Huxley în Cântec de lebădă diseca intr-o radiografie ampla, cam tot ce înseamnă uman, inclusiv portionarea omului în parte animalică şi parte spirituală, vorbind despre un nivel de sus, al eternităţii, unde există o “cunoaştere a lumii fără dorinţă şi aversiune; există o experienţă a eternităţii, ca transcendenţă a personalităţii, prelungire a conştiinţei dincolo de limitele impuse de ego.”
Intreaga carte reliefeaza lipsa de esenta şi goana după forme fără fond, exemplul cel mai relevant fiind chiar Jo Stoyte, un personaj de-a dreptul grobian, care trăieşte într-un castel cu pod mobil, plin de tablouri ale pictorilor celebri, dar care este complet incult şi chiar mândru de asta: “Nu are niciun rost să-mi vorbeşti în limbi străine. Eu sunt şef de companie petrolieră. Am două mii de benzinării doar în California.”
Un alt personaj, in antiteza cu primul, un profesor englez Jeremy Pordage, care este invitat în America de către Jo Stoyte, pentru a studia documentele şi manuscrisele Hauberk, detinatoare ale secretului vieţii veşnice.
Dialoguri dense, hilare, desfasurate intr-un plan care leviteaza deasupra realului. Avem o menajerie de personaje, care surprin intr-o fotografie perfecta superficialitatea societatii americane.

Jedino kraj je solidan. Pokazuje jednu od manje poznatih evolucionih mogucnosti (koju je objasnio Dokins u "Price nasih predaka" i referencirao ovu knjigu). Sve ostalo je mucno citati. Nepovezani monolozi i odsustvo radnje...

This book is a prime example of dogma dictating narrative. I cannot remember at which point I started skimming through Mr. Propter's pedantic discourses.

"After Many A Summer Dies The Swan" is a novel by Aldous Huxley originally published in 1939. The title originally was" After Many a Summer" but it was changed when published in the USA. The novel's title is taken from Tennyson's poem" Tithonus", about a figure in Greek mythology to whom Aurora gave eternal life but not eternal youth. The title is taken from the fourth line of the poem:

"The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,

The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,

Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,

And after many a summer dies the swan"


Huxley's novel tells the story of a Hollywood millionaire who fears his impending death. He really, really fears death and will go to just about any length to avoid it. The novel opens as Jeremy Pordage, an Englishman arrives in California and is greeted by “a coloured chauffeur in a grey uniform with a carnation in his button-hole."He is driven to the mansion of Jo Stoyte; the guy who's so afraid of dying. He has brought Pordage to Los Angeles to edit the records of an impoverished aristocratic British family. He is to catalog the almost legendary twenty-seven crates of "Hauberk Papers". Even with knowing this within the first few pages I still spent half the book wondering why this character was in the book, he seemed pointless. However, eventually it becomes clear why he is part of the story.

Jo Stoyte is a self-made millionaire living in Hollywood. He is an American businessman who owns just about everything. At one point we are told that he owns; Consul Oil, California Land and Minerals Corporation, Bank of the Pacific, a children's hospital and even a cemetery. His mansion has a large dining room, small dining room, library with no books, ballroom, morning room, chapel, billiard room, a dentist's office, an indoor swimming pool, you get the idea. His mistress is a young woman named Virginia Maunciple who he calls either "baby" or "the baby", which gets annoying. Virginia calls him Uncle Jo but really cares for him and not just as an old uncle. She is having an affair with Dr. Obispo, our next character.

Dr.Sigmund Obispo; Stoyte hires Dr Obispo and his assistant Peter to research the secrets to long life in carp, crocodiles, and parrots. Even though Stoyte doesn't like Dr. Obispo, no one would, he knows he can't afford to get rid of the doctor. Stoyte repeats to himself "God is love, there is no death",and thinks about the stroke he had and his body getting older, so he keeps the doctor there. He believes Dr. Obispo will be able to save him.

We also have Mr Propter, a professor who lives on a neighbouring estate. I would have really liked this book if I would have skipped the Mr. Propter chapters. I warn you right now that I hate philosophical discussions. I always feel like we're sitting around discussing things that there is no answer to no matter how long we talk and I hate it. So when Mr. Propter makes his appearance with words like:

"What is man? It was more than thirty years before, when he was writing his study of the Cardinal, that he had first read those words. They had impressed him even then by the splendour and precision of their eloquence."

I should have skipped it, but I never skip things so I read this:

"whatever the circumstances in which he finds himself, a human being always has omissions to make good, commissions whose effects must if possible be neutralized."

Actual good is outside time."

"Time is potential evil, and craving converts the potentiality into actual evil."

If I would re-read all the words of Mr. Propter again I could figure out what they all meant, but I don't care. I'm sure some of the family and friends I have could explain Mr. Propter to me, but I would warn them before they tried, I don't care.

However, moving past Mr. Propter I enjoyed the novel. I wanted to keep reading to see if Dr. Obispo found the secret to long life. I wanted to see if Jo Stoyte would still be alive at the end, I just wanted to know what happened next, especially after Jeremy Pordage finds in the Hauberk papers that the secret of long life just may be eating 6 ounces of raw fish guts a day. To see if it works, read the book. It only gets three stars from me because of Mr. Propter and his ramblings. On to the next book, happy reading.

Having read no Huxley other than "Brave New World", I took this one up solely on the assumption that Isherwood had included it in his "Single Man" for some good reason. And, of course, he did: themes of mortality and meaning are central here, too.

"After Many a Summer" is a mix of equal parts philosophical musing and straightforward comic novel. The latter -- the main thrust of the storyline, even specific settings, as well as Huxley's style here -- reminded me of nothing so much as Waugh's "The Loved One". Hardly surprising, given that both authors were contemporaneous Englishmen dropped into the nascent California Culture.

I enjoyed this book vastly more than I expected to; it leaves me wondering whether I'd better go read a little more Huxley after all!

Having read and enjoyed a few Huxley novels it's clear what his strengths and weaknesses are as a writer, he's more of a thinkerphilosopher than someone that can build complex narrativecharacters and that's okay. That being said, this is quite the strange book and even though I enjoyed it, I don't quite buy all of it, the ending is a bit silly as well.

Who would have thought i will learn so much about Marquis de Sade...

ვინ ეძებს უკვდავებას მიწიერების ჯურღმულებში, სადაც უკვდავნი ქმნილებებად იქცევიან? ჯერემი პროპტერი ჰობერკრების ნაწერებში იწყებს ძებნას და თავადაც არ იცის, ისე წააწყდება უკვდავებას, რომელიც ჯურღმულებში განისვენებს. გილგამეშის გზა, რომელიც დაწყევლილი და კურთხეულია, თუმცა პერსო��აჟებს მისი ორივე სახე ხვდებათ.
მშვენიერია მისტერ პროპტერის თეოლოგია. მართალი და შემაძრწუნებელი საკუთარი არსებობის სიმყიფით.
ჰაქსლის ნაწერებს შეგიძლიათ ყოველთვის ენდოთ, რომ იქნება ღვთაებრივი მეცნიერებით გაჟღენთილი მშვენიერება.

It was alright. the plot had great potential. and had nice build up, but Huxley diverted into some deeply philosophical mumbo-jumbo about 1/3rd of the way in and continued almost until the end. What could have been an exciting read goes wanting for plot treatment and a proper climax. potentially a great work of speculative fiction made mediocre by too much philosophizing. It would have been better of Huxley had designed the story itself to convey some of the ideas that he propounds (by means of long dialog) throughout his book. What could have been an awesome read ends with a barely audible pop. Read if ur interested in Huxley's philosophical views of life, death and a self sustaining utopic society. Yawn

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The human condition, self, philosophy, life and death…Huxley drones on in a novel that is purported to be connected to the life of William Randolph Hearst…there's very little to recommend the reading of this book…two stars only because it's Huxley…
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This is an interesting book that seems to serve as a vehicle for Huxley's own views on the human condition. One of the main characters is a prodigiously wealthy businessman who nonetheless lacks any taste or culture. To compensate, he surrounds himself with people who will provide an air of sophistication. Much of the book consists of these people having conversations with each other, sometimes of the form of "simple question that is obviously a prompt for something larger" followed by a soliloquy of great length, repeat multiple times. One of the characters -- Mr. Propter -- gives us a view of human nature that, although probably unintelligible to a non-mystic, is interesting to ponder.

Three-fourths of the way through the book, I thought this was going to be "one of those novels where noting really happens" (not a criticism, in this case), but there is a definite plot twist at the end which is well worth the wait. This book went from being something I picked up every other day when I was in the mood for 20 pages of clever philosophy to something I couldn't put down towards the end.

Overall, a fun, solid novel that is challenging in just the right dosage.

Huxley's "Brave New World" was, to me, a controversial and provoking novel that had just the right amount of thrill and philosophy. "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan" shares the same characteristics, with perhaps a bigger portion of discussion essays. I understand why it took some readers months to finish; the amount of philosophical discussion is large and the topics Huxley raised in this book are abstract and complex. Ideas of eternality, the withdrawal of one's personality, time and evil, goodness and self-interest and the meaning of being 'human', are discussed at length throughout different parts of the book. The plotline is only a tool of getting these ideas across and each character serves as a messenger of Huxley's philosophical ideas.

For this reason, the book is a challenging read, not only because Huxley presents such abstract themes, but also due to the fact that when the plotline is going, the story is so fascinating and delicious that a pause for philosophy lessons is abrupt and delaying. In the end it is worth the wait; the delicious story reveals its outrageous and mocking ending in a surprise switch of pace to highlight the narcissism and stupidity of the superficial personality of a wealthy but ignorant man. Huxley's story telling skills are superb; he has the ability to weave many voices into one, many stories simultaneously ongoing, to create a big picture of the complexity and self-absorbness of human psychology. This was seen in chapter 6, when the characters had lunch together: Pete was observing Virginia quietly as he went on about the Spanish War, and Jeremy was observing Pete surreptitiously with great detail on his demeanor, vocabulary and tone, while Virginia also indulged in her own thoughts while appearing to be listening to Pete. The characters surrounded each other, all putting up a front much different from what thoughts were going on in their minds, eyeing each other and connecting on the outside. Later on when Virginia's relationship with Pete is further revealed, their behaviour in this scene is explained and the complexity breaks down, revealing their true personality and simplistic motives.

Throughout the book, as Pete becomes a more complicated thinker, Mr. Propter dives deeper into his analysis of philosophy and psychology and Jeremy Pordage discovers more about eternality, Mr. Stoyte, Dr. Obispo and Virginia start to strip down from their mysterious skin. These two opposing motion contrast each other greatly. At the beginning, Mr. Stoyte was quite a "mysterious" character, who befriends Mr. Propter whom he hates but likes at the same time, who devoted money to build a home for sick children, who pursues living eternally. On the outside he seems like a complicated person, but as the plot moved on, and when the ending came, he is revealed a simple-minded person who is so obsessed with living forever that he has no thought on the meaning of life whatsoever. Virginia, whose name I consider an irony, portrays similar intellectual emptiness. She embodies those who has little or no self-control, possessing a childish behaviour and blindly religious. Though her actions were not "evil", they were unsophisticated and shallow. Dr. Obispo is a man of intellect and deep thought and provides counter arguments against Mr. Propter to give meaningful debates, but his motives were simple and symbolizes the apathetic population of the society. Meanwhile, Pete, Mr. Propter and Jeremy engage in complex discussion. It is through these characters that Huxley presents his eloquent discussion on philosophy. Chapter by chapter, the essay-typed conversations between them develop and the multi-layered views on humans and life unravels. Each character represents a way of life and thinking.

Along with the portrayal of an array of personalities, Huxley provides deep discussion on a number of topics. One of my favorite topics was the role of literature: "the enormous defects of so-called good literature." Literature has always been hailed as the art of writing, a product of beauty and revelation, but in Mr. Propter's argument, it is "evil"; it helps "to perpetuate misery by explicitly or implicitly approving the thoughts and feelings and practices which could not fail to result in misery. And this approval was bestowed in the most magnificent and persuasive language. So that even when a tragedy ended badly, the reader was hypnotized by the eloquence of the piece into imagining that it was all somehow noble and worthwhile. Which, of course, it wasn't. Because, if you considered them dispassionately, nothing could be more silly and squalid than the themes of "Phedre," or "Othello," or "Wuthering Heights," or the "Agamemnon." But the treatment of these themes had been in the highest degree sublime and thrilling, so that the reader or the spectator was left with the conviction that, in spite of the catastrophe, all was really well with the world, the all too human world, which had produced it." True, the power of literature is immense and the motives of literature are hidden so tactfully by beauty. It is a dangerous tool; and that is why people study and write literature, because by understanding and being able to use this tool, great things happen, either catastrophes or miracles.