Customer Reviews

Collected Short Stories

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If your idea of Aldous Huxley as a writer of fiction begins and ends with "Brave New World," rejoice, my friend, because you may be happily surprised by the wit, clarity, ironic charm, and impressive variety of these short stories. Two of them, "Young Archimedes" and "The Tillotson Banquet," by themselves repay the cost of admission, but most of the pieces should beguile nearly any serious reader. Huxley was of course a very successful novelist of manners and mores before he emitted his "classic," ("Brave New World") and as that excellent piece of science fiction has unjustly overshadowed the other novels, the novels have unjustly overshadowed the stories. (BTW: Have you ever noticed how many really strong writers of fiction -- particularly Americans -- in fact did much of their best prose work in the shorter, less prestigious form? Try Poe, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Cheever, Sherwood Anderson, Welty, Chekhov, Maupassant, Carver, Borges, maybe Thomas Mann, etc.)

Sadly, Huxley the man was also destined to be put in the shade. Despite being born into arguably the most intellectually eminent family in Britain over the last two centuries, and despite building a tremendous reputation while he lived, this purblind, stooped-over tall man disappeared from the earth as silently as a drop of dew, since he died within hours of both John F. Kennedy and C.S. Lewis. These two are names to conjure with, one must admit. But in another two centuries, it might well be Huxley, of the three that died on that day, who most reliably entertains and instructs. You can be part of this revival, and have fun doing it, by reading these stories.

These are very funny, witty, and ironic stories. Of the group, the most famous might be The Giaconda Smile, later made into a well known play, and involving murder, adultery, mayhem, and an ironically detached protagonist falsely condemned to death. The Tillotson Banquet is a winsome story about an ancient, decrepit, once famous artist who is made, for having been the favorite of a wealth baron, the center of an honorary, ultimately humiliating banquet. Sir Hercules is excerpte from the novel Crome Yellow and is the story of the Lilliputia lord of Crome Manor who only a few feet tall creates a household of other miniature people--wife, servants, friends--all happy and content in their miniature world until the unforeseen happens--their child grows to normal size and tramples their happy Eden. The Monocle presents an unctuous aristocrat who, wearing a monocle, manages to capture the ridiculing attention of peers and passerby, eventually reaching an apotheosis of disdain, while becoming drunker and drunker, against the privilege and poverty around him, losing the monocle in the process. The story Fairy Godmother conveys a similar theme--a self-absorbed lady of wealth who, though charitable in an obvious and patronizing way, terrorizes and controls others with an oblivious air of superiority. Young Archimedes is the story of a promising youngster, a genius, destroyed by the pedants around him, while Half Holiday tells the story of a down at his heels young man longing to meet the love of his life but defeated by the shibboleths of his class--his poor clothes, accent, boots falling apart. If you like English writing from this period, these stories will make you laugh, and experience a shock of recognition at these recognizably types. Yet remote and pretentious as they are, Huxley is never mean, but writes out of an ironic, humorous, accepting understanding of human nature, even at his relatively early age at the time. Damon LaBarbera, PhD