Huxley is as wonderful as ever.
First of all – have a look at this wonderful used, 55-year-old copy of the book, with obviously a lot of history, having been a library book. No underlinings or comments in it before me, but I found a cute little fish though.
But about the novel – not much happens on a grander scale, the first third of it takes place at a party, introducing us to mostly the outer shell of the characters’ looks and personalities.
As the book evolves, the characters do as well, and their deeper personalities and longings are explored. And also Huxley’s view of the times he lives in. The book was first published in 1928 and takes place sometime in the 20s. And it is absolutely incredible, how you can take statements out of the book and place them a hundred years later in our 20s and they apply eerily well. I guess generations change the same way, technology has been problematic for over a century and at least some people have always been aware of how humans are destroying nature.
But for my favourite part – the setting up and movement of perspective between characters is so wonderfully fluid in this book. I could just imagine a movie version with a scene starting with a voiceover to set up a character’s mindset, panning out – revealing the scene and seamlessly switching the other character’s point of view to follow them into a new scene.
In short – a wonderful, and wonderfully Huxley book.
First published in 1928, this edition in 1967