writes V. S. Pritchett, "brings the writer to life. Huxley becomes a living, deeply attractive presence, while his great contemporaries flash through these pages in memorable and moving encounters. Mrs. Bedford s biography stands as the major work on a major figure in the literary and intellectual history of the twentieth century." (less)
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Paperback, 769 pages
Published July 22nd 2002 by Ivan R. Dee Publisher (first published 1973)
Original TitleAldous Huxley: a biography. volume one - The apparent stability
ISBN1566634547 (ISBN13: 9781566634540)
Edition LanguageEnglish
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Aldous Huxley: A Biography
Aldous Huxley: a biography. volume one - The apparent stability
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Average rating3.98 · Rating details · 128 ratings · 13 reviews
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Lizzie
Mar 29, 2011Lizzie rated it it was amazing
Shelves: biography, read-in-2006
I don’t know if this is the best or most objective bio of Huxley, since the author was a friend and doesn’t have much bad to say about him, but it was certainly interesting. He was an interesting guy. I’d read and loved Island and Brave New World, and knew he’d taken LSD. I hadn’t known he’d had such a hard childhood (he lost his mother and eyesight in the same year) or that he was interested in Dianetics, or was such a committed pacifist. It was time well spent.
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Mark
Nov 22, 2011Mark rated it liked it
Shelves: biography
Well I will personally dispense with reading the early part of this, simply because Woodcock's book covered it very well, and this is more a hagiography albeit by a personal friend. But already one thing I never knew, and I am sure most of you did not, either, is that Huxley's famous "grey flannel trousers" seen as "miraculous" beneath the expansion valve of the mescaline experience, were actually blue jeans. Just think how many more pairs of Levi's they could have sold! (yuk, yuk.) Were it not for Mrs. Huxley's editorial primness, hoping to reach a more highbrow audience. Well it's just one of the fascinating trivia available in this version of the man's biography. But I'd put the emphasis here more on the trivia, as, unlike Woodcock, she focuses on the human being and his trials, than on the literature and the message. Not that they were few, nor un-noteworthy. Her insights as to the message of his book Island (a culmination of the better part of his life's work) is off a little, but perhaps only because she had no particular part to play in the psychedelic movement- which would have given the author a wider range of understanding, as well, for some of Huxley's conclusions regarding the proper social role of these substances. And yes, he was very annoyed with Tim Leary's "marketing schemes"- as in retrospect I am myself. Some things just aren't for everyone, and if such interesting and "out of self" experiences can be induced naturally in certain people, it might do them a world more good than tripping. (There's lots more I could say about that, but, I like keeping reviews to the point...) (less)
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Dexter Boniface
Jul 05, 2019Dexter Boniface rated it it was ok · review of another edition
This is a tedious book that will probably only be enjoyed by diehard fans of Aldous Huxley. As other reviewers note, the book has a slow pace and bland style and Bedford’s writing is sometimes hard to follow. For those that are willing to overlook these significant shortcomings, the book does offer an exhaustive and intimate portrait of Aldous Huxley’s life and work.
In terms of the writing style, Bedford’s biography has a ‘one thing after another’ quality that begins with Huxley’s birth and ends with his death. In other words, the book is devoid of a central theme, arc or interpretation of Huxley’s life that might help to carry the book from start to finish. The question of who Aldous Huxley was is answered, but only indirectly. Furthermore, Bedford’s writing is confusing since she relies on a patchwork of letters to construct her narrative. An added frustration (for me anyway) is that Bedford often quotes passages in their original French but rarely offers a translation (Huxley’s first wife, Maria, was from Belgium and she and Aldous often spoke to one another in French).
In terms of the book’s content, readers will of course learn a lot about Huxley’s life and work: his charmed but tragic childhood; his peculiar marriage to Maria; his prolific writing habits (including insights into his entire cannon of work); his forays abroad and long stints in the French Mediterranean and Hollywood; the constant ups and downs of his health; the evolution of his ideas about war, pacificism, the environment, and spirituality; his experimentation with psychedelic drugs and hypnosis (among other esoteric pursuits).
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Sam Schulman
Dec 14, 2009Sam Schulman rated it it was amazing
It's hard to remain interested in Aldous Huxley through this long, respectful biography, but it must be read because - shyly revealed in the course of the telling - Sybille Bedford was a troubled teenager taken in by the Huxleys in the 30s - and she actually make the reader (or at least this reader) fall completely and actually in love with Laura Huxley as you read. It's a completely unique experience - perhaps unique to me - to have this experience with a real person (I certainly had it with Tess Darbyfield of Tess of the D'Urbervilles but that's different). Bedford wrote "A Legacy," which is another of the great fictional reconstructions of what it's like to be a German - so truthful-to-life that for a long time I thought it must have been a translation. But the fact is that Bedford can do things with prose that no one else can do.
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katie
Mar 20, 2007katie rated it really liked it
Exhaustive. Not the most amazing writing style, but CERTAINLY packed full of info on Aldous and anyone he was close with. I enjoyed it to the very end. But then again, I am a die hard Huxley fan (read : loser). haha.
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