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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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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