Brave New World by Aldous Huxley | Goodreads

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley | Goodreads

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

 3.99  ·   Rating details ·  1,567,691 ratings  ·  34,817 reviews

Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, inhabited by genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story's protagonist. (less)

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Paperback, 268 pages

Published September 1st 1998 by HarperPerennial / Perennial Classics (first published 1932)

Stephen

Nov 17, 2010Stephen rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobook, science-fiction, classics, world-in-the-shitter

BabyClone v2

I need to parse my rating of this book into the good (or great), the bad and the very fugly because I thought aspects of it were inspired genius and parts of it were dreggy, boring and living near the border of awful. In the end, the wowness and importance of the novel's ideas as well as the segments that I thoroughly enjoyed carried the book to a strong 3.5 star rating.

THE REALLY GOOD/EXCELLENT - I loved the first third of the book in which the basic outline of the "Brave New World" and its devalued, conveyer belt morality is set forth. The narrative device employed by Huxley of having the Director of Hatchery and Conditioning provide a walking tour to students around the facility as a way to knowledge up the reader on the societal basics was perfect. We learn of the cloning/birthing process, the caste system and the fundamental tenets upon which the society is organized.

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This was as good a use of infodumping exposition as I had come across in some time and I was impressed both with the content and delivery method. The reader gets a crash course in world and its history in a way that fit nicely into the flow of the narrative without ever feeling forced. This was easily the best part of the novel for me, and Huxley's mass production-based society of enforced hedonism and anti-emotion was very compelling. Sort of like...

Mr_Spock-1 v2

Now, long jumping to the end of the novel...

I also thought the final "debate" near the story's climax between John (the "savage") and Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, was exceptional. This last chapter/ending of the book, while abrupt, was masterful and struck the proper chord with the overall theme of the book.

Thus, a superior 4.5 to 5.0 stars for this portion of the book.

THE BAD/AWFUL - I thought the middle of the book including both the trip to the "reservation" and John's initial return to London was a sleeping pill and felt disconnected from the rest of the narrative. Throughout this entire portion of the book, all I kept thinking was...

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The only purpose of this long, long.....LONG section seems to be to allow the reader to see Bernard Marx do a complete 180 in his views on the society once he finds himself in the role of celebrity by virtue of his relationship with John the savage. Sorry, this just did not strike me as a big enough payoff for this dry, plodding section. It was a test of endurance to get through this portion of the book, so I'm being generous when I give it a weak 2.0 to 2.5 stars. I could just have easily summed it up by just saying...

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Bottom-line, I think this is a book that should be read. It's important book and there is much brilliance here. Plus, it is short enough that the stale boring segments aren't too tortuous to get through. However, as far as the triumvirate of classic dystopian science fiction goes...1984 is still the undisputed champ.

3.0 Stars. Recommended. (less)

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Kemper

Aug 02, 2011Kemper rated it really liked it

Shelves: dystopia, future-is-now, 2011, famous-books, playing-god, sci-fi

Warning! The following review contains humor. If you read it and actually think that I'm being critical of Huxley, try reading it again. (Here's a hint. Look for the irony of the italicized parts when compared to the previous statements.) If you post a comment that asserts that I'm wrong/ stupid/ crazy for this and/or try to lecture me on all the points you think I missed then I'm going to assume that you read it literally, missed the joke, didn't read the other comments where I've already answered this about a dozen times, and I will delete your post.

I have to apologize for this review. The concept of this book was so outlandish that I think it made my mind wander, and you may find some odd random thoughts scattered in it.

Anyhow, this book was so silly and unrealistic. Like any of this could happen. In the far future the babies are genetically engineered and designed for certain stations in life with a large workforce bred to be happy with menial jobs that don’t stress them physically or mentally. I really should look into getting that data entry position I saw in the job postings. It’d be a lot less stressful than what I‘m doing now.

In addition to all the genetic modifications, the children are raised by the state, and words like ’father’ and ’mother’ are considered obscenities. Subliminal messaging through infancy and childhood also condition people to repeat idiotic platitudes as if they are genuine wisdom. I’ve been in a bad mood today. I need to turn that frown upside down. And since the world economy depends on constant consumption by the highest classes, they’re encouraged to be wasteful The collars on a couple of my shirts are a little frayed. I should go buy some new ones and throw the old ones out. and to engage in activities that demand spending and resource use. Should I get a new set of golf clubs? I lost my old ones when we moved, but I hadn’t played in a long time. But would I play more if I got new clubs? There‘s that really nice looking course right down the street. I don‘t know how they keep the grass that green in this heat. The population even gets to zip around in their own private helicopters rather than cars. Man, when are they going to come out with jet packs for everyone. It’s 2011 and I’m still driving around in a car like a chump. I want my jet pack!

Casual sex is actively encouraged. Wow. These condom commercials on TV have gotten really racy. The population is also programmed to be constantly partaking of some form of entertainment and to never just sit quietly and think I’m bored. Writing is boring. or to be alone Let’s check Facebook and see what all my friends are doing.

One of the sillier ideas is that the foundation of this society is Henry Ford’s assembly lines and that Ford has become the most revered figure in history. Like a businessman could ever become that popular. Is Steve Jobs making any announcements this week? I get itchy when there‘s no new Apple products.

While everyone seeks to be constantly entertained, all of the entertainment panders to the lowest common denominator. Hey, Jersey Shore is on! and the emphasis is on presenting it with gimmicks to engage the audience like ’the feelies’, movies that the audience can also smell and feel the sensation from. I wonder if they’ll re-release Avatar at the movies so I can see it in 3D again like James Cameron intended? At one point, a character complains about the feelies, “But they’re told by an idiot….works of art out of practically nothing but pure sensation.” I should go see that new Michael Bay Transformers movie.

Perhaps the most far fetched idea in this is that the population has been trained to sedate themselves with a drug called soma that relives any potential anxieties and keeps people from thinking about anything upsetting. I want a beer.

I guess this Huxley guy might have gotten lucky and predicted a few things, but he was way off base about where society was going.

(less)

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Madeline

Feb 07, 2010Madeline rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction, the-list

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932. That's almost eighty years ago, but the book reads like it could have been written yesterday. (especially interesting to me was how Huxley was able to predict the future of both genetic engineering and the action blockbuster. Damn.)

I think I liked this one better than 1984, the book traditionally considered to be this one's counterpart. Not really sure why this is, but it's probably because this one has a clearer outsider character (the Savage) who can view the world Huxley created through his separate perspective.

In this light, I will give the last word to Neil Postman, who discussed the differences between Orwell and Huxley's views of the future:

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.

As Huxley remarked in 'Brave New World revisited,' the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny 'failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.'

In 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' people are controlled by inflicting pain. In 'Brave New World' people are controlled by inflicting pleasure.

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us." (less)

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Emily May

Jun 06, 2012Emily May rated it did not like it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2012, sci-fi

Wow, the anger over this rating! My first post for this book was a quote and a gif of Dean from Supernatural rolling his eyes and passing out. And people were pissed. How dare I?

Lol. I'm honestly just so tired of all the dumb comments demanding that I (all caps) "ELABORATE". It's been going on for SIX YEARS now. So I will: This is still one of the most boring emotionless books I have ever read. It seemed like a natural choice after I loved Orwell and Atwood but, my god, Huxley is a dry, dull writer.

Another reviewer called this book a "sleeping pill" and that is a fantastic description. After all the hullabaloo with my original post, I borrowed Brave New World from my local library with the intention of reading it again to give a more detailed review for those freaking out in the comments. And I returned it after suffering through only a few pages. A few years later I got the ebook, thinking I would eventually make it through somehow. But I haven't. It's so mind-numbingly dull. I don't want to do it to myself. The Globalization of World Politics was more enjoyable than this book. (less)

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Sean Barrs 

Oct 02, 2018Sean Barrs rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Recommends it for: Fans of 1984, the Handmaid's Tale and Fahrenheit 451

Shelves: reviewed-for-fantasy-book-review, sci-fi, 5-star-reads

“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”

These are words uttered in the face of tyranny and complete oppression, though they are very rare words to be spoken or even thought of in this world because every human passion and sense of creativity is repressed and eradicated through a long and complex process of conditioning.

And that’s what makes this novel so powerful; it’s not unbelievable. Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, there’s just enough truth within Brave New World for it to be real. It’s a cruel mirroring of our own existence, should we follow a certain path too strongly. And that's the wonder of speculative fiction, though unlike the other two books, there’s no violence involved in Huxley’s world. It’s just as controlling and scary, but it’s done in a more indirect way.

Sex is on tap, everybody should be happy.

People don’t go missing in the night nor are they stoned to death by a group of their peers, but they have just as little freedom (even if they don’t realise it.) In this dystopia they are trained from birth to think and feel in a certain way, and, for whatever reason, should they ever deviate from their ordained path, they are fed drugs that induce happiness and serenity; thus, the populace is kept within their desired space, and persist with the tasks they were born to do. Very few of them even consider that this is wrong; this is all they have known. And to make things even more maniacally clever, all physical and sexual needs are fulfilled completely as everybody belongs to everybody else in every sense with the ultimate goal of people never developing desire. All desire should be fulfilled, nobody wants for anything else.

People are machines and houses are factories. They are mass produced and designed to be one thing and one thing only. All values are inverted. The idea of showing any emotion is horrific and repulsive. Love is unknown and alien. Death is associated with sweetness and relief. Children are fed candy when they are thought about death, so they associate the two together, so when as adults they see death they think of treats rather than the loss of someone they have known and worked beside for years.

In Brave New World people are husks, empty and detached, without ever realising it.

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-John, the savage, as he enters the new world

I can only admire and praise Huxley’s genius through the writing. Like all effective dystopian societies, reading and information plays an exceedingly important role. As with Ray Bradbury'sFahrenheit 451, all books have been destroyed and made inaccessible. John, one of the few characters who was born away from the new world, stumbles across a volume of Shakespeare and it changes his life. He can only think and feel in Shakespearean language and begins to view the world through a semi-romantic lens and only finds depravity when he walks into the new world.

It’s everything he hates. He has been termed the savage, though he knows and understands the real meaning of the term even if those who call him such do not. Naturally, he becomes depressed and isolated in this new space, a space that he cannot be a part of or accepted in (not that he would want to be.) And I found him by far the most interesting and compelling character within the story because he is the only one to really look beyond the boundaries of his own experience and to find it wanting.

So this is a terribly important novel and I can’t believe I have only just read it. If you haven’t read it already, you know what you have to do. This isn’t something to be missed. It’s a novel that made me think and imagine in a way a book hasn’t done in quite some time.

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You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.

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Erin

Feb 29, 2008Erin added it

Shelves: ew-high-school-english

remember that last semester of english class, senior year, where every class seemed painfully long and excrutiatingly pointless? when everybody sat around secretly thinking of cute and witty things to put in other people's yearbooks? when the teachers realized we were already braindead from filling out three dozen student loan applications and college housing forms? that's when honors english started getting a little lazy.

not that i minded. everybody got a book list. then everybody got split up ...more

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Ahmad Sharabiani

Oct 07, 2010Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 1001-books, literature, classics, science, british, 20th-century

(Book 649 From 1001 Books) - Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley. Published in 1932.

The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF (After Ford) 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar), where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes (or castes) based on intelligence and labor.

Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, is popular and sexually desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not.

He is shorter in stature than the average member of his high caste, which gives him an inferiority complex.

His work with sleep-learning allows him to understand, and disapprove of, his society's methods of keeping its citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption of a soothing, happiness-producing drug called Soma.

Courting disaster, Bernard is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland because of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a gifted writer who finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in their pain-free society. ...

Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience by Aldous Huxley | Goodreads

Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience by Aldous Huxley | Goodreads

Huxley and God: Essays on Religious Experience

by Aldous Huxley, 

Huston Smith (Introduction), 

Jacqueline Hazard Bridgeman (Editor)

 4.32  ·   Rating details ·  117 ratings  ·  4 reviews

With three new biographies published in the last year and the continued success of his 1932 novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley is experiencing a remarkable resurgence. In this mind-bending collection of essays, Huxley explores the notion of divinity from a variety of perspectives, including his deep knowledge of Eastern philosophy. Will be of great interest to fans of the East and Huxley's own growing group of followers and devotees. (less)

Paperback, 320 pages

Published March 1st 2003 

by The Crossroad Publishing Company (first published 1992)

https://archive.org/details/huxleygodessays00huxl

Renewable every hour, pending availability.More info

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 Average rating4.32  ·  Rating details ·  117 ratings  ·  4 reviews

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Susan

Dec 30, 2011Susan rated it it was amazing

Before reading this book, my relationship with Huxley was confined to a bit of fiction and his historical account of political religiosity in, “The Devils of Loudon”. “Devils” made a great impression on me in my youth, and helped me to work out issues of forgiveness and compassion by exploring politicized selfishness and cruelty. But I didn’t know what to expect from this collection of essays on the nature of the divine.

On this, my first pass-through of the text, I don’t yet have the “umph” to adequately record my feelings, because I’m just not ready. I’ll have to go back to the book later to strip away its layers. I’m sympathetic to Huxley’s views on the personal search for meaning, with the accompanying personal responsibility to think and act for oneself. His clean language camouflages the profundity of his arguments – arguments that I have read before in eastern (translated) texts.

 Huxley weds eastern and western mysticism to form a surprisingly modern perspective on comparative religion. He offers many opportunities for understanding: Taking a mindful approach to the divine has often been criticized as being pragmatic and therefore, coldly cerebral. But Huxley understands the mystical, loving side of mindfulness that is, I strongly believe, misunderstood in the west. He also grasps the complexity of ritualism. It’s true that rituals help the human mind to focus. But the actual equipment and protocol of a ritual, though dear or sacred to the supplicant, is unimportant. A ritual is a vehicle towards satisfying personal or society needs. Huxley “gets” that we forget to revaluate our needs and motivations with an almost stunning consistency, and instead place primacy on the ritual itself -- which is missing the point.

Bottom line: I give this book a 5 star rating because it makes me think and feel in a tolerant, compassionate way. Sophisticated cynics beware: Huxley advocates for love, but he does it without being trite. (less)

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Alison

Oct 09, 2008Alison rated it it was amazing

He is such a smart man ,that Huxley. My favorite essay so far has been the reflections on progress. His vast vocabulary is very impressive as well but makes me feel like a moron sometimes except I get what he's saying.If anyone has the time they should probably read anything he has written. (less)

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Kenny

Aug 11, 2009Kenny rated it liked it

This book overall just barely got three stars, but not because it is consistently mediocre. The book is a collection of essays. Some individual essays are wondeful, some individual sections/passages are great, but much of the book I find poorly reasoned and not very interesting. So it's all over the place, and on balance averages to something under 3 stars. Definitely not for everyone, and even if this is your cup of tea read discriminatingly... (less)

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Sara

Sep 25, 2015Sara rated it liked it

Two and a half stars. While I appreciated his wit and his Vedantic stance on religious philosophy, Huxley was very much a product of his Victorian upbringing. His pronouncements on mysticism and living life correctly were rather dry and judgmental. For anyone who has already read more original sources on mysticism, both Eastern and Western, this wouldn't present anything new or noteworthy. (less)

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‘Diseclipsing’ the Light : HUXLEY AND GOD: Essays on Mysticism and Spirituality, 

 By Aldous Huxley Edited by Jacqueline Bridgeman (Harper San Francisco: $13; 285 pp.)

BY CHARLES MAROWITZ

NOV. 22, 1992

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-11-22-bk-1833-story.html

--

 MAROWITZ IS A DIRECTOR AND WRITER WHO LIVES IN LOS ANGELES. HIS MOST RECENT PUBLICATIONS ARE "RECYCLING SHAKESPEARE" (APPLAUSE BOOKS) AND "BURNT BRIDGES" (HODDER & STOUGHTON)

It is ironic that Aldous Huxley and John F. Kennedy both died on the same day--Nov. 22, 1963--for while the President espoused a “new frontier,” it was Huxley who to a large extent discovered one.

Rarely has there been an essayist-novelist-sage who, from the vantage point of the 1920s and ‘30s, prophesied the events of our contemporary world so accurately. Huxley, grandson of scientist T. H. Huxley and great-nephew of classicist Mathew Arnold, was deeply embroiled in our modern agenda: overpopulation, birth-control, polluted oceans, dwindling forests, the absorption of human values by an all-engulfing science and technology. He predicted the invention of surface-to-air missiles, genetic engineering, pharmacological highs and the insidious colonization of society by media and advertising interests.

After writing a brace of biting social satires (“Crome Yellow” and “Antic Hay”), he produced his Utopian nightmare “Brave New World,” which did for the 1930s what George Orwell’s “1984" was to do for the postwar generation. Throughout, he wrote essays, religious tracts, political analyses, newspaper articles, even drama criticism.

Then, much to the chagrin of his earliest supporters, in his later years he wandered into the murky grottoes of religious mysticism (Buddhism, Hinduism, Vedanta, the paranormal) and--what was even more horrifying--personally experimented with mescaline and LSD. “The Doors of Perception,” Huxley’s 1954 account of his experiences with these hallucinogens, was, in many ways, the opening shot of the ‘60s; to that generation he became a culture-hero, and his book a kind of psychedelic Baedeker.

Although he first made his mark as a novelist, he was never very comfortable in the genre. He viewed novel-writing, according to his friend Christopher Isherwood, “as a necessary nuisance.” The actual weaving of fiction “bored him.” But in his essays, that multifaceted intelligence that could juggle science and history, religion and art, psychology and politics shone with a luciferous light. In “Huxley and God,” editor Jacqueline Bridgeman has culled together 26 pieces that convey Huxley’s fascination with the impenetrable and the unknowable.

The essays range from microscopic analyses of things like the Lord’s Prayer and a speech from “Henry V” to weighty discourses on subjects such as time, progress, contemplation, knowledge and understanding. One or two are cribbed from larger works such as “Time Must Have a Stop,” “The Perennial Philosophy” and “Grey Eminence,” but most are little-known pieces originally published by the Vedanta Society. The most accessible, and in many ways the most arresting, are the texts of lectures delivered to that society in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Whatever the subject, Huxley’s theme of “diseclipsing” the light that stands between ourselves and true enlightenment runs through the pages like an ominous seismological crack.

Through a weird kind of synchronicity that often brings the right man into the right milieu, Huxley settled in California in 1937. His mystical predisposition and pre-New Age predilections fitted in perfectly with his adopted home. Although his reasons for moving here were the terrain and the clear and abundant southwestern light, there was also, as it turned out, an affinity for cults and spiritual disciplines which, then as now, made him a kindred spirit in Los Angeles. (There is even a kind of odd relevance in this book being published by a San Francisco publishing house.)

Huxley’s fascination with spirituality was in large part an extension of the intellectual’s fascination with tantalizing abstractions. “True philosophy,” he told Andre Maurois, “is religion or else it is art, which is simply another form of religion.” Every self-contained system of thought holds out the promise that it will reveal the secrets of “ultimate reality,” a phrase that crawls endlessly through these pages like an elusive caterpillar through high grass. One feels that what constantly eludes Huxley, and what he is most intent on capturing, is not so much the State of Grace or some higher degree of karma, but a most finite articulation of what these spiritual states consist of. It is their definition that excites him, not necessarily their realization in his own nature.

And yet throughout these essays, Huxley is propounding the paradox of language obstructing the route to higher consciousness. He reminds us of St. Paul who talked about “the newness of spirit” and the “oldness of the letter” and how “the letter killeth” and “the spirit giveth life.” The search for Buddhahood fails because one is too consciously striving for it; by overvaluing words, we mistake the thing described for the thing itself; the conscious mind tries to hold truth in its grasp, but like water, it trickles through our fingers.

This fascination with the transcendental is often most intense in the mind of a voracious intellectual like Huxley, who has already digested the secrets of science and technology, psychology and religion, art and literature. For such people mysticism, like space-travel for the astronomers, represents the unconquered universe--the last hold-out against verifiable human knowledge.

When he is following his hunches and soaring on the wings of speculation, we experience a dazzling flight through vast and unexpected landscapes, but sometimes his zeal grounds him and then it is a little like being buttonholed by a Hare Krishna loony in an airport lounge. In chapters like “Distraction,” Huxley exhorts us to abandon the trivial and the inconsequential, which, in his view, diverts us from the jollies of the higher consciousness. In such moments, it is as if he is denying God a “happy hour” or a Sunday morning goof-off with the funny papers. In his earnest quest for deeper in sights, there is a distinct tendency to undervalue ordinary human existence, which is understandable in a man whose inner circle contained scientists, physicians, mystics and philosophers, but deplorable in that it prevented him from enjoying the distinctive pleasures of junk food, junk ideas and junk people. Which also explains somewhat his deficiency as a novelist for, as Chesterton pointed out, “A great novelist must above all be vulgar because life is vulgar and men are vulgar and because it is the novelist’s object to reproduce life.” As a writer and as a man, Huxley was a patrician whereas the greatest novelists were always, at base, plebs.

When he was a young man at Eton, a streptococcus infection attacked his eyes, and he was virtually blind for a year. Throughout his life, he had partial sight in only one eye and, given this impediment, the volume and breadth of his reading is staggering. Like Beethoven, who entered an even more plangent world of sound when he was deaf, Huxley experienced his greatest insights when his vision was most impaired.

It is that enforced introversion perhaps that accounts for his mystical tendencies. In a way very different from you or me, Huxley inhabited an “inner world” and, despite publicly held positions on a wide variety of social and political issues, it was in that interior world that he conducted his most painstaking research. Although in his last years he immersed himself completely, the preoccupation with mysticism was apparent from his earliest works, even in “Crome Yellow.” It is a mistake to see it as the aberration of a writer fading into his twilight years. It is much more the logical conclusion of the intellectual quest that began during his first years in Oxford. There was, from the very first, an ongoing relationship between Huxley and God.

The urbanity and literary sophistication that Huxley brings to subjects that could so easily become soupily spiritual or turgidly transcendental is what gives this collection its special tang and makes it intensely readable even when the author is vainly trying to define the ineffable.

Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley | Goodreads

Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley | Goodreads

Time Must Have a Stop

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Time Must Have a Stop

by Aldous Huxley, Douglas Dutton (Preface)

 3.67  ·   Rating details ·  1,312 ratings  ·  102 reviews

Sebastian Barnack, a handsome English schoolboy, goes to Italy for the summer, and there his real education begins. His teachers are two quite different men: Bruno Rontini, the saintly bookseller, who teaches him about things spiritual; and Uncle Eustace, who introduces him to life's profane pleasures.

The novel that Aldous Huxley himself thought was his most successful at "fusing idea with story," Time Must Have a Stop is part of Huxley's lifelong attempt to explore the dilemmas of twentieth-century man and to create characters who, though ill-equipped to solve the dilemmas, all go stumbling on in their painfully serious comedies (in this novel we have the dead atheist who returns in a seance to reveal what he has learned after death but is stuck with a second-rate medium who garbles his messages).

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 Average rating3.67  ·  Rating details ·  1,312 ratings  ·  102 reviews

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Paul

Sep 14, 2013Paul rated it it was amazing

Shelves: huxley-ideas-arguments

This is a difficult one to review. One of Huxley’s lesser known works; before Doors of Perception and after Brave New World and written as the Second World War finished. Difficult because it covers so much ground. It is a philosophical treatise, a critique of capitalism, fascism, socialism, especially of imperialism. It has a go at post-modernism and at Joyce, Woolf et al. It is a critique of religion in its traditional form; an exploration of Huxley’s attraction to Buddhism. It predates much existential thought and 60s radicalism and accurately predicts it. It talks about the trashing of the planet in a way that feels that it might have been written in the last ten years. It irritated and delighted me in equal measure. In the midst of that is a coming of age novel. It predicts the growing power of Russia and China; the collapse of Empire and at the same time preserves a lightness of touch and a sense of humour.

Sebastian Barnack is 17, with blond curly hair and is rather beautiful. His father John is a lawyer, anti-fascist and humanitarian. Unfortunately he does not understand Sebastian’s need for evening clothes and a social life because these are mere fripperies and totally unnecessary. Sebastian is an innocent (virgin) and a poet and does not understand his father’s asceticism. He is to spend the summer in Italy with his uncle Eustace. Eustace is a hedonist and sensualist, promising to teach Sebastian about life and love and buy him evening clothes! Bruno Rontini, a friend of Eustace will teach Sebastian about the spiritual side of life. The novel takes place over one summer, apart from an epilogue some 15 years later. Sebastian learns about life, loses his virginity, writes poetry, makes some mistakes; one of which (though simple and not too heinous) echoes through the years.

There are some startling moments. There is a death from a heart attack which Huxley describes with exceptional vividness and it feels all too real. I am not sure how Huxley does it, but he kills off a significant character (and I’m thinking No! You can’t do that) and at the same time the whole scene is hilarious; this is writing of a high order. The hilarity goes on as the character, who is an atheist discovers that death is not the end and the attempts to contact loved ones through a medium are very funny. The descriptions of life after death are irritating and unconvincing and a bit nirvanaish, but the point is made.

This novel for me is better than any of Huxley’s other work I have read. Sebastian is a typical 17 year old boy; hung up about girls, selfish, innocent and fancies himself as a poet. Sebastian grows up as he encounters goodness in the shape of Bruno Rontini and wickedness in the shape of fascism. There is even a type of reconciliation with his father by the end of the book. Embedded in the tale are the ideas; plenty to react to!

Suffering is not always ennobling. “Democracy is being able to say no to the boss, and you can’t say no unless you have enough property to enable you to eat when you have lost the bosses’ patronage.”

“For four and a half centuries white Europeans have been busily engaging in attacking, oppressing and exploiting the coloured people’s inhabiting the rest of the world. The catholic Spaniards and Portuguese began it; then came Protestant Dutch and Englishmen, Catholic French, Greek Orthodox, Russians, Lutheran Germans, Catholic Belgians. Trade and the Flag, exploitation and oppression, have always and everywhere followed or accompanied the proselytizing cross.

Victims have long memories – a fact which oppressors can never understand.”

It is powerful stuff and Huxley comprehensively dismantles western liberal ideas in a ruthless and pitiless way. The answers he gives are not convincing, but the demolition is spot on. There is much to argue with and Huxley is a little smug sometimes; but this is a thought provoking book. It foreshadows Fritz Fanon, Rachel Carson and the 60s radicals and it looks back on the post-modern movement. I like books that you can react to; I disagreed with a good deal, but it was a great ride!! (less)

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daniel

Apr 20, 2009daniel rated it it was amazing

'of course, you realize,' he added, 'that you'll always be disappointed?'

'with what?'

'with girls, with parties, with experience in general. nobody who has any kind of creative imagination can possibly be anything but disappointed with real life. when i was young i used to be miserable because i hadn't any talents - nothing but a little taste and cleverness. but now i'm not sure one isn't happier that way. people like you aren't really commensurable with the world they live in. whereas people like me are completely adapted to it.' he removed the [cigar:] from between his large damp lips to take another sip of brandy.

'your business isn't doing things,' he resumed. 'it isn't even living. it's writing poetry. vox et praeterea nihil, that's what you are and what you ought to be. or rather voces, not vox. all the voices in the world. like chaucer. like shakespeare. the miller's voice and the parson's voice, desdemona's and caliban's and kent's and polonius'. all of them impartially.'

'impartially,' sebastian repeated slowly.

yes, that was good; that was exactly what he'd been trying to think about himself, but had never quite succeeded, because such thoughts didn't fit into the ethical and philosophical patterns which he had been brought up to regard as axiomatic. voices, all the voices impartially. he was delighted by the thought.

'of course,' eustace was saying, 'you could always argue that you live more intensely in your mental world-substitute than we who only wallow in the real thing and i'd be inclined to admit it. but the trouble is that you can't be content to stick to your beautiful ersatz. you have to descend into evening clothes and ciro's and chorus girls - and perhaps even politics and committee meetings, god help us! with lamentable results. because you're not at home with these lumpy bits of matter. they depress you, they bewilder you, they shock you and sicken you and make a fool of you. and yet they still tempt you; and they'll go on tempting you, all our life. tempting you to embark on actions which you know in advance can only make you miserable and distract you from the one thing you can do properly, the one thing that people value you for.' (less)

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Jacob

Feb 03, 2008Jacob rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone

Seriously one of the best books I've read in the last few years. It's a deceptive read in that the storyline is a facade for Huxley's philosophical messages. If you can get past the fact that it really isn't about a young man trying to procure formal evening wear, but instead a dialogue of morals, it becomes much easier to read and very enjoyable. Definitely worth finishing, and definitely worth reading again. (less)

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Ant

Sep 10, 2010Ant rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

This novel was written just prior to the publication of the Perennial philosophy, his essay on the mystical. Reading this leaves no doubt that the direction his writing was taking was very personal & closely following his own spiritual evolution. In fact, 'Time Must Have a Stop' could almost have been written as a prelude to where he was to take his audience with his future essays. While his last major novel, 'Eyeless In Gaza', if we are to jump frog 'After a many Summer', left the protagonist at the edge of this spiritual exploration, this book jumps right in with the first ever after death account of "the light" I've ever read in a book.

"The light", that supposed near death experience many have anecdotally gone through to live to tell about, was described, not entirely surprisingly from Huxley, as a very psychedelic state. As he describes it here, it mirrors exactly the bliss/anxiety/eternalness that LSD or other hallucinogens take the mind through, as a Self-aware, living, changing geometric Lattice of light. Which influenced which? His experiments with Hallucinogens or his association with Vedanta, it's hard to say, but there is no doubt that his experience of the psychedelic state played a major role in the formulation of his description of the post death state in this novel. The novel in itself is not one of his great works in a literary sense. It is not in the realms of 'Point Counter' Point or 'Eyeless in Gaza'. It however moved, to my mind in a much better direction than his previous novel, 'After a many summer', returning to his drier, more introspective English style.

While the book is not a monument or masterpiece, it is a very good book, and a good read. Set in Florence, he surrounds his characters with art, culture and the richness of life, while setting it all up to challenge the reader of its surrender (in the form of personal annihilation). The book is not about bringing culture to the reader, but the wisdom to treat it all as superficial and ultimately a distraction. There is no doubt this book was presented as nothing less than a modern sutra.

Having read many reviews here, I still feel Huxley was grossly misunderstood. The man was a cynic with a scientific dissection of reality. He was not a hopeful, was not a dreamer, if you were to understand his earlier works, so why would he break here? His mind was the fruit of the evolution of the ground of those traits. The word 'God' raises eyebrows and rightly so, but for want of a better linguistic bridge, Huxley, sparingly uses this term to identify with an ultimate ground; a ground which many have experienced and is held by no institution. We do not take it as accepted fact the stories humorous lines about the misadventures of a séance, but rather a vehicle to attempt to describe a deeper, ineffable state which goes beyond any descriptions a book may grant. Gathered from millenia of experience, Huxley has sifted through texts (and pretexts) to offer the most viable answer to a most impossible question. To say the atheist is the ultimate conveyor of truth is to put one's faith blindly in yet one more dogma. Yet Huxley ultimately does not explicitly even commit to any specific doctrine, settling on the final "Not this, not this" as the only description of truth.

This is a relatively minor novel for Huxley, but at the same time an important one. Well written, great fun in fact, but in order to understand it as more than mere point of View, to understand it as the Hero of the book, Bruno would have, one would have to extend oneself to read Huxley's next work, the 'Perennial Philosophy'.

Don't get me wrong, it is not a heavy book. It is well balanced with humor and interesting character sketches that he treats much more kindly than in his earlier works in spite of their flaws. He even treats himself a little more charitably if we are to imagine he is Sebastian. I loved this book. It returned him from that American novel style, back to where he belongs. It was warm, rich and thought provoking and enough to make me continue to follow his path had I not read this before his later works. An absolute must for any Huxley fan. Oh, and interestingly, Bruno, the spiritual inspiration, died of throat cancer, as did Huxley many years later. (less)

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Jake Danishevsky

Oct 03, 2015Jake Danishevsky rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-fiction-non-politics, own

A coming of age book by Aldous Huxley. The most interesting part is transformation of Sebastian Barnack. I can completely relate to his character and I am sure, so as many who are able to reflect on their past, present and maybe even the future. I have the same values as I had when I was in my teens, twenties, thirties, but I have different beliefs and understanding of my surroundings and even those same values. That is how I saw Sebastian as I read this book.

Not to spoil the book for anyone who would like to read it themselves, here is just a tidbit about it. The story starts with description of a young man, who with his youthful charm and good looks is able to make people like him immediately, pay attention to anything he would request and even forgive him on anything that others might not be able to get away with. He makes mistakes, a few and many, but as any young person, he has a hard time dealing with telling the truth, owning up to them and at the same time trying to justify them. Sebastian is not a bad person, but he is young and scared, of his own doing and his own actions. Is he selfish? Yes, he might be and even cynical, but all and all, he is desperate to feel better about his actions by hoping that no one will find out or when they do, they will once again fall for his charm and a smile. Can someone blame him for his actions? Sure, of course he is wrong and he knows it, but yet he continues to fall deeper into his own desperate mental hole that he dug for himself of deceit and hence in a way hurting the ones who are trying to help him, the ones who love him. His priorities are not aligned with strong character, but yet he knows it and not able to get out of pitiful of his own actions.

Bruno changes Sebastian's life. Bruno is a distant relative and a man of virtue. He teaches Sebastian not by lecturing, not by talks, but by being. Bruno pays the price for Sebastian's actions, but yet he continues to display the virtue and higher level of character that eventually helps Sebastian in the long run.

Skip forward and we see a man, a man who has been through some good and bad of life, but a man nevertheless who was able to learn and evolve into a person that he was meant to be. He becomes a man of stronger character and therefore gains respect even from someone who doesn't always volunteer to display respect, his father. That man is Sebastian and his life has taken many terms, but he was able to learn humility from his experiences and from the man who stood by him through actions that others might have not supported, Bruno.

Huxley was an amazing psycho-analyst. He was able to create a character and then do analysis on his character, where you feel what the character feels and yet you are able to reflect on his actions that you would not agree with, worry about him doing the right thing and eventually praise the character for becoming a person of some greater value. Amazing book and work of fiction. It draws you in and makes you want to see what happens next. I have to admit, I am a huge Huxley fan, but I did not love every single one of his books. This one I liked a lot. Even though it has taken me a little longer than I expected to read it, it was not due to the book, but my constraints of time and whenever I had time to pick it up, I had a hard time putting it down. I was contemplating whether to give this one 4 or 5 stars and since there is no 4.5, then 5 it is. (less)

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David Zerangue

Aug 11, 2020David Zerangue rated it liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: literature

This would have been a 2.5 star rating if half stars were allowed.

I found this book to be very challenging to appreciate. Aldous Huxley was a highly intelligent individual and I have enjoyed other works of his. But this one really missed. There were elements of the novel that reminded me why I enjoy reading his works, but there were so many other aspects of this novel that I found overly difficult. I felt I needed to be a scholar to appreciate this novel. By the time the reader reaches the end of this novel, it is clear this is Mr. Huxley’s philosophy. Had he focused on telling the story so as to deliver the message, this would have been a more rewarding read. (less)

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Scott

Apr 07, 2018Scott rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Huxley was deep into his mystical phase by the time he wrote this, 1945, and there’s a heavy didactic strain to the novel – while it starts as something of a social satire, by the ending it’s become pretty close to a straightforward essay, masquerading as the notebook of one of the characters. So it’s an excellent presentation of his views on religion and mysticism, though there’s no mention of psychedelics at this point, presumably he hadn’t yet begun his explorations there. And his biting sens ...more

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Troy Alexander

Dec 30, 2020Troy Alexander rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Extremely clever (above my head, in places) and wonderfully written. I did find myself thinking, at times, "just get on with it", as I do find Huxley rather verbose but, nevertheless, this is still a very engaging and thought-provoking book.

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Momina Masood

Mar 06, 2014Momina Masood rated it it was ok

Shelves: philosophy, brit-lit

And suddenly he knew these recovered figments of himself for what they so shamefully were; knew them for mere clots and disintegrations, for mere absences of light, mere untransparent privations, nothingness that had to be annihilated, had to be held up into incandescence, considered and understood and then repudiated, annihilated to make place for the beauty, the knowledge, the bliss.

I wasn’t at all prepared for Huxley and had no inkling what this book was going to be about. In my college library, I was looking instead for Brave New World but, since I failed to find it, I picked this one up, thinking that written by the same man who’s written a positively famous book, it must be good, as well. And it is, undoubtedly. But for the uninitiated, this book is kind of hard to get in to, to get properly adjusted, as the early pages completely knock you numb with their verbiage. Huxley, among other things, can get verbose as anything. The patient and inexorable reader might wade through the early few chapters and, though no Nirvana waits at the end of the endeavor, the reading experience will not prove to be completely futile, in my humble opinion, at least.

This book must not be read for the fiction, the story, the character development. It isn’t a traditional novel as it aims not to excite the fancy but to give a few philosophical nuggets to chew on. It is more of a philosophical treatise than a novel, actually. If Huxley wanted to tell a story, he could have done it in 5 pages as nothing much happens in this book. The characters are drawn as mouthpieces to explicate Huxley’s philosophy and his qualms regarding the world as he saw it. They are also drawn as embodiments and possible archetypes: you have a morally depraved atheist in Eustace whose end of life is pleasure; the spiritualist and the enlightener Bruno; the mother-figure and the sentimentalist in Mrs. Ockham, and the cynical, invulnerable, morally questionable adulteress in Mrs. Thwale. Oh, and you also have the political puritan in John Barnack, as well. In drawing such diverse characters, Huxley has, in a way, given a cross-sectional analysis of his world and in the midst of these characters is our protagonist, the seventeen-year old Sebastian Barnack who is precocious and annoying as hell! Experience and transformation await this seventeen-year old contradiction of a human being and, in this way, this novel can be seen as one of those coming-of-age thingies. In the Epilogue, the reader sees a more self-aware Sebastian who’s less wordy and specious, concerned about more important things in life and, finally, asking the right questions. It is said that the ideas in this book were further developed in The Perennial Philosophy and I’m looking forward to reading it to understand better Huxley’s take on the world. The little I’ve managed to gather is that Huxley, to his fortune, was a kind of a spiritualist. I knew before of his fascination with Hinduism and Buddhism and it is very much evident in this book.

All in all, I warn the reader that this is not a recreational book and definitely does not bear the enjoyable fruits of common fiction. It is heavy, can get a little dull, sometimes even difficult and you might ask yourself what is the bloody point of all of this?! As I happened to mention that I issued this book out of my college library, the page beginning the 16th chapter had a little pencilled squiggle saying: “Do not waste your valuable time with this dull book!” Further on, the squiggle reappeared saying: “Useless!” I wanted to place a squiggle of my own somewhere but then I decided otherwise. He or she, whoever wrote them, are kind of right as this book is not meant for everyone. Huxley was an intellectual, first and foremost, and this book is a proof of that. You do not have ordinary conversations between the characters but essay-length debates on art, culture and theology replete with the most fantastic of pedantic allusions. Well that’s Huxley for you. He does, however, manage to pull you in at some point and does well in his endeavor.

The 2 stars are, well, kind of personal. He disparages a few things that are very important to me and gets extremely blasphemous at times. I have been open-minded enough to review him pleasantly but I cannot be too much of a liberal in giving him a high rating. I apologize but I shall advise Muslim readers in being cautious whilst reading this book, if you do choose to pick it up. It gets offensive but then again, the stereotypes have gotten too old and clichéd to actually offend us. They kind of elicit a meh now. Meh for you, Huxley!

That said, I’m still open to reading Brave New World and I hope the next time I visit my library, I’ll find the right book.

And of course, he reflected, resurrection is optional. We are under no compulsion except to persist—to persist as we are, growing always a little worse and a little worse; indefinitely, until we wish to rise again as something other than ourselves; inexorably, unless we permit ourselves to be raised.

(less)

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Leoniepeonie

Oct 29, 2020Leoniepeonie added it

Finally putting this bad boi to bed. Big fat DNF.

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Michael Chance

Dec 12, 2017Michael Chance rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Huxley regarded this book as his most successful attempt at dealing with philosophical themes in the novel form. I would agree partially... It is quite astonishing the depth and breadth of ideas that he manages to discuss. Perhaps it would be a better novel if he’d held back a little, but we’d be poorer if that were the case.

This book is not really a novel; it sets out as a novel before disintegrating and deconstructing the form, and this is its great success. The book begins as a human comedy, and ends as a divine comedy. The novel - a bourgeois 19th-20thC form of prose fiction centred on the individual - gives way to something more cosmic; the individual perspective is dissolved.

This is not to say that the petty bourgeois concerns of young Sebastian are shown as silly and meaningless, merely that there are different levels of consciousness that are appropriate at different stages of life. Although he is fiercely intellectual, Sebastian is young, and therefore preoccupied with the distractions of youth; clothes, girls, social acceptance - and that’s ok, he’ll mature. As the book progresses, the conceptual elements come further to the fore: from the first fumblings, to grown up conversational dialectics, to enlightened, mysterious inner reckoning.

The political aspect is perhaps most immediately apparent. Huxley gives us characters which represent ways of being - such as the miserly but fair socialist father against the indulgent, lascivious capitalist uncle - and sets them against each other without moralising too much or too obviously toward one side - they both have flaws and boons.

The religious/spiritual aspect of the book is slightly harder to grasp and I feel like I need a second reading to do so.

This is a book which I’m sure would hold up to a third, fourth and fifth reading, and would yield ever more ideas with each visit. Huxley is one of the great comprehensive, syncretistic thinkers of the 20thC, and breaks boundaries not only in a progressive sense but in a lateral sense, opening up a wider scope for the inclusion of diverse intellectual disciplines within the novel form.

I must read The Perennial Philosophy, which I gather is basically the non-fiction equivalent to this, or vice versa - not sure which is better to start with though? (less)

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Gee

May 06, 2012Gee rated it liked it

Having once tried to commence Brave New World, which I found difficult to get into, I approached another Huxley novel with a little trepidation. But I found myself enjoying Time Must Have a Stop. It's setting, period and characters reminded me a little of Somerset Maugham which gave me some comfort and familiarity. But overall this was an engaging story of religious or spiritual belief, an impression of the afterlife and the nature of the system of life that was society between the wars (Time was published in 1944).

This is the story of Sebastian Barnack, a 17-year old budding poet who goes to stay with this larger than life uncle Eustace in Florence for a holiday. It's very much a story of Sebastian learning about life - from the point of view of his strict and socialist father, from the generosity of spirit of his uncle, from the experience he gains from Veronica, his uncle's mother-in-law's assistant companion, and Bruno, a friend of Eustace's he gets to know deeply after the death of his uncle.

There are plenty of more sophisticated reviews of this book on Goodreads, so I shall leave it to those who can do an in depth review far more effectively. I recommend this book if you want an engaging story told with a sense of poetry and fun, and if you want your view of life, and the afterlife, to be challenged with some fascinating insights. (less)

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Liza

Jul 19, 2010Liza rated it really liked it

Shelves: forced-or-unintentional-philosophy

As mentioned by others, this is not for those who are looking for a story or a plot to dive into. This is philosophy through and through. I expected that when I started it, which is probably why I was so satisfied with it.

With that in mind, Huxley let's you into his mind in a way very very few have the bravery or depth to do. Yes, he is verbose and he can't seem to bring his lingual genius down to the layman's level-- but I love that about him as well. If you can get through it, if you really take the time and effort to understand it-- it is likely that it will blow you away.

As for me, I don't doubt that I'll be reading passage after passage many many times over the course of my life, only to discover something new each time.

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Scott

Dec 31, 2012Scott rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: classics

This book is quite powerful; culminating, throughout all of Sebastian's learnings and goings-on, in the true essence of the results of actions. Through Bruno's teachings on the ancestors and descendants of an action, good or bad, and through the actual results of Sebastian's choices, what was seemingly trivial proved that nothing is truly trivial. Sebastian moved on from a "simple poet", albeit extremely gifted, to a true philosopher of his time, giving each action a thorough discourse of its existence. We should all aspire to put such deep thought into the everyday doings. (less)

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Clinton Smith

Dec 12, 2013Clinton Smith rated it really liked it

Huxley is now best known for his 'Brave New World' dystopia. And that is well. His other books are amusing, erudite fiction. Huxley, however had an abiding interest in arcane philosophies and 'Time Must Have a Stop' is one of his most interesting books. It is an attempt - imbued with Huxley's inevitable wit - to explore beyond death. An attempt that demonstrates insight and considerable philosophical inquiry. Highly recommended. (less)

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David

Oct 19, 2010David rated it really liked it

Shelves: ap-literature

The only Aldous Huxley novel I have read aside from Brave New World. Huxley manages to blend philosophy, theology, a novel of class, and a coming of age novel (with a dash of mysticism) into a provocative and engaging story.

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Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual by Nicholas Murray | LibraryThing

Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual by Nicholas Murray | LibraryThing

ldous Huxley: An English Intellectual Kindle Edition

by Nicholas Murray (Author)  Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars    76 ratings

Part of: Thomas Dunne Books (5 books)

See all formats and editions

The grandson of biologist T. H. Huxley, Aldous Huxley had a privileged background and was educated at Eton and Oxford despite an eye infection that left him nearly blind. Having learned braille his eyesight then improved enough for him to start writing, and by the 1920s he had become a fashionable figure, producing witty and daring novels like CROME YELLOW (1921), ANTIC HAY (1923) and POINT COUNTER POINT (1928). 

But it is as the author of his celebrated portrayal of a nightmare future society, BRAVE NEW WORLD (1932), that Huxley is remembered today. 

A truly visionary book, it was a watershed in Huxley's world-view as his later work became more and more optimistic - coinciding with his move to California and experimentation with mysticism and psychedelic drugs later in life. 

Nicholas Murray's brilliant new book has the greatest virtue of literary biographies: it makes you want to go out and read its subject's work all over again. A fascinating reassessment of one of the most interesting writers of the twentieth century.

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Print length 533 pages

Kindle Price: $14.99



Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual
by Nicholas Murray

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drsabs's review

This book goes fairly rapidly through Huxley's life. This may be at least in part because of the loss of Huxley's papers and letters in the fire that destroyed his home in California. But the reader gets a good sense for the goodness of the man (with a few pecadillos), the diversity of his interests (poetry, literature, science, sociology, travel, eastern religion and new ideas) and the challenges posed by his damaged eyes. He was the co-inventor of the term psychedelic. I like his motto, aun aprendo ("I am still learning"), and that in his younger days he would take encyclopedias with him to read on his travels.( )
drsabs | Feb 24, 2014 |

Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual

by Nicholas Murray

 3.86  ·   Rating details ·  135 ratings  ·  14 reviews

A biography of novelist, essayist and born-again mystic Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), author of Brave New World and Eyeless in Gaza. The book is a reassessment of one of the most interesting writers of the 20th century, exploring his childhood, education and literary achievements.

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Paperback, 496 pages

Published 2003 by Abacus (first published 2002)

Original Title   Aldous Huxley

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Joel

Mar 10, 2019Joel rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I read the American edition (2003), published by St. Martins Press — titled Aldous Huxley: A Biography

Aldous Huxley: the British-born poet, editor, novelist, essayist, Hollywood screenwriter, lecturer, and conversationalist. He matured in the Edwardian/George-ian early 20th century. Murray’s is the third (and best) biography of Huxley I’ve read — an absorbing 500 pager. In his book Murray chronicles the key events and pursuits, as well as the intimate and the professional relationships, that budded then flowered as Huxley’s remarkable life, and enabled its impact.

Philip Thody’s brief biography (1973, in Scribners’ “Leaders of Modern Thought” series) spotlighted Huxley the intellectual explorer and bellwether. Sybille Bedford, a close personal friend of both Huxley and his first wife, Maria, published a much fuller and warmer account in her 1973 Huxley bio.

Murray had the advantage of reading the earlier efforts. The author's consummate research included interviews with Huxley’s second wife, Laura Archera Huxley, with Huxley’s son Matthew, as well as with Sybille Bedford herself, and the combing of a staggering number of archives and libraries. The result is a portrait with greater depth of focus.

Aldous Huxley lived through the eras of the two World Wars and into the early 1960s. The phases of his adult life are legendary and compelling — from dabbling poet, to mordant satirist, to active humanist and philanthropist, and eventually to transpersonal inward explorer and co-originator of the human-potentials movement. Murray details Huxley’s intellectual evolution while he highlights, and beguiles the general reader to appreciate, Huxley’s life as that of a kind and appealing person.

Apart from his travels in the world, Huxley resided in England, then Italy, and later the western U.S. His personal friendships stretched to characters as diverse as Lady Ottoline Morrell, Jiddhu Krishnamurti, and Harpo Marx. Other friendships included notables like D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, Gerald Heard, Clive Bell, George Lansbury, Anita Loos, Christopher Isherwood, and renowned astronomer Edwin Hubble. These relationships, as much as the story behind Huxley’s prolific and varied literary output, provide the captivating substance of this biography. (less)

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Tamara

Apr 15, 2008Tamara rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Recommends it for: Every Huxley fan

Recommended to Tamara by: A good friend

I don't read biographies much. This book however, was quite good. Very smart. There was nothing deeply personal and internally moving about its recall of Huxley’s life, just the quick moving chronological clime of a great author and his spiritual remedies. I did not weep at the telling of Huxley’s death in this account, instead I put the book down having marveled at his life. (less)

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Brett

Nov 02, 2020Brett rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: biography

This biography of Aldous Huxley isn't the most elegantly written or deeply insightful about the nature of his literary work, but it does pretty much what I want a biography to do. It provides a clear telling of the events of the author's life, pairs them with his written output at the time, and makes reasonable judgements about what the subject is thinking and feeling based on available evidence and conjecture within acceptable limits.

Huxley had a voluminous output of the written word, lived through enormous changes in the world, and himself morphed from writer of high class satires to sci-fi parables to transcendent religious meditations. It's a lot to cram into one life, and a lot of fit between the covers of one book. Murray does an admirable job of weaving personal, public, and literary strings together, in the end giving us a portrait of someone that is recognizable, even if Huxley is a difficult person to feel that you really know.

I appreciated the focus as well on Huxley's visual impairment, which obviously impacted him deeply, but is easy to to forget about when you're reading his work.

The tone is pretty neutral throughout the book, and often uses Huxley's own words to criticize some aspects of his writing, which is a clever way for Murray to include them without coming out with them himself. Huxley also does not receive a pass on his credulousness toward certain fringe-y beliefs around topics like ESP, etc. However, it's clear that Murray also appreciates Huxley's work. This biography is neither overly critical nor is it a hagiography.

I haven't read the other Huxley biographies out there, and clearly Cybille Bedford's is still considered important as well, but this one is shorter and less personally invested, and I think for the large bulk of people interested in a book like this, it will more than serve the purpose. (less)

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Peter

Mar 30, 2016Peter rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2016

Superb.

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Laura Walin

Oct 12, 2019Laura Walin rated it it was ok

Shelves: biographies

There are several ways to write a biograph, and Murray had chosen a very detailed approach. In his careful research of previous work on Huxley, of additional unpuplished material and interviews he has come up with almost a diary of Huxley's life, following this eccentric author's and thinker's Huxley's path from his youth in England to the bright lights of Hollywood. In between the life events Murray also manages to comment in detail the main works of Huxley, where Huxley tried to calrify both to himself and to his audience what is essential in being human.

While I do appreciate Murray's devotion to record and quote (at length) the letters and other texts from the time they were written, I must confess that this approach made the book very tedious to read. The sentences were long and cumbersome, and it was not easy to follow whose opinions and impressions were presented at any time. Therefore, although it was intresting to get to know one of the great minds of the 20th centry, I feel that was made unnecessary difficult by the author of his biography. Even though I acknowledge that the style fo the book probably reflected well the worldview and thinking process of Huxley himself. (less)

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Michael Baranowski

Sep 15, 2020Michael Baranowski rated it liked it  ·  review of another edition

A fascinating portrait of a man who believed in a sort of mystical connection between all things but who was too intellectual and wordly to ever really let go and live his deepest beliefs.

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Val

Dec 21, 2016Val rated it liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: group, non-fiction

A group I belong to was reading Huxley in Hollywood, but I could not find a copy of that book and decided to read this one instead. I read the few short chapters covering the Huxley's time in the USA and found them concise and informative, so I wondered how an author could stretch them into an entire book (lots of name-dropping and descriptions of parties, according to another group member).

I returned to the book a few weeks later and read more of it, but had not finished before It was due back at the library. This is a good biography and I would recommend it to anyone interested in reading about this reserved, highly intelligent man and the journeys of the mind he took in his lifetime. I would also recommend reading some of his books. (less)

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Jake

May 31, 2014Jake rated it it was amazing  ·  review of another edition

Great biography, and one that does an amazing job weaving Huxley's ideas and his unique and often misunderstood character.

If one judges Huxley based on his novels alone, they will probably come away with the conception of a pessimistic, detached intellectual who cynically marvels at the stupidity of other human beings. There is a grain of truth here, particularly in his early writings, but it is far from the full story.

Those who knew Huxley often described him as "serene" and almost other-worldly due to his strange appearance (he was extremely tall and long, "grasshopper"-like). One friend described him as

"the gentlest human being I have ever seen, and the most delightfully giggly." A far-cry from the portrayal of Huxley as arrogant and condescending.

Murray describes him as "a constantly inquiring mind, an intellectual presence with no parallel in the current literary scene, a 'multiple amphibian' living in all the elements of art and science and perception that his omnivorous mind could gather into itself.

Though he grew up in a rather wealthy and prestigious family (he was the grandson of "Darwin's Bulldog" Thomas Huxley), his childhood was rough. In around the same period of time, Huxley's mother died of cancer, he went practically blind (and he would deal with severe eye issues for the rest of his life, inhibiting his ability to read for long periods), and his brother, Trev, committed suicide. These experiences took their toll, and they would constantly resurface in his writings.

What was most interesting about Huxley's life, in my opinion, was his transition from being a concisely scientific, reclusive intellectual to a socially active mystic and optimist. Of course, he never abandoned his deep love of science, but his sudden obsession with Eastern religion (and his later forays into psychedelic drug use) is fascinating, and it would eventually lead to him publishing the surprising books "The Perennial Philosophy" and "The Doors of Perception".

Overall, Huxley was a fascinating character with an insatiable mind. Below are some pieces of a transcription of some of Huxley's amazing final words, spoken almost inaudibly from his deathbed:

"Our business is to wake up...We must not live thoughtlessly, taking our illusion for the complete reality, but at the same time we must not live too thoughtfully in the sense of trying to escape from a dream state.

We must continually be on our watch for ways in which we may enlarge our consciousness. Too much wisdom is as bad as too little wisdom, and there must be no magic tricks.

We must learn to come to reality without the enchanter's wand and his book of the words. One must find a way of being in this world while not being of it. A way of living in time without being completely swallowed up in it."

(less)

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David

Feb 25, 2015David rated it really liked it  ·  review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, biography, britain, british-history, history, literary-studies

Aldous Huxley:A Biography by Nicholas Murray was an enjoyable read and a good introduction to Huxley's life.

There are moments where the biography is a strained. For example, when the author attempts to incorporate Maria's, Huxley's first wife, bisexuality into Aldous' life. This is never done smoothly and it reads almost as if Mr. Murray felt they needed to do this but did not really know how to go about it.

For the most part, however, Murray's biography of Huxley is a good introduction to the author's life, but not a deeply intellectual attempt. In many instances the biography is more gossipy than articulate and thoughtful. The readings of Huxley's books is also light-weight and not deeply perceptive. This would not matter to most readers unless they were academics with a deep interest in the writings of this 20th Century iconoclastic mystic. Most will be able to skate over this failure with no problem.

In writing a life of Aldous Huxley biographers also face the challenge that most of his papers and library were destroyed in a fire late in his life. Therefore, much of his most intimate thoughts, as well as those of his wife, Maria, have been lost to biographers and they must reconstruct those from a distance--which is never a simple matter.

Recommended as an introduction to the life of Aldous Huxley for general readers.

Rating: a generous 4 out of 5 stars. (less)

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Sull

Jan 15, 2011Sull rated it liked it

Massive book, which I didn't quite finish. Interesting fellow I didn't know much about. I remember his novels scattered around my parents' house when I was growing up--"Eyeless in Gaza", "Antic Hay"--and of course I read "Brave New World" in high school. These icons of my childhood are a bit freaky--see John Cheever. Huxley was chock-full of ideas of all kinds, scientific, social, psychological, medical.... the man simply never stopped thinking. I found the thinking parts exasperatingly boring (maybe just my bias) but the rest of the life was not much more than a litany of travels, from England to Europe (his wife was Belgian)to various places in the US, till he finally more-or-less settled in California. He was always looking for a cheap place to settle in & write his novels, but he also thought that he wasn't a very good writer. And the man was increasingly blind--"Eyeless in Gaza" indeed!

Some day I may take this book out of the library again & finish it, but for now the book is due & I've had enough. (less)

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Kathy

Jun 09, 2013Kathy rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, non-fiction

I think Murray's biography is an excellent introduction to Huxley's intellectual life. The chronology is meticulous. For those well-read in Huxley's main interests, you'll forgive the pun that this biography offers superb insight into the mechanics of Huxley's genius life.

I'm hopeful that Sybille Bedford's (what is considered the definitive) biography of Huxley will shed light on Huxley's internal, emotional workings. (less)

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David

Oct 05, 2016David rated it it was amazing

A really great biography of a fascinating author. I only bought it because I'm working on a project relating to his last novel, Island, but I really enjoyed reading the book. I'm curious to read Bedford's biography, which I believe is far more extensive than this. (less)

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C. Middleton

4.0 out of 5 stars An Important Biography

Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2002

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.

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Prophet of our present

Nicholas Murray's biography reveals Aldous Huxley to be an acute guide to our brave new world, says J G Ballard

J G Ballard

Sun 14 Apr 2002 08.49 AEST

Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual

Nicholas Murray

496pp, Little, Brown, £20

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/apr/13/biography.aldoushuxley

Aldous Huxley was uncannily prophetic, a more astute guide to the future than any other 20th- century novelist. Even his casual asides have a surprising relevance to our own times. During the first world war, after America's entry, he warned: "I dread the inevitable acceleration of American world domination which will be the result of it all...Europe will no longer be Europe." His sentiment is widely echoed today, though too late for us to do anything about it. The worst fate for a prophet is for his predictions to come true, when everyone resents him for being so clear-eyed.

Huxley's greatest novel, Brave New World , is a far shrewder guess at the likely shape of a future tyranny than Orwell's vision of Stalinist terror in Nineteen Eighty-Four . Huxley's dystopia, with its test-tube babies and recreational drugs, its "feelies" that anticipate virtual reality, differs in one vital way from Orwell's vision of a boot stamping for ever on a human face. Huxley's victims welcome their own enslavement, revealing the same strains of passivity that lie beneath today's entertainment culture. Nineteen Eighty-Four has never really arrived, but Brave New World is around us everywhere.

For all his prescience, Huxley's star has dimmed since his death in 1963, on the same day that John F Kennedy was shot. The president's assassination overshadowed everything else on that grimmest of November days. A random psychotic act had endangered the world and refuted Huxley's vision of a sane and calculating tyranny. A single deranged man with a mail-order rifle was a more sinister threat than Big Brother, whether in jackboots or a white lab coat.

Another factor in Huxley's decline was his close association with the Bloomsbury Group, that bloodless set who haunt English letters like a coterie of haemophiliac royals. Huxley's novels of the 1920s, from Antic Hay to Point Counter Point , were ruthlessly witty satires on the middle class of his day, but have rather lost their sting in the far weirder era of Iris and Delia. But as Nicholas Murray makes clear in his generous and intelligent biography, Huxley soon escaped the Bloomsburies. He had far deeper roots in the Victorian age, with a rich mix of high- mindedness and a secure moral compass that we find baffling in our culture of soundbite philosophy and focus-group wisdom.

In many ways, Huxley was the last of the great Victorian novelists. He was born in 1894, a grandson of the biologist T H Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog". Matthew Arnold was his great-uncle, and his aunt was the novelist Mrs Humphry Ward. Secure in this intellectual aristocracy, he might have rebelled and become a great mid-century English eccentric, a liberally minded chairman of the board of film censors, or the first openly agnostic Archbishop of Canterbury.

However, at the age of 16, while an Eton schoolboy, he caught a serious eye infection that left him blind for a year and may have forced him into a more interior vision of himself. With his one good eye, he read English at Oxford, perhaps the best perspective to take on this dubious subject. He was immensely tall, six feet four-and-a-half inches. Christopher Isherwood said that he was "too tall. I felt an enormous zoological separation from him." Huxley, curiously, disliked male homosexuality but had many homosexual friends, Isherwood among them.

The young Huxley must have had immense charm. He soon found himself at Garsington Manor, near Oxford, the legendary home of the literary hostess, Lady Ottoline Morrell, where he met Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell and D H Lawrence. Years later, in the south of France, Lawrence died in the arms of Huxley's wife. In the final minutes before his death, Lawrence suddenly panicked and cried out to Maria Huxley, begging her to keep him alive. She embraced him, and he died peacefully as her husband watched.

Maria was a wartime Belgian refugee whom Huxley met at Garsington and married in 1919. Murray describes their marriage as intensely close and happy, although Maria was an active bisexual. Huxley seems to have taken quickly to their special version of open marriage. They pursued the same lovers together, like a pair of sexual confidence tricksters: Maria encouraging Aldous, introducing him to the beautiful women he admired, preparing the amatory ground and saving him the fatigue of prolonged courtship. Jealousy and possessiveness, which so handicap the rest of us, seemed never to have touched Huxley, an emotional deficit that some readers have noticed in his novels. In the late 1930s, when they moved to Los Angeles, Maria became a member of the "sewing circle", a club of prominent Hollywood lesbians reputed to include Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

Huxley's first novel, Crome Yellow , was a success, and he signed what Murray rightly terms a "momentous" agreement with his publishers. For a regular income of £500 a year, he promised to deliver two new works of fiction each year, one of them a full-length novel. Even inflated 50-fold, the sums were modest by today's standards - we have huge advances and huge reputations, but small novels, though that may no longer be relevant. Despite the large sales of Brave New World , the Huxleys were never rich, and in 1937, when they sailed for America on the Normandie, they travelled tourist. Thomas Mann, travelling first class, visited them in the tourist lounge and reported that the meeting was not a success, tactfully blaming the language barrier.

Arriving in the US, which he was never to leave, except on brief trips, Huxley found his true home. At first he was critical of the country, uneasy at the strange coexistence of puritanism and hedonism. "The Machiavelli of the mid-20th century will be an advertising man; his Prince , a textbook of the art and science of fooling all the people all the time." But he had picked up the spoors of two commodities that only California could offer - the scent of film money and, even more significantly, the heady incense of takeaway religions and off-the-shelf enlightenment.

Unlike many of his fellow writers who emigrated to Hollywood and snobbishly refused to adapt to the film medium, Huxley became a successful screenwriter, with credits for Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre . But his real interest lay in the mystery of human consciousness, and the power of modern pharmacology to unlock the shutters that have restricted our minds to the demands of everyday survival. In The Doors of Perception, perhaps his most prophetic book of all, Huxley describes an afternoon in 1953 when he first injected mescalin and saw a local supermarket transformed into a cathedral of wonder.

Huxley believed that human beings will always need some form of chemical assistance to achieve the full potential of their brains. At his request, as he lay dying he was injected with LSD, and sank into his final coma still moving confidently towards the light. I like to think that he was curious to see how his perception of his own death would be transformed by the hallucinogenic drug, and that his ever-questioning intelligence was alive to the end.

J G Ballard's Complete Short Stories is published by Flamingo.

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David Eskell-Briggs

5.0 out of 5 stars Huxley and all that

Reviewed in the United States on 7 May 2011

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Have always known of Huxley especially about his time in California and learned more about him in the autobiography of Sybill Bedford called Quickssnds. She also had written a biography of Huxley since they knew each over many years, especially in France. However thought it best if I read a biography once removed and this by Murray is excellent, not only in content, but in style and format. Highly recommended.

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paco

5.0 out of 5 stars Aldous Huxley

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 October 2013

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Aldous Huxley as any writer can be known for his works - his books.

But it is always interesting and informative to know the person and the character.

This biography I liked it because it is very clear and informative - many references to letters and additional material.

For me the life Huxley was a trip inside and outside at the same time simultaneously.

Inside - Looking for the ultimate answers to life, which inevitably led him to pacifism, to spirituality, mysticism and religion, from the West to the East.

And outside - traveled widely throughout his life. Different countries, locations, etc ..... realizing it in many books.

Without neglecting never the latest scientific discoveries and being a visionary on issues like the environment, the chemical revolution, the power of marketing and propaganda, the importance of education, etc. .....

This and a lot more with lots of details and key figures in his life. Everything is in this book: From Maria to Laura, Garsington, his books.....

A very interesting biography to know in depth to a very interesting person.

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Amy

4.0 out of 5 stars A good and informative read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 March 2017

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Have read none of Huxley's books but will now, it takes courage to go against the norm at the risk of criticism and I admire him for that alone.

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David S. Wellhauser

4.0 out of 5 stars A Biography For General Readers

Reviewed in the United States on 5 March 2015

Verified Purchase

Aldous Huxley:A Biography by Nicholas Murray was an enjoyable read and a good introduction to Huxley's life.

There are moments where the biography is a strained. For example, when the author attempts to incorporate Maria's, Huxley's first wife, bisexuality into Aldous' life. This is never done smoothly and it reads almost as if Mr. Murray felt they needed to do this but did not really know how to go about it.

For the most part, however, Murray's biography of Huxley is a good introduction to the author's life, but not a deeply intellectual attempt. In many instances the biography is more gossipy than articulate and thoughtful. The readings of Huxley's books is also light-weight and not deeply perceptive. This would not matter to most readers unless they were academics with a deep interest in the writings of this 20th Century iconoclastic mystic. Most will be able to skate over this failure with no problem.

In writing a life of Aldous Huxley biographers also face the challenge that most of his papers and library were destroyed in a fire late in his life. Therefore, much of his most intimate thoughts, as well as those of his wife, Maria, have been lost to biographers and they must reconstruct those from a distance--which is never a simple matter.

Recommended as an introduction to the life of Aldous Huxley for general readers.

Rating: a generous 4 out of 5 stars.

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Aldous Huxley : a biography

by Bedford, Sybille

https://archive.org/details/aldoushuxleybiog0000bedf_r5r3/page/n5/mode/2up