After the Fireworks (Hesperus Modern Voices) [Paperback]

Aldous Huxley (Author), Fay Weldon (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: Hesperus Modern Voices | Publication Date: October 1, 2009

As an acclaimed novelist, Miles Fanning is well used to the unwanted attentions of his fans as he goes about his daily business. Yet little prepares him for the determination of the gauche Pamela Tarn who resolves to enter not only his world, but also his bed. Initially repelled by the enormity of the age gap between them, Fanning vows never to acquiesce, and resorts to his most boorish behavior in an attempt to break the hold he unwittingly has over her. Yet as they are inexorably drawn together, they embark upon a tempestuous—and ultimately destructive—affair.

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About the Author

Novelist Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) is best known for the classic work Brave New World. Fay Weldon's novels include The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, She May Not Leave, and The Spa.

Product Details

• Paperback: 150 pages
• Publisher: Hesperus Press (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843914050
• ISBN-13: 978-1843914051
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,170,852 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) is the author of the classic novels Island, Eyeless in Gaza, and The Genius and the Goddess, as well as such critically acclaimed nonfiction works as The Devils of Loudun, The Doors of Perception, and The Perennial Philosophy. Born in Surrey, England, and educated at Oxford, he died in Los Angeles.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rediscovered gem, July 19, 2010

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This review is from: After the Fireworks (Hesperus Modern Voices) (Paperback)

In addition to his eleven novels, Huxley's fiction included five collections of shorter works in which he worked out, as he did in dozens of non-fiction books and essays, many of the ideas that found their most elaborate expression in the novels. Each story collection included a short novel--"The Farcical History of Richard Greenow," "Two or Three Graces," "Uncle Spencer," "The Gioconda Smile" (really a long story), and "After the Fireworks," one of his own favorites: it was collected in both of the Huxley readers published during his lifetime. I had long hoped that, as the short stories had been collected, the novellas might also be published in one volume. In terms of length, a few of them are actually longer than some of his proper novels, but they have the anecdotal precision and formal directness that defines this often neglected form.
Perhaps we can now expect them to appear in individual volumes, as Hesperus has handsomely done with "After the Fireworks," including a page of notes that will please all Huxleyans who are driven bonkers by his tendency to assume that we all can quote from memory Dante and other poets in the original Italian or French or German. An Annotated Aldous is long overdue! "After the Fireworks" is a delight, concerning a pompous but extremely well-educated 50-year-old novelist whose works excite romantic young women looking for a great love to begin their lives. Such is the 20-year-old tourist in Rome, Pamela, who is determined to make the writer Miles Fanning her first lover. He tries to resist, but when overpowered becomes infatuated with her fresh and eager sexuality. (If this sounds like recent Philip Roth--"The Dying Animal," "The Humbling"--the clash of young and old is hardly new, yet the similarities here are striking.) Pamela is, of course, appalled that Miles sees her as an infinitely entertaining sex toy, hardly the cosmic romantic knight she envisioned. She is especially outraged that he can't talk to her as he does to contemporaries who recall 1914 and all that followed. And when he falls ill with a humiliating intestinal complaint, she is determined to move on.
There are the usual Huxleyan sidebars about Homer, the Etruscans, Chaucer, Dante, and the dishonesty of literature, but there is also a marvelous lyricism in the passages about Monte Cavo and the natural wonders of Rome, and a passage of true linguistic virtuosity regarding the fireworks (Roman candles) that precede the sexual fireworks. There are also passages that are as funny as anything Huxley wrote, which is saying a lot, particularly those from Pamela's diary, the letter Miles doesn't get to finish, and life at a spa. This is a comedy--no one, not even Miles, dies, and there are memorable supporting characters, not least the dead mother of Pamela, recalled as having had her own needs.
"After the Fireworks" appeared in 1930, midpoint between his two masterpieces, "Point Counter Point" and "Brave New World." A section on opium and the need for people to turn on and tune out is especially prophetic of his later work.