Time Must Have a Stop [Hardcover]

Aldous Huxley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1989

Sebastian Barnack, a handsome English schoolboy, goes to Italy for the summer, and there his real education begins. His teachers are two quite different men: Bruno Rontini, the saintly bookseller, who teaches him about things spiritual; and Uncle Eustace, who introduces him to life's profane pleasures.

The novel that Aldous Huxley himself thought was his most successful at "fusing idea with story," Time Must Have a Stop is part of Huxley's lifelong attempt to explore the dilemmas of twentieth-century man and to create characters who, though ill-equipped to solve the dilemmas, all go stumbling on in their painfully serious comedies (in this novel we have the dead atheist who returns in a seance to reveal what he has learned after death but is stuck with a second-rate medium who garbles his messages). Time Must Have a Stop is one of Huxley's finest achievements.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Time Must Have a Stop exhibits Mr. Huxley's learning, his gift for limericks, an acute sense of the craft of poetry and a genuine power of modern poetic phrase, a flow of ribald expression and more than a feast of dark and desperate conclusions about sex." --Times Literary Supplement

"This is Mr. Huxley's best novel for a very long time. . . . admirably constructed . . . bright and sun-pierced." --New Statesman and Nation

"Extraordinary erudition, nasty wit, nihilism . . . a prime performance." --Kirkus --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Aldous Huxley is one of the most significant British writers of the twentieth century. He wrote a dozen novels, including Point Counter Point, Those Barren Leaves, and Brave New World, and twice as many volumes of poetry and nonfiction. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Amereon Ltd; First Canadian edition (June 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0848805364
• ISBN-13: 978-0848805364
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,569,702 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

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Huxley novel I've read so far, July 9, 2005

By 

T. Brooks - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time Must Have a Stop (British Literature) (Paperback)

This book is not for everyone. If you like and understand satirical views of Victorian society and you have a knowledge or interest in art, poetry, and theology then you'll find this book intellectually stimulating. If you don't appreciate any of these things you might find it presumptuous and at the very least boring. So I admit this book is very much intoned to a specific audience.

The book delves into discussions of just about everything under the sun. It goes through saintliness, theology, art, poetry, schooling, etiquette, and morals. The characters add further insight with their behaviors. I was particularly fond of Mrs. Thwale who perfectly embodies the female mystique and femme fatale. A lascivious woman of Victorian sensibilities and honor she flits from one man to the next, never giving herself up. The main character, probably the least well-rounded, seems to be a flawless embodiment of the stereotypical teenager who thinks he's the center of the universe.

Certain points are just terribly cruel but absolutely hilarious in that twisted satirical way. At one point the elderly Queen Mother clutches her dead dog in mourning but almost as soon as a new puppy is handed over to her she lets the dog fall off her lap and flop to the ground. I believe there is a point to be made here.

Though I admit I don't even remotely agree with the discussions of sainthood I did find it an interesting read. It proved Huxley is evermore a very complicated and perhaps conflicted character in and of himself. Though I give this book five stars I still think it bears repeating it's not for everyone.

21 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intermittently brilliant, July 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Time Must Have a Stop (British Literature) (Paperback)

Huxley was a man of many bizarre ideas as well as an uneven writer, but he could also be quite a deep and compelling thinker. This book is a particularly vivid example of this contradiction. I found parts of the novel almost painfully bad (one of the characters trying to communicate from the afterlife through an incompetent medium, or the epilogue that in effect abandons any pretense of being part of novel in order to become an unconfortable mix of essay and sermon). There is also the lingering problem of Huxley's uninformed and unfair attitude towards natural science. But in exchange for accepting these failures the reader gets two extraordinary character portraits: one of a monster (Mrs. Thwale) and one of a saint (Bruno the bookseller), both very convincing and immensely insightful. Add to that a penetrating study of the perils of self-absorption, a sound case for moral restraint, and the best diagnosis I have come across of why artists who express the most sublime insight about human nature can still behave like swine. It's sad and doubly ironic the Huxley himself should have been an impeachable character. Anyway, quite a worthwhile read.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended, November 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Time Must Have a Stop (Hardcover)

Huxley explores the fickleness of mortality with his usual clever pen and knack for irony. This beautiful book examines materialism and morality through the eyes of a young man and contrasts this with the protagonist's reflections of years later.