'Point Counter Point' (1928) is a very typical Huxley: he presents fierce intellectual discussions, moral dilemma's, and lots of characters eagerly making their own life miserable. There are connotations of satire, some sardonism, and in general blunt pessimism. Stylistically Huxley offers some really great chapters, though after a while the writing process becomes a bit tedious. In general though, this book is a stimulating read, portraying the egotistic aridity of intellectual circles. Huxley knew everything about them, and even modelled some of his characters to well known writers and thinkers, including himself. A succinct satire.
(rating 3.5 stars)

Brilliant satire that is undone by an uneven and jarring structure. Every chapter follows a new or revisited set of characters arguing on their contrasting belief systems. Several times in humorous and massively insightful ways, and many times in dull and droning ways. Future chapters go back to certain characters, but there are so many, and the whiplash chapter to chapter, left me as a reader with a flawed memory of who was really who and had said what before.

It made reading this really tedious (it took me 2 months to read it, I kept putting it down in favor of something else)

As much as I struggled to finish both of these volumes I'll have to give credit where credit is due. The ability to write people is almost impressive as long as we don't bring up the women Huxley writes which end up being mere caricatures of an outdated concept of womanhood. I find myself reminiscing a lot regarding plenty of quotes and fragments of these books however they are ultimately heavy and unnecessarily difficult to read for such a simple plotline. It almost felt like entering the mind of a man I never wanted to meet.

Several attempts throughout three decades to finish this clunker of a novel, never quite succeeded in toto.
Heavy-handed style of Huxley is hard for me.

Always hoped for some real life tales around one of my old favorites d.h. Lawrence (and Frieda by all means) — rather disappointed in that area as well.

Huxley's essays or, parts from these, is what will maybe survive to the future.

Where should I begin with my review of this masterpiece by Aldous Huxley? It is a mine of intellectual ideas, views on human nature, and the weaknesses of society. Set in the 1920's, it shows the activities and sometimes strange antics of the upper class. Most of the novel consists of dialogue, the number of witty and less witty remarks and ideas is dazzling. There are so many characters, so many pairs (and unpairs) that it took me halfway through the book to understand and know them all. It was easy to forget who was who and who was having an affair with whom and who belonged loyally to whom. There's a bit of violence, a lot of humor, some tragedy and plenty of loose ends that do not get solved at the end, albeit intentionally on Huxley's side.
The language is witty all through, the dialogue partners never seem at a loss of how to reply to each other's taunts and provocations.
All in all, a book very well worth the read, if one is prepared to be patient with Huxley's voice, which I'm sure is loud and clear all the way through.

I wish I had this man's vocabulary.

Interessantissimo testo quasi disconosciuto della letteratura inglese di inizio '900, che permette di scoprire il lato più impegnato e umanitario di Huxley. Sarebbe un novel of ideas, un romanzo di idee, che sfrutta la tecnica di origine musicale del contrappunto: l'autore prende un gruppo di personaggi legati da rapporti familiari e affettivi, ispirati a persone realmente conosciute dall'autore (se stesso, D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, John Middleton Murray, Oswald Mosley, Augustus John) e si sofferma sugli eventi della loro vita in un breve periodo e sui loro ideali, accostandoli e facendoli scontrare. Huxley presta notevole attenzione agli aspetti sentimentali, sessuali e intellettuali della vita di queste persone, dando minor spazio agli aspetti sociali e psicologici stricto sensu; preferisce delinearne il carattere a partire dalle idee e dalle aspirazioni e crea dei ritratti convincenti di uomini e donne complessi e contraddittori, lontani per molti aspetti dal repertorio romanzesco. Lo sfondo è la Londra degli anni '20, una città stanca e disillusa, in cui si conservano le strutture tradizionali della società aristocratica, ma in cui il moralismo puritano è quasi completamente svuotato di senso e lascia spazio a un edonismo sfrenato e cinico, all'insegna del quale una gioventù audace e sfrontata convive con i vecchi relitti del passato. I personaggi appartengono quasi tutti all'aristocrazia o alla borghesia intellettuale, o comunque hanno dei pregi culturali, e i riferimenti alla contemporaneità sono perlopiù ideologici, a parte un certo interesse che Huxley mostra per un'organizzazione fascista britannica emergente in quegli anni e per le tensioni innescate dal Comunismo. Come ho detto vengono delineati bene dei personaggi che nella loro individualità credibile e spiccata restano pur sempre dei "tipi": Walter Bidlake è un giovane giornalista che non riesce a conciliare il suo idealismo romantico con la debolezza e la meschinità di indole; il padre John Bidlake è un libertino pieno di gioia di vivere, un artista alle prese con la vecchiaia e il declino; Lucy Tantamount è una donna energica, ricca ed emancipata, dedita al piacere dei sensi e al divertimento, ma spaventata dalla solitudine; Philip Quarles, autoritratto di Huxley, è uno scrittore chiuso nel suo freddo intellettualismo e nel suo distacco, che fatica a comunicare e a vivere appieno; le parti dedicate al suo "taccuino" contengono dichiarazioni metaletterarie e costituiscono la chiave di lettura della tecnica usata da Huxley; Mark Rampion è un pittore e scrittore ferocemente critico verso la vita contemporanea e la scissione della mente dai sensi; Maurice Spandrell è un esteta di stampo baudelariano, annoiato e in cerca di un senso nella vita; altri personaggi importanti sono Webley, il capo dell'organizzazione fascista assetato di azione e potere, Burlap, un mediocre caporedattore ossessionato dalla religione e dalla spiritualità ma infantile e meschino nel profondo, Elinor, la moglie di Quarles, che fa fatica a sostenere la freddezza del marito e cerca di ritagliarsi un ruolo nella vita senza avere certezze morali e culturali, Illidge, uno scienziato di famiglia umile pieno di odio sociale e di rancore per la corruzione dell'alta società; compaiono anche familiari, amici, amanti di tutti questi personaggi. Gli aspetti più pregevoli di questo romanzo sono la fortissima capacità di osservazione di Huxley, la critica all'intellettualismo in tutte le sue sfumature, che coinvolge tutti i personaggi e risulta estremamente interessante e acuta, e la costruzione efficace dei caratteri, che sembra modellata sempre sul contrappunto: un alto ideale è ostacolato da una debolezza o da un trauma, ad una aspirazione si oppone una rinuncia, ad una determinazione in un ambito si accompagna il ripiegamento in un altro, le energie e le fragilità sono bilanciate. Tutto questo avviene con naturalezza, gradualità e fluidità; nonostante lo stile non sia del tutto innovativo, rispetto al romanzo ottocentesco si avvertono maggiore maturità e senso del molteplice, si avverte il crollo di certezze e valori; aleggia anche un certo umorismo di buon gusto. D'altro canto ci sono molti aspetti carenti, c'è una sorta di opacità sui personaggi, che sembrano messi a fuoco e studiati, restituendo l'immagine di un esseri umani parziali, soprattutto perché si percepiscono chiaramente il giudizio e la simpatia dell'autore, che empatizza e ridicolizza a seconda del personaggio e della situazione; anche la struttura narrativa a volte è troppo meccanica, fredda e sterile, anche se c'è da dire che Huxley stesso muove queste critiche a se stesso per bocca di Quarles, ma difendendo comunque le sue scelte per gusto personale. La prosa è fredda e marmorea, più da saggista che da artista, ma è elegante e sottile, sicuramente molto più curata che nei romanzi distopici; in conclusione è un contributo non trascurabile al romanzo inglese.

I bought his paperback in 1995, coming off the high of Brave New World. I haven't read it yet because, well, I just am not drawn to fiction that much. But, it is Huxley and after all I was pleased with Crome Yellow. On top of that, in 1998, the Modern Library ranked this 44th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Still, after a couple hundred pages into this tome I was really pushing myself following the interlinked storylines such as young journalist Walter Bidlake living with Marjorie Carling, a married woman whose husband refuses to grant her a divorce. Marjorie is pregnant with Walter's child, but their relationship is disintegrating, largely because Walter has fallen desperately in love with the sexually aggressive and independent Lucy Tantamount...

Is this a soap opera? I rarely enjoy stories and movies about people who seems to have no daily obligations and just flop about acting out their character defects.

Well, so Tantamount is based on Nancy Cunard with whom Huxley had a similarly unsatisfactory affair. I have heard that among the recurring themes (as in musical "counterpoint"), we have many autobiographical passages like Everard Webley, a political demagogue and leader of his own quasi-military group often assumed to be based on Oswald Mosley, and Mark Rampion, a writer and painter based on D. H. Lawrence whom Huxley admired greatly, etc. That wasn't sustaining me -- and it often doesn't. How do I know what is true? I liked more the frequent references to other books, adding to my to-read list.

There is a pay-off at the end, of sorts with murder and some sort of suffering child, I guess gnashing its teeth over some adult sour grapes. Some sort of exorcism; catharsis?

Interesting if not fascinating two-dimensional people spewing thoughts on love, religion, science, politics, etc.

One of my favorite bit of witticisms here:

“if animals can get more than they actually require to subsist, they take it, don’t they? If there’s been a battle or a plague, the hyenas and vultures take advantage of the abundance to overeat. Isn’t it the same with us? Forests died in great quantities some millions of years ago. Man has unearthed their corpses, finds he can use them and is giving himself the luxury of a real good guzzle while the carrion lasts. When the supplies are exhausted, he’ll go back to short rations, as the hyenas do in the intervals between wars and epidemics.’ Illidge spoke with gusto. Talking about human beings as though they were indistinguishable from maggots filled him with a peculiar satisfaction. ‘A coal field’s discovered; oil’s struck. Towns spring up, railways are built, ships come and go. To a long-lived observer on the moon, the swarming and crawling must look like the pullulation of ants and flies round a dead dog. Chilean nitre, Mexican oil, Tunisian phosphates—at every discovery another scurrying of insects. One can imagine the comments of the lunar astronomers. “These creatures have a remarkable and perhaps unique tropism towards fossilized carrion.”’

Huxley is one of those important writers that are rarely read, outside of his famous work "Brave New World." That is an important work and it is easy to see why it is so well known, and well-read. But it is Point Counter Point that is the far more important, and more significant work.

The book is largely about two families--the Bidlake's and the Quarles' along with their circle of friends and relations. The two families are tied together through the marriage of Philip and Elinor, who begin the novel in India, but return to England where the majority of the novel takes place.

Huxley is an ambitious and skilled writer. He is interested in how what one thinks affects how one lives. The psychology and the motivations of his characters are central to the story. This is apparent from the outset, as Huxley shows how Walter Bidlake is torn between obligations he has to his pregnant mistress and his lust for a new lover. He is burdened with guilt and misgivings, but in the end, his lusts are too great to overcome and he surrenders himself in a manner that is quite disconnected from the way he lives the rest of his life.

It is fascinating that he recognizes how fruitless and joyless his affair will be, and it is indeed so. It is a disgusting, jealous kind of affection--far from the kind of contented love found in marriage. Meanwhile, his pregnant mistress moves from jealous anger to contented sadness in watching her lover give himself to a joyless, lustful affair. Surprisingly, she finds contentment in Christian piety.

Through Walter and his new mistress, Lucy Tantamount, we are introduced to the wastrel, Maurice Spandrell. Spandrell is an interesting character, as he is a contrarian--a materalist with spiritualists, a spiritualist with materialists, etc. But at his core, he wants to have a God to believe in, but failed to believe. This conflict of visions drives the climax of the book.

The book is primarily concerned with the connection between belief and behavior. How ought we to think, and how ought we to behave? In this regard, Huxley is a prophetic in understanding the absolute failure of the materialistic worldview. He recognizes the brutality of a world without God. He recognizes that morality exists and binds us. All the characters are ultimately constrained with feelings of guilt--even those that do not believe it possible, or believe they can resist such feelings.

But the novel ultimately fails to satisfy, as the book ends with a rather despicable weaseling his way out of a contractual commitment with one woman to allow himself the freedom to pursue a sexual commitment to another. The only truly happy people in the book are left in their happiness and do not reappear later.

But this is one of those rare books that takes the mask off of the materialistic worldview so pervasive in the modern world. It is a vicious thing.

jedna z kníh, ktoré by mohli byť súčasťou povinného čítania. v dobrom. výborne vystavaná spleť príbehov. zostáva vo mne niekoľko otázok, napríklad, ako sa tento huxley ocitol v babkinej knižnici a prečo som si ho tak dlho nevšimla.

I admit may be too young to read this and to understand it's true complexity, but I have to admit, I was utterly disappointed with the plot that I couldn't even bring myself to finish the book, even though I never leave books unfinished. I stopped after page 126, thinking that there is no point in finishing a book that makes reading it an unbearable hassle. Considering this, I do not belive that I will re read it anytime soon, since the plot seemed to "static" and not appealing to me, therefore the ideas expressed didn't intrigue me as a book with a more dynamic background/storyline would.

Una danza matissiana di personaggi che si mettono a nudo esponendo la loro Weltanschauung, un po' come la scena di quel delizioso filmetto tedesco, Nackt, girata con le scatole sulle teste degli attori.
(Teatrale, speculativo, conturbante, dialettico. Tra de Laclos e Kundera).