Those Barren Leaves (British Literature Series) [Paperback]

Aldous Huxley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1998 | Series: British Literature Series

"Huxley has never written a richer book."—The Nation

Aldous Huxley spares no one in his ironic, piercing portrayal of a group gathered in an Italian palace by the socially ambitious and self-professed lover of art, Mrs. Aldwinkle. Here, Mrs. Aldwinkle yearns to recapture the glories of the Italian Renaissance, but her guests ultimately fail to fulfill her naïve expectations.

Among her entourage are: a suffering poet and reluctant editor of the Rabbit Fanciers' Gazette who silently bears the widowed Mrs. Aldwinkle's desperate advances; a popular novelist who records every detail of her affair with another guest, the amorous Calamy, for future literary endeavors; and an aging sensualist philosopher who pursues a wealthy yet mentally-disabled heiress.

Stripping the houseguests of their pretensions, Huxley reveals the superficiality of the cultural elite. Deliciously satirical, Those Barren Leaves bites the hands of those who dare to posture or feign sophistication and is as comically fresh today as when first published.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Brilliantly done; Those Barren Leaves has humour, daring, some excellent fooling, remarkable erudition and plenty of Huxley's salacious irony. (The Guardian )

Huxley has an utterly ruthless habit of building up an elaborate and sometimes almost romantic structure and then blowing it down with something too ironic to be called satire and too scornful to be called irony. (F. Scott Fitzgerald )

It is brilliant and daring . . . humorous, witty, clever, cultured. (Nation and Athenaeum )

The many-toned wit of the book, the beauty and shrewdness of its descriptions, the learning, the thought, the richness of character, the intellectual and artistic honesty of it . . . show that Mr. Huxley . . . will be a great novelist. (Times Literary Supplement )

About the Author

Considered to be one of the most significant British writers of the twentieth century, Aldous Huxley is the author of a dozen novels, including Brave New World, Point Counter Point, Time Must Have a Stop, Antic Hay, Crome Yellow, and Those Barren Leaves. He also wrote over thirty volumes of poetry, short stories, and essays during his lifetime.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press; 1st Dalkey Archive ed edition (January 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564781690
• ISBN-13: 978-1564781697
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #676,282 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A book that demands--and repays--careful reading., December 8, 2001

By 

Miles D. Moore (Alexandria, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Those Barren Leaves (British Literature Series) (Paperback)

"And then you must remember that most readers don't really read...We all read too much nowadays to be able to read properly. We read with the eyes alone, not with the imagination." Thus speaks Mr. Cardan, a character in Aldous Huxley's "Those Barren Leaves," and all I can say in reply is, "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." Wanting to rush into the plot, I found myself annoyed with Huxley's slow, careful unfolding of the characters--the upper-class English guests at the Tuscan castle of the pretentious, amorous Mrs. Aldwinkle--and their long-winded conversations about Balzac and Diderot. I started to agree with Elizabeth Bowen's comment that Huxley was "the stupid person's idea of the clever person." After I had slowed down, however, and started to really read Huxley's painstaking dialogue and careful descriptions of the Italian countryside, I began to appreciate his brilliant evisceration of the motley crew around the impossible Mrs. Aldwinkle: Mr. Cardan, the Epicurean philosopher; Calamy, the amorist who is beginning to wonder if there is more to life than bedding women; Mary Thriplow, the novelist who never stops writing, even when making love; Chelifer, the disillusioned poet; and the hapless Grace Elver, a sort of female Forrest Gump without Forrest's lucky star. This wickedly funny yet meditative book repays the work of thoughtful readers, it has much to say about what is really important in life, and how expert people are at self-delusion. People who liked "My Dinner with Andre" or Robertson Davies' Cornish Trilogy should like "Those Barren Leaves."

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant, funny and poignant novel, August 25, 1998

By 

Paul Hickey (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Those Barren Leaves (British Literature Series) (Paperback)

A hard-to-find book--I came across it as a yellowed old paperback at a rummage sale, and I'm glad I did. Full of characters you're ready to hate, you end up loving nearly every one. Extraordinarily beautiful language, the writing is the cream of the crop. Not much of a plot, to be sure, as it is filled mostly with conversation that asks all of life's profoundest questions. He doesn't answer all the questions--no one can!--but gives you ample food for thought. The book is set in Italy after WWI, and abounds in beautiful scenery. Read it when you're relaxed and have time to chew on it.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning and stimulating, November 7, 2003

By 

Patrick Barnes "pawiba" (NYC, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Those barren leaves; (Mass Market Paperback)

Even better than the wonderful and somewhat similar CROME YELLOW, this novel of ideas can be alternately entertaining and exasperating. However, Huxley surprisingly drops mini-bombs of flashing insight here and there. In particular, the final chapter is a brilliant analysis (and prophecy) of the world-wide prevalence of suburban stupidity in place today. The fact that this book is out of print in the US in only one face of this stupidity.