Point Counter Point

by Aldous Huxley, Nicholas Mosley (Introduction)

Aldous Huxley's lifelong concern with the dichotomy between passion and reason finds its fullest expression both thematically and formally in his masterpiece Point Counter Point. By presenting a vision of life in which diverse aspects of experience are observed simultaneously, Huxley characterizes the symptoms of "the disease of the modern man" in the manner of a composer--themes and characters are repeated, altered slightly, and played off one another in a tone that is at once critical and sympathetic.

First published in 1928, Huxley's satiric view of intellectual life in the '20s is populated with characters based on such celebrities as D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Nancy Cunard, and John Middleton Murry, as well as Huxley himself.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Philosophy, Novels, British Literature, 20th Century

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

About the author

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Counterpoint can't exist without a point. The opposites need each other.

The industrialists who purvey standardized ready-made amusements to the masses are doing their best to make you as much of a mechanical imbecile in your leisure as in your hours of work. But don’t let them. Make the effort of being human.

That's an exact description of the today pop culture.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

Some persons try to be a part of the universal harmony and some want to become a counterpoint and some are just tone-deaf.

[Alan Wightman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Point Counter Point is a tragicomedy about a group of London intellectuals and/or members of the leisured class in the 1920s. Despite cynical and fun-making elements, Huxley allows his characters to formulate a series of profound and serious ideas, amongst them being:

(a) Why do people bother with worrying about liberty, democracy and politics, when they should just get on with living their lives
(b) It is easier to live the life of the intellectual, to live in a world purely of ideas, than it is to succeed in the art of life – to be on good terms with your colleagues, friends, spouse and children.
(c) Art is so much purer and more discriminating than life. In the sense that lurid accounts of orgies never discuss fatigue, boredom or hiccoughs
(d) You cannot properly separate the mind from the rest of the body. Any attempt to live a super-pure existence by living entirely in the mental will result in one becoming simply less than human

And so on.

Huxley is so sharp, so clever and so observant that it is a pleasure to be in his company. Yet he is so cutting about the intellectual pursuits that one can’t but feel guilty that one has the leisure and self-indulgence to be reading such a clever book. One should be undertaking some arduous proletariat task, or at least interacting with one’s fellow man. Or possibly indulging in one of those orgies (although, says Huxley, wickedness becomes as routine and uninteresting as anything else after a while).

So many little ideas, compared with Brave New World, which has one huge, overarching notion that there must be more to life than the simple pursuit of pleasure, or even happiness. But Point Counter Point seems much more natural, less clunky, than Brave New World’s 1932 attempt to be 24th century seems in 2008.

In summary, Point Counter Point is really good

[Edi · Rating 5 out of 5]

To this day, Aldous Huxley's "Point Counter Point" remains my favourite novel. The deepest corners of human nature -- that's where he goes, and that's where I haven't seen anyone else being able to.
The novel doesn't have a front-to-back storyline, a precise plot, or a main character. It starts off with Walter Bidlake's "trials and tribulations", only to extend to the entire social network of the London elite of the 1930s.
Huxley's versatility brings this writing to the status of "masterpiece", since all characters are explored (or they explore themselves) in great depth, from the flourishing façade to the darkest memories and secrets. The incredibly beautiful and superficial woman, the rough military leader with a soft spot, the cynical and politically involved, the rich, the one who despises the rich but secretly envies them -- name it, and you've got it there. And then there's the way they all influence each other's lives. It gives you the feeling you're looking at a complicated chess game, only from inside the pieces. It's clockwork, but it's also got the spontaneity you expect to find in the 20 years between the World Wars, when the world was left without any solid values and everyone was just thinking about tomorrow.

[AiK · Rating 3 out of 5]

Название отсылает нас к музыкальному термину контрапункт, что означает ведение двух или нескольких самостоятельных музыкальных тем, и роман, действительно, очень полифоничен, несколько линий сюжета сначала переплетаются, потом развиваются самостоятельно, при этом нет главных и второстепенных героев. Хаксли в одной стороны привержен аристократии, с другой стороны, он высмеивает или обнажает порочные стороны ее представителей. Все персонажи довольно отталкивающие, хотя почти у всех них были прототипы, причем из известных людей. Бидлейки, отец и сын, что называется, гулёны, хвалящиеся умением «лишать невинности». Люси Тэнтемаунт из того же теста, только в женском варианте. Мэри и Марк Рэмпионы из всех более-менее приятные люди, во всяком случае, им удалось преодолеть классовые различия. Хильда Тэнтемаунт женила на себе лорда Эдварда, чьим делом жизни была биология, изобразив живейший интерес к этому разделу науки, но, получив статус и деньги, она нашла себе любовника. Филипп Куорлз и его жена Элинор – тоже довольно разобщенная пара. Спэндрелл – странный тип, страдающий от «предательства» матери, внезапно решает убить ненавидимого им Уэбли, привлекая к убийству Иллиджа. В книге довольно много разных мыслей, но большая их часть спорна. Вот, например, мысли о работе: Работа ничуть не почтенней, чем пьянство, и преследует она совершенно ту же цель: она отвлекает человека, заставляет его забыть о самом себе. Работа — это наркотик, и больше ничего. Унизительно, что люди не способны жить трезво, без наркотиков; унизительно, что у них не хватает мужества видеть мир и самих себя такими, каковы они есть. Им приходится опьянять себя работой. Это глупо. Евангелие работы — это евангелие глупости и трусости. Возможно, что работа — это молитва, но это также страусиное прятание головы в песок, это способ поднять вокруг себя такой шум и такую пыль, что человек перестает слышать самого себя и видеть собственную руку перед глазами. Он прячется от самого себя. Неудивительно, что Сэмюэлы Смайлсы и крупные дельцы с энтузиазмом относятся к работе. Она дает им утешительную иллюзию, будто они существуют реально и даже преисполнены значительности. А если бы они перестали работать, они поняли бы, что они, попросту говоря, не существуют. Дырки в воздухе — и больше ничего. И к тому же довольно вонючие дырки. Надо сказать, что смайлсовские души издают по большей части пренеприятный запах. Неудивительно, что они не смеют перестать работать. Они боятся увидеть, что они такое. Это слишком рискованно, и у них не хватает мужества.

Или о жадности:

Жадность к деньгам появляется у людей только оттого, что их убеждают, будто эта жадность естественная и благородна, будто заниматься торговлей и промышленностью есть добродетель, будто убеждать людей покупать то, что им вовсе не нужно, есть проявление христианского милосердия. Инстинкт обладания никогда не был настолько сильным, чтобы заставлять людей гоняться за деньгами с утра до вечера всю жизнь. Воображению и интеллекту приходится все время подстегивать его.
Вообще, мне кажется, Хаксли видит единственной ценностью – интеллект.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

'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)

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many characters for a start. It felt like the novel kept beginning anew as yet another character was introduced. Point Counter Point is a novel of ideas. The trouble with ideas is they don't always age well. I only have to think of some of the ideas I had when I was nineteen. It often takes the form of intellectual debates between clever men in drinking clubs. This is a very masculine novel. Women have a background virtually nondescript role. Usually they're worrying about children or complaining about husbands. My feeling throughout was that Huxley doesn't have a natural gift for the novel. He's incredibly clever, psychologically and politically astute but sort of dry and heavy handed when it comes to dramatization. He's trying to bring ideas to life rather than people. He doesn't have that enlivening sensibility other writers of his time had - Woolf, Forster, Lawrence, Mansfield. Lawrence features as a character in this novel. If it's not tiresome listening to him preaching in his own novels here we get him doing the same preaching in someone else's novel. I was glad to get this over with.

[Ivana Books Are Magic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huxley never disappointed me so far. The man was a very fine writer indeed. This is one of his longer works, I think it might even be the longest novel he has wrote. It is certainly a very complex work, something I'd recommend if you: a) can appreciate a fine difference between literature and a popular novel, b) are a fan of Huxley c) want to read something that might actually make to think.

Point Counter Point is a novel featuring a colourful cast of characters. You're bound to love some, and hate the others, but they will all seem very much real to you. I read somewhere that Huxley based his characters on real people he knew, and if that is true, that explains why they feel so real. Long story short- a great cast of characters. Now, I've said there are many characters in this one- and there are as many stories as they are characters. The stories are often interwoven. There is no central plot here, but there is a lot of philosophical writing. This book is intelligently written and every debate is worth reading about. Some debates seem to continue through different stories. I immensely enjoyed following them for I do love a good debate. However, if you're looking for a more standard novel, you might end up disappointed. There is no traditional plot and no grand finish. The books merits lie mainly with intelligent writing and an excellent psychological analysis characters- and that is fine by me.

I borrowed this novel twice from the library. For some reason I thought that I haven't finished this novel. Reading it again, I realized that I had finished it. I think there wasn't another Huxley's book that I confused it with. Possibly Island, yes it might be that one. I think I started to read Island at some point, stopped and then it took me a while to pick it up and finish it. So, I ended up reading Point Counter Point twice, which is no tragedy as it is a wonderful novel. If I remember well, I had read Point Counter Point in one go. I didn't mind rereading it either, that's for sure. Nothing much to add this time around, I do still think it is an excellent novel.

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Wikipedia:

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradition, strongly developing during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period, especially in the Baroque. The term originates from the Latin punctus contra punctum meaning "point against point", i.e. "note against note".

Book titles are important.

In common parlance, counterpoint means one thing in contrast to another, often juxtaposed to create a pleasing contrast. In music, it is one of the main techniques in an orchestra to create a harmonious polyphonic experience. It is not by coincidence that this novel starts with a fairly detailed description of a music concert:

Meanwhile the music played on—Bach's Suite in B minor, for flute and strings. Young Tolley conducted with his usual inimitable grace, bending in swan-like undulations from the loins, and tracing luscious ara-besques on the air with his waving arms, as though he were dancing to the music. A dozen anonymous fiddlers and 'cellists scraped at his bidding. And the great Pongilconi glueily kissed his flute. He blew across the mouth hole and a cylindrical air column vibrated ; Bach's meditations filled the Roman quadrangle. In the opening largo John Sebastian had, with the help of Pongileoni's snout and the air column, made a state¬ment : There are grand things in the world, noble things ; there are men born kingly ; there are real conquerors, intrinsic lords of the earth. But of an earth that is, oh I complex and multitudinous, he had gone on to reflect in the fugal allegro. You seem to have found the truth ; clear, definite, unmistakable, it is announced by the violins; you have it, you triumphantly hold it. But it slips out of your grasp to present itself in a new aspect among the 'cellos and yet again in terms of Pongileoni's vibrating air column. The parts live their separate lives; they touch, their paths cross, they combine for a moment to create a seemingly final and perfected harmony, only to break apart again. Each is always alone and separate and individual. ' I am I,' asserts the violin ; the world revolves round me.' Round me,' calls the 'cello. Round me,' the flute insists. And all are equally right and equally wrong ; and none of them will listen to the others.

In the human fugue there are eighteen hundred million parts. The resultant noise means something perhaps to the statistician, nothing to the artist. It is only by considering one or two parts at a time that the artist can understand anything. Here, for example, is one particular part ; and John Sebastian puts the case. The Rondeau begins, exquisitely and simply melodious, almost a folk-song. It is a young girl singing to herself of love, in solitude, tenderly mournful. A young girl singing among the hills, with the clouds drifting over-head. But solitary as one of the floating clouds, a poet had been listening to her song. The thoughts that it provoked in him are the Sarabande that follows the Rondeau. His is a slow and lovely meditation on the beauty (in spite of squalor and stupidity), the profound goodness (in spite of all the evil), the oneness (in spite of such bewildering diversity) of the world. It is a beauty, a goodness, a unity that no intellectual research can discover, that analysis dispels, but of whose reality the spirit is from time to time suddenly and overwhelmingly convinced. A girl singing to herself under the clouds suffices to create the certitude. Even a fine morning is enough. Is it illusion or the revelation of profoundest truth ? Who knows ? Pongileoni blew, the fiddlers drew their rosined horse-hair across the stretched intestines of lambs ; through the long Sarabande the poet slowly meditated his lovely and consoling certitude.

The reason I quoted this long passage in its entirety is because it encapsulates what the novel is about, in a nutshell - an orchestra of similar, disparate and often conflicting ideas, expressed through the lives and thoughts of a handful artists and intellectuals. In its 400+ thickly populated pages, there is no "story" in the traditional sense: we have a bunch of mostly unlikable and rather unrealistic characters going about their lives, talking philosophy till about 80% of the book, when everything suddenly moves into frenzied action with the goofy speed of a silent movie and ends as abruptly as one. But then, the author does not want to entertain us with a tale - he sincerely wants to screw up our minds with ideas.

A novel of ideas is never naturalistic - because real people don't conduct long, lucid and expository conversations while eating, drinking and fornicating. Our conversations are always confused and disjointed. This is what Philip Qarles, one of the characters in the novel who happens to be a writer, has to say about the "novel of ideas":

The great defect of the novel of ideas is that it's a made-up affair. Necessarily; for people who can reel off neatly formulated notions aren't quite real; they're slightly monstrous. Living with monsters become rather tiresome in the long run.

The remarkable thing that Huxley has managed is that he has made living with monsters not only non-tiresome, but enjoyable.

***

This novel was published in 1928, towards the end of the decade called the "Roaring Twenties" when the world blossomed into a prosperous bubble after the First World War (a bubble which was to disastrously burst in 1929 with the Great Depression, which would drag on until 1939 and the Second World War). It was a time of great intellectual and cultural energy (albeit confined to the big cities and its intellectual elite) and the rampant clash of conflicting ideas; ideas which are embodied through various characters by Huxley. Thus we have the staid and unemotional Philip Qarles representing the cold scientific temper; the hypocritical Burlap who represents a sentimental Christian piety; the wastrel Spandrell, who represents a sort of degraded Nihilism; Illidge, the proletarian who represents Marxism; and Mark Rampion who represents a sort of broad humanism pitted against all these "non-human" philosophies. In addition we have a host of other characters who through their personalities present a cross-section of the glittering cultural life of London, and also its dark underbelly.

The blurb says:"Through the pages of Point CounterPoint - lightly disguised and readily distinguishable - move D H Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and her husband John Middleton Murry, and Aldous Huxley himself." I guess I am too ignorant about literature or history to recognise them; but I actually found the characters fascinating, though not endearing. Huxley has a cynical eye, and he verges on the Wodehousian when making character sketches.

This is not a fast read. It is to be savoured slowly, so that symphony of the ideas gently seep into one.

[Bram De Vriese · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this is considered Huxley's best novel but I don't agree. It is surely a good one but not his best. I only got to get a good idea of the different characters by the end of the book.

[Simona Cosma · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Lucrurile nu există decât în funcţie de opuşii lor."

O examinare sinceră, brutală, dar plină de umor a societății londoneze interbelice, un veritabil roman de idei făcut parcă din cartonașe de puzzle care te lasă, pe parcursul întregii lecturi, cu senzația că însuși Huxley nu vrea să se ia prea în serios.

"Defectul principal al romanului de idei e că trebuie să scrii despre oameni care au de exprimat idei – ceea ce exclude cam 99 la sută din rasa umană. De aceea, romancierii adevăraţi şi înnăscuţi nu scriu astfel de cărţi. Eu însă n-am avut niciodată pretenţia că sunt un romancier înnăscut.”

„Marele defect al romanului de idei e de a fi o combinaţie artificială. E obligatoriu să fie aşa, fiindcă oamenii care pot expune automat noţiuni perfect formulate nu sunt cu totul reali; au ceva cam monstruos, iar convieţuirea cu monştrii devine cu timpul plictisitoare.”

Tehnica narativă destul de neobișnuită în epocă (maniera contrapunctului preluată din cinematografie și muzică, în care înșiruirea evenimentelor se transformă într-o uriașă scenă unde totul se petrece instantaneu), astăzi este una destul de comună, așa că nu te va incomoda în mod deosebit. Nu același lucru îl vei putea spune despre numărul năucitor de personaje-pretext, alese din tipologiile cele mai diferite, dintre care singurii normali probabil îți vor părea, la fel ca mie, Mark și Mary Rampion, avându-i drept corespondenți în realitate pe D.H. Lawrence și soția sa, Frieda von Richthofen.

"Cum descrii astea într-un roman? Trecerile abrupte sunt destul de uşoare. N-ai nevoie decât de un număr suficient de personaje, şi paralel de acţiuni contrapunctate. În timp ce Jones îşi omoară nevasta, Smith plimbă căruciorul cu copilul în parc. Alternezi temele. Modulaţiile şi variaţiile sunt mai interesante, deşi mult mai dificile. Un romancier reuşeşte să modeleze, redublând situaţiile şi personajele. Arăţi cum mai multe persoane se îndrăgostesc sau mor sau se roagă în feluri diferite – lipsa de asemănare rezolvând aceeaşi problemă. Sau viceversa, oameni asemănători confruntaţi cu probleme diferite. Poţi astfel să modulezi prin toate aspectele temei tale, să scrii variaţii în orice număr de moduri diferite."

"Niciun personaj cu trăsături predominant acaparatoare nu a apărut în vreuna dintre povestirile mele. E un defect, căci oamenii cu spirit de acaparare sunt fireşte foarte răspândiţi în viaţa de toate zilele. Mă îndoiesc însă că aş putea face interesant un astfel de personaj, dat fiind că pe mine nu mă interesează pasiunea de a acapara. Balzac putea s-o facă; împrejurările şi ereditatea îl siliseră să fie foarte preocupat de bani. Dar când un lucru te plictiseşte, poţi deveni şi tu plictisitor când scrii despre el.”

Pe scurt, un colaj inedit (și greu de uitat) despre o criză profundă în care toată lumea sfidează convențiile și autoritățile, fiecare detestă visceral pe altcineva, toți puritanii au câte o amantă, dar fiecare se dovedește a fi, de fapt, în căutarea salvării.
La fel ca în zilele noastre, nu-i așa?

" - De unde ştii că pământul nu e iadul altor planete?"

[Jonfaith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Habit is as fatal to a sense of wrong-doing as to active enjoyment. After a few years the converted or sceptical Jew, the Westernized Hindu, can eat their pork and beef with an equanimity which to their still-believing brothers seems brutally cynical. It is the same with the habitual debauchee. Actions which at first seemed thrilling in their intrinsic wickedness become after a certain number of repetitions morally neutral. A little disgusting, perhaps; for the practice of most vices is followed by depressing physiological reactions; but no longer wicked, because so ordinary. It is difficult for a routine to seem wicked.”

Dogs don't fare so well in the novels of Huxley. It's a family legacy, perhaps. My mood is illuminated by wisecracks about vivisection. Whatever the cause, the images are striking, though Point Counterpoint is a different kettle than either Eyeless in Gaza or Brave New World. This is a softer cloth, a farce upon which ideas are allowed to percolate. It appears closer to Waugh's Scoop than any attempt to portray the way we live (now). It should be noted that over a third of the book depicts a party, one which isn't really of consequence yet the canvas keeps unrolling to accommodate the cast. Most of the characters are modeled upon actual artists and politicians, though I lack the interest to explore. Of course Oswald Mosley is easy to spot. I thought that the situation might resonate in light of the week's Impeachment. It didn't.

[Andrew]

A phrase like "novel of ideas" sounds so ponderous and leaden-- you'll not find many who liked The Magic Mountain as much as I did, but I'll readily admit it was tough going-- but Huxley proves that a novel of ideas can be on the contrary, witty, playful, and as bitchy as a gin-sodden Truman Capote. Nearly every page has a line that's a total keeper:

"The rush to books and universities is like the rush to the public house. People want to drown their realization of the difficulties of living properly in this grotesque contemporary world, they want to forget their own deplorable inefficiency as artists in life."

You got me, Aldous, you got me.

[Issicratea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Point Counter Point (1928) is the third Huxley novel I have read in close succession, following Crome Yellow (1921) and Eyeless in Gaza (1936). It is far closer to Eyeless in Gaza than to Crome Yellow in character: vast in scale, structurally complex, hugely ambitious in terms of the philosophical ideas it chooses to wrangle. Its great theme is (in the words of the epigraph, by Fulke Greville) the “wearisome condition of humanity,” as a wrenching cohabitation of “passion and reason, self-division’s cause.”

PCP has a broader cast-list than Eyeless, and is organized contrapuntally, as the title suggests, with a series of interconnected narrative threads, none especially privileged (although the novelist Philip Quarles, who seems an ironic self-portrait, can perhaps be seen as the work’s focalizer-in-chief). The presence of Quarles in the novel allows Huxley to spell out his artistic credo, though he does so with a breezy self-deprecation that seems to me characteristic. I like this astute twinned self-justification and self-critique, for example:

Novel of ideas. The character of each personage must be implied, as far as possible, in the ideas of which he is the mouthpiece; in so far as theories are rationalizations of sentiments, instincts, dispositions of soul, this is feasible. The chief defect of the novel of ideas is that you must write about people who have ideas to express—which excludes all but about .01 of the human race. Hence the real, the congenital novelists don’t write such books, but then I never pretended to be a congenital novelist.

The specimens of the ideas-ridden .01% of the human race with whom Huxley presents us in this novel are often highly entertaining. I liked the eccentric amateur scientist Lord Edward Tantamount and his bitter, radical, working-class assistant, Frank Illidge; the hypocritical, sex-obsessed Christian mystic and literary magazine editor, Denis Burlap, with his seductive “Sodoma smile”; mercurial, amoral flapper Lucy Tantamount; and Mussoliniesque übermensch Everard Webley, hot pursuer of Philip’s semi-neglected wife Elinor.

Some of these characters are patently portraits of Huxley’s contemporaries, in way that must have increased the spice of the book for its earliest readers. Mark Rampion, fiery spokesman for nature and instinct over reason, is easy to spot as Huxley’s close friend D. H. Lawrence, and I was interested to read online that the man-eating Lucy was based on Nancy Cunard, with whom Huxley had an affair. I also liked the sketch of the sensual, cynical, lionized elderly ego-monster of an artist, John Bidlake, supposedly based on Augustus John.

Huxley’s characters are distinctly of their volatile historical moment—that’s part of the novel’s fascination—and yet the ideas and life philosophies and political theories they spin for themselves are not lacking in relevance for our own times. Huxley’s insights into the ways in which people’s thinking is shaped by their circumstances and history and their physical selves and their relation to their bodies—sex is very central in the novel—are also at times very astute.

PCP is a dark and unforgiving satire, with little by way of personal or social redemption in view at the end, unlike Eyeless in Gaza. That doesn't make it a depressing read, though—far from it. With its densely interwoven, tragicomic plotlines, its rich gamut of characters, its fizzing dialogue, it reads rather like a very, very, very upmarket soap opera. It's not hard to see why it was a succès de scandale in its day.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bad people doing bad things, but in a very witty way. That is a brief, if incomplete, summary of Aldous Huxley's novel, Point Counter Point.
It is more broadly a "novel of ideas" with a novelist of ideas, Philip Quarles, at its center. Quarles is a withdrawn, cerebral man, ill at ease with the everyday world and its emotions. He is surrounded by friends and family whose lives are like those of the monsters that Philip writes about in his journal. Just as Philip decides to structure his novel on the contrapuntal techniques of music (think Bach and Beethoven) the novel Huxley has written is structured in the same way. We are presented with an opening overture of more than one-hundred-fifty pages at a dinner party that serves as an introduction to most of the characters. The remainder of the novel intersperses scenes from their lives, letters from lovers and most interesting, the writings of Philip Quarles, who with his wife spends most of the first half of the novel returning from India and who is the closest to a protagonist that we get. While there is a bit of a literary explosion near the end, this is more a novel of the daily lives of London sophisticates in the 1920s. It catalogues their alternately sordid and ludicrous (sometimes both) erotic adventures, which generally end unhappily.
I particularly enjoyed the wealth of references to literature and philosophy, Huxley's polymathic mind shows through on every page. Among the literary references was the use of Dickens in a way that captures one of his essential character traits, "the appearance of Dickensian young-girlishness" (p. 19). Overall, I found the play of wit and ideas compelling, enough to bear with the bad people and their antics.

[Ebru Çökmez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aldous Huxley’in “Ses Sese Karşı” başlıklı romanı, yazarın çok bilinen distopik eseri “Cesur Yeni Dünya" ve ondan biraz daha az bilinen ütopyası “Ada”dan çok farklı.

Ses Sese Karşı, 1900’lü yılların başında çoğu İngiliz aristokrat sınıftan bir grup insanın kendileri, birbirleri, hayat, tanrı, ölüm ve toplum hakkındaki görüşlerini içeren bir roman. Pek az aksiyon, pek çok diyalog ve düşünceden oluşan 700 sayfalık kitap çok akıcı ve kolay bir okuma vadetmiyor. Roman kişilerinin teker teker seriminin yapıldığı kitabın ilk yarısında, bu kurguda bir başkahraman olmadığını, yazarın öne çıkardığı 10 küsür karaktere de bilinçli olarak eşit mesafede durduğunu kavradıktan sonra ise eşsiz bir edebiyat şöleni ile başlıyor.

Kitabın orijinal adı “Point Counter Point” adını bir müzik terimi olan “Counterpoint”ten almış. Eserin çevirmeni Mina Urgan, oldukça açıklayıcı olan önsözünde bu konuda şöyle demiş:
“Counterpoint, bir ezgiye eşlik etmek üzere eklenen başka bir ezgi ya da ezgilerdir. Bir müzik parçasında çeşitli ezgiler kaynaştığı gibi; Ses Sese Karşı’da da birbirleriyle kaynaşan, çeşitli kişiler, çeşitli görüşler, çeşitli durumlar bulunur.”

Kendisi de bir İngiliz seçkini olan Huxley, bu romanına yazarlar, ressamlar, yayıncılar, bilim adamları, sosyalistler, faşistler ekleyerek , onların seslerini yanyana koyarak, çarpıştırarak kendi çağını anlatmış. Bu açıdan bu roman çok sesli bir düşünce romanı. Huxley’in kendi sesi ise romanın en hüzünlü karakterlerinden biri olan Philip Quarles’in dilinden duyuluyor. Hayatının bir bölümünde kör olan Huxley, Quarles’i topal çizerek bir ipucu vermiş aslında.

[Realini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley

Another version of this note and thoughts on other books are available at:

- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...


This is a monumental novel that I must admit to have rejected years ago...
How foolish one can be.
Aldous Huxley has dazzled me with:

- Brave New World, The Doors of Perception and now this masterpiece.

It is a complex work, with complicated characters and surprising events...
There is even a murder, a few deaths and some love affairs...

Astonishing points of view are expressed on almost anything

From God to the music of Beethoven, from Saint Francis to Tolstoy.

Speaking of Saint Francis, there is a personage that attacks the said Francis with aplomb.

He was sick, licking the wounds of lepers for his benefit.
This Saint did not cure those sick people, he was just enjoying himself.

Perhaps I should be ashamed to admit that I found the remarks funny, albeit in a tasteless, cruel and exaggerated way.

John Bidlake seems to be towering over this account, at least in terms of seniority, if not with his status as the leonine creator of old.
A lover with energy, charm, talent, success and idiosyncrasies he is likeable...up to a point.

Walter Bidlake is one of my favorites, the son of the aforementioned painter and trapped in a disastrous affair with Lucy Tantamount, while also cohabiting with a pregnant Marjorie.

I just realized that I have to give up on the other characters, even if this mix is fascinating.
The dinamic of their relationships was hard to follow sometimes, but this chef d'oeuvre is extremely satisfying.

The dialogues are marvelous and the themes are serious and looked at from unusual angles.

Tolstoy is dismissed as something of an old fool and I happen to have read The Intellectuals by Paul Johnson which shows that despicable side of the Russian writer...and a good number of others:

- Ibsen, Hemingway, Rousseau...

One statement that intrigued me was, I hope similar to what I put here:

- The search for The Truth is not really "noble".
- It is just like any other occupation.
- Indeed, many of those who think about that are ordinary or worse.

It was in the line of challenging Saint Francis, the music of Beethoven which is too wonderful, too heavenly...

And there are characters that challenge most accepted points of view

[Krishnaroop Chakrabarty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Huxley is quite the literary enigma. He is the progenitor of a style of expression that is thoroughly unique and exhaustive in its presentation of the matter at hand and this itself prevents any form of imitation by other lesser competent literary mortals. Yet the only deterrent to Huxley is perhaps Huxley himself. Over indulgence is undeniably his most persistent arch nemesis and it befuddles the authors best efforts in quite a lot of his creations and is well demonstrated here in PCP. The notion is arguable indeed but one cannot quite construct a 400+ novel merely out of a compulsion to isolate and vivisect certain episodic and grudgingly personal philosophies. A short story would have sufficed for this yet Huxley pompously persuades you with a brilliantly structured opening sequence and then abandons you in a confounding melodrama of rambling psychologies and distasteful diversions. This was not expected of the same author whose keenness of perception edited his philosophic and metaphysical outings with such unrelenting effectiveness in the laudable Brave New World and the morbid Ape and Essence. Social criticism is thus an aphrodisiac which Huxley cannot quite forego and yet he is seduced into excesses such as PCP and the drab Those Barren Leaves from which he just cannot liberate himself. No doubt, I am still in awe of the manner in which Huxley struggles passionately against his Achilles Heel and describes the music of Bach, how he deconstructs Romanticisim through Rampion, how he he enamors with an unflinchingly accurate portrayal of dissipating love...and yet I just couldnt proceed beyond page 201. A case of Huxley being slayed by his own ambitions.

[Sofía (Софья) · Rating 5 out of 5]

En esta novela Huxley desarrolla varios personajes. No hay uno principal y otros secundarios, son todos iguales en su peso. Mírenlos de cerca: Philip es el intelecto, Walter Bidlake es la carne, lo corpóreo, Rampion es la naturaleza, lo auténtico, Spandrell es un "demonio". Son personajes planos, homogéneos. Cada uno parece un componente de algo grande, todos ellos son partes de ese personaje colectivo que nos presenta el autor - de la sociedad británica. Huxley los choca, los hace discutir, intercambiar opiniones, expresar ideas, tesis (de ahí viene el título "Point counter point").

La novela fue publicada en el año 1928, tres años después del libro de Gide "Los monederos falsos". Huxley utiliza la misma herramienta que antes había empleado su colega - el metatexto, novela dentro de novela. PCP es el diario de Philip. Muy minuciosamente el describe el proceso de la creación, las causas, los métodos. Es una literatura egocéntrica, está enfocada en si misma, se interesa solo en si misma. Por que Huxley lo hace? Es una manera de revisar su trabajo, de verlo con otros ojos, de chequear las construcciones. Por esta razón la novela se lee muy fácil, no hay ningún "entre líneas", está todo explicado.

Otro punto sobresaltante del libro es su lado satírico. Con frecuencia los escritores usan los prototipos para sus personajes pero por lo general los disimulan, Huxley lo hace abiertamente para que los lectores reconozcan a las personalidades de su novela, la tarea que no era difícil para un contemporario de los años 20 en Britania, obviamente tomando en cuenta que se trata de los integrantes del circulo literario-editorial. Yo voy a mencionar solamente dos nombres, los otros Uds los encontraran fácilmente en cualquier artículo sobre la novela. Bajo del nombre de Philip Quarles el autor se representa a si mismo y el personaje de Mark Rampion se basa en D. H. Lawrence, autor de "Sons and Lovers", a quien Huxley tenía mucho aprecio. Los que no tenían tanta suerte aparecieron en el relato tratados por el autor con toda ironía y hasta sarcasmo. Parece que burlarse de sus enemigos desde las páginas del libro era un evento común.

La década de los 20 es el tiempo de muchos cambios en la literatura. Los escritores experimentan, emplean nuevas técnicas. La literatura no es un arte multidimensional, es lineal. Para empezar con otra escena el autor tiene que terminar con el episodio anterior. Rompen esta estructura utilizando texto fragmentado. Huxley trabaja con esta herramienta constantemente.

«Se expone un tema: luego se desarrolla, se cambia, se deforma imperceptiblemente hasta que, aunque permaneciendo reconociblemente el mismo, se ha hecho totalmente diferente. En las series de variaciones, el procedimiento se lleva un paso más allá. Por ejemplo, esas increíbles variaciones de Diabelli. Toda la extensión del pensamiento y de la emoción, y, no obstante, en relación orgánica con un ligero y ridículo aire de vals. Poner esto en una novela. ¿Cómo? Las transiciones bruscas no presentan ninguna dificultad. Todo lo que se necesita es un número suficiente de personajes y de intrigas paralelas, argumentos de contrapunto. Mientras Jones asesina a su esposa, Smith empuja el cochecillo de niño en el parque. Se alternan los temas. Más interesantes, las modulaciones y variaciones son también más difíciles. El novelista modula reduplicando las situaciones y los personajes. Muestra varios personajes enamorados, o muriendo, o rezando, de modos diferentes: disimilitudes que resuelven el mismo problema. O, viceversa, personajes símiles confrontados con problemas disímiles. De esta suerte se puede modular de modo que se presenten todos los aspectos del tema, se pueden escribir modulaciones en cualquier número de modos diferentes.»

"Mientras Jones asesina a su esposa, Smith empuja el cochecillo de niño en el parque." - aquí esta la clave. El texto fragmentado en este libro es la herramienta de la sátira.

Otro detalle interesante. Huxley elimina las conexiones externas entre las escenas y hace trabajar sus relaciones internas. Cada escena es una idea, una tesis, la próxima escena seria la respuesta a esta tesis pero lo curioso es que las escenas tienen diferentes interpretaciones, entonces ¿cuál de todas sigue Huxley? :) Si tengo que esquematizar la estructura, quedaría así: Escena № 1 (la tesis № 1) -> Escena № 2 (respuesta a la tesis № 1). No puedo no hacer la comparación con Faulkner. El esquema de "Luz de agosto" sería así: Escena № 1 (cronológicamente № 28 por decirlo así) -> Escena № 5 (cronológicamente № 15). Escenas 2, 3 y 4 no existen en el libro, el lector tiene que escribirlas en su imaginación. Además, los fragmentos están mezclados en el tiempo. Por eso la lectura de Faulkner es más complicada y más excitante. Volviendo con Huxley, las ideas representadas en PCP están para analizarlas. Son verdaderamente pequeñas joyitas que uno quiere apreciar una y otra vez. Mi libro quedó todo subrayado y con mis comentarios pegados en los márgenes. Se puede tratarlas con los amigos (ó no amigos), yo ya lo hice y fue divertido.

Concluyendo, PCP es una novela fascinante por su técnica y contenido intelectual. La recomiendo a todos.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Point Counter Point, the title says what the book is about - the double bind that humans are in. The quote on the frontispiece is by Fulke Greville. "Oh, wearisome condition of humanity, Born under one law, to another bound,…"

I read Point Counter Point about ten year ago. With novels that have a vast cast of characters, I started keeping a folded sheet of paper as a book mark adding all the names of the characters as they are introduced into the story so as to remember who is who, and I started writing down lines, quotes, words, not forgetting the page number!

Books like P. C. P. are character and ideas based, with the author's philosophy sown into the tale. I don't remember too much of the story, I remember the characters and some scenes. So the notes I kept while reading P. C. P. are a great memory jogger. Looking back I'm surprised at the amount of notes.

The situation towards the end of the book with Spandrell and Illidge and the dead body of Everard Webley is unique and hilarious, describing the planning and removal of the corpse, one of those 'physical burst out laughing' moments. I loved the book.

[Richard R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Point Counter Point inhabits a world that's readily familiar today. The aftermath of the first world war left a world denuded of confidence in concepts of progress, religion or science and which was consequently highly vulnerable to competing extremisms, whether from communism or fascism. One particular passage in Point Counter Point could serve equally well as a description of contemporary social media, when describing a rally of the fascist British Freemen: "At the entrance to the Park they had met an Anti-Vivisection procession and there had been some slight confusion – a mingling of ranks, a musical discord, as the bands collided, of ‘The British Grenadiers’ and ‘My Faith looks up to Thee, Thou Lamb of Calvary’, an entangling of banners, ‘Protect our Doggies’ with ‘Britons never shall be slaves’, ‘Socialism is Tyranny’ with ‘Doctors or Devils?’

Overall, Point Counter Point is an attempt to describe these sort of competing ideas realistically, presenting them through the perspectives of different characters using the sort of techniques Mikhal Bakhtin would have described as polyphonic: "A novelist modulates by reduplicating situations and characters. He shows several people falling in love, or dying, or praying in different ways – dissimilars solving the same problem. Or, vice versa, similar people confronted with dissimilar problems. In this way you can modulate through all the aspects of your theme, you can write variations in any number of different moods. Another way: The novelist can assume the god-like creative privilege and simply elect to consider the events of the story in their various aspects – emotional, scientific, economic, religious, metaphysical, etc. He will modulate from one to the other – as from the aesthetic to the physico-chemical aspect of things, from the religious to the physiological or financial." Thus the novel contrasts an series of perspectives, such as Spandrell's nihilism, Burlap's christian moralism, Webley's fascism, Illidge's communism and Lord Edward's belief in scientific progress. All of them are found wanting in various ways, for example with Rampion critiquing them: "You can’t be a true communist without being a mechanist... Bolsheviks and Fascists, Radicals and Conservatives, Communists and British Freeman – what the devil are they all fighting about? I’ll tell you. They’re fighting to decide whether we shall go to hell by communist express train or capitalist racing motor car, by individualist ’bus or collectivist tram running on the rails of state control. The destination’s the same in every case... They all believe in industrialism in one form or another, they all believe in Americanization. Think of the Bolshevist ideal. America but much more so."

The murder of Webley by Illidge and Spandrell's suicide void their ideas, while the novel treats Burlap and Edward with satirical contempt. This leaves the ideas of Mark Rampion, a fairly transparent depiction of DH Lawrence. Rampion repeatedly makes criticisms of Philip Quarles, who serves as a proxy for Huxley in the novel: " A man who has always taken pains to encourage his own intellectualist tendencies at the expense of all the others. He avoids personal relationships as much as he can, he observes without participating, doesn’t like to give himself away, is always a spectator rather than an actor... as he gradually discovers, he has only narrowed and desiccated his life; and what’s more, has cramped his intellect by the very process he thought would emancipate it. His reason’s free, but only to deal with a small fraction of experience." Nonetheless, there are good reasons to distrust Rampion as a prophet in the novel.

One of the challenges of writing a novel of ideas is that the novel is concrete rather than abstract: as Huxley puts it, "The great defect of the novel of ideas is that it’s a made-up affair. Necessarily; for people who can reel off neatly formulated notions aren’t quite real; they’re slightly monstrous. Living with monsters becomes rather tiresome in the long run." Huxley employed various ways to address this, from framing his narratives as science fiction to the satirical mode employed in Point Counter Point. One aspect of this is that the satire sits oddly with a lot of the ideological architecture of the novel: of the ideas propounded in the novel, Rampion's Lawrentian primitivism proves the closest to the author's views, but it's still the case that Rampion is protrayed as a rather ludicrous crank who is laughed at while ranting about his children's unreasonable liking for toy machinery: "motor cars, trains, aeroplanes, radios. ‘It’s an infection, like smallpox. The love of death’s in the air. They breathe it and get infected. I try to persuade them to like something else. But they won’t have it. Machinery’s the only thing for them. They’re infected with the love of death." Rampion is hardly treated with much more generosity than Burlap or Edward.

Even beyond the satirical treatment, the novel's handling of Rampion's ideas is less than generous when they are put into practice: Lily's masochistic promiscuity is far from the notions of love in Lawrence's novels. As the novel puts it of one character: "And then what was this love he talked about so thrillingly? Just an occasional brief violence in the intervals of business. He despised women, resented them because they wasted a man’s time and energy. She had often heard him say that he had no time for love-making. His advances were almost an insult – the propositions one makes to a woman of the streets." Equally, towards the end Spandrell talks about animalism with Rampion and wonders whether "I were to tell them that I’d just jumped out on a man from behind a screen and hit him on the side of the head with an Indian club... I’m not so sure of what you say. Behaving like an animal is behaving like a creature that’s below good and evil. You must know what good is before you can start behaving like the devil." The end result is that the novel defeats any attempt for one of the ideologies within it to triumph over the overs: "Put a novelist into the novel. He justifies aesthetic generalizations, which may be interesting – at least to me. He also justifies experiment. Specimens of his work may illustrate other possible or impossible ways of telling a story. And if you have him telling parts of the same story as you are, you can make a variation on the theme. But why draw the line at one novelist inside your novel? Why not a second inside his? And a third inside the novel of the second? And so on to infinity, like those advertisements of Quaker Oats where there’s a Quaker holding a box of oats, on which is a picture of another Quaker holding another box of oats"

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Spasa Vidljinović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam naslov se odnosi na transpoziciju muzike u književnost sa namerom da opiše isprepletene životne priče različitih likova koji bez obzira na karakterni kontrast vežu jake niti sudbinske privlačnosti. Kontrapunkt kao oblik muzičkog umeća vešto je utelovljen u priču. On navodi na visoko intelektualni stil autora, koji je jedan od njegovih zaštitnih znakova.

Na roman se može gledati kao na mozaik sastavljen iz suprostavljenih delova koji se savršeno uklapaju u tkanje života, s jedne strane licemerje i lažnu pobožnost Barlapa, a s druge oštar jezik, učenost, i objektivni pogled na svet Rampiona, prezir prema svetu Morisa Spandrela i nasuprot njoj ravnodušnost Filipa Kvorlsa, altera ega samog Hakslija. Ovde moram napomenuti da je šteta što izraz spandrelovština nije ušao u svet književnosti kao karamazovština, zbog cinizma, jakih neiživljenih osećanja Morisa, prototipa osobe zasićene životom, koji kao da je pobegao iz nekog romana Dostojevskog. U nekim momentima ličio je na Raskoljnikova, a upoređen je sa Stavroginom u jednom delu romana.

Naravno, kroz knjigu se otvaraju različita krucijalna pitanja, vezana za religiju,filozofiju, politiku... Ispoljava stavove od koji su neki proročki (pogađa početak Drugog sv. rata). Zanimljivo je navesti da nema glavnog lika već svako igra svoj ples kao što i različite melodije u kontrapunktu daju osobenost jednoj na kraju muzički skladnoj celini.

[Anja Murez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread Point Counter Point after discovering that Dorothy L. Sayers wittely, intellectually and mostly gently pokes fun at the book and its author in The Documents in the Case , in the person of John Munting, alias Philip Quarles, alias Aldous Huxley himself (talk of Russian puppets inside puppets!). Of course Aldous Huxley was a pacifist, Sayers quite the contrary; Sayers was a Catholic, be it more of the mind than of the heart, where Huxley tends to some unspecified universal mysticism. Both are " passionate minds ".

Point Counter Point offers great satirical portraits of D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Lady Ottoline Morell, and Huxley himself. In this first "novel of ideas" Huxley experiments with an essayistic form of narrative, trying to cramp as many ideas & theories into the book as possible. "Ape and Essence", as it were. When the reader gets rather bored with the non-moving non-plot & the avalanche of philosophical talk, Philip-Quarles-alias-Huxley explains why the book is getting so sadly tedious. Then follow a Murder, and the Death of a Child.
All the Great Questions are raised in both books – "What is Life", of course, Religion & Politics, and the respective beastlinesses of Communism and Fascism. And Sex, the big teaser of the Thirties. Both are brilliantly funny. As a crime-novel, Documents is rather a disaster - as a novel, Point is rather a bore. But essayistically spoken, both are gorgeously brilliant.

[Darran Mclaughlin]

Neither brilliant nor awful. It has some good elements but it has no central theme or idea, and no plot to speak of. It reminds me of a cross between Vile Bodies and The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir. It is a book about the racy nihilism and the upper classes in the jazz age and a 'roman a clef' about the ideas and personalities of the twenties. I recognized the character of DH Lawrence, and it was interesting to see how highly he was thought of at the time. I think I got who James Middleton Murray was supposed to be, and I think I might have understood who Huxley himself was, but I have no idea who Katherine Mansfield was supposed to be as none of the female characters are writers or New Zealanders. It wasn't a bad book but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The most interesting bit of it for me was the character of Philip Quarles, who resembles me so much he could have been based on me.



I should add that as a novel of ideas it is nowhere near the quality of the great, usually Germanic novels of ideas. It isn't in the same league as books like The Magic Mountain, The Man Without Qualities, Atomized or anything by Dostoyevsky.

[Boris Gregoric · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Michael Bagnoli · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book less than Huxley’s other works that I’ve read. Rather than a single ongoing plot, this book has multiple storylines for each of the characters, which were frankly difficult for me to follow, maybe just because I’ve been busy recently so I read this book in fits and starts.

The book itself is a kind of social satire, where Huxley makes fun of all the rich intellectuals he spends his time with. I found his criticisms of intellectualism itself quite compelling and funny.

For example: “The real charm of the intellectual life - the life devoted to erudition, to scientific research, to philosophy, to aesthetics, to criticism - is it’s easiness. It’s the substitution of simple intellectual schemata for the complexities of reality… it’s incomparably easier to know a lot, say, about the history of art and to have profound ideas about metaphysics and sociology than to know personally and intuitively a lot about one’s fellows and to have satisfactory relations with one’s friends and lovers, one’s wife and children… the intellectual life is child’s play.” - 325

As a result, I now consider: “shall I ever have the strength of mind to break myself if these indolent habits of intellectualism and devote my energies to the more serious and difficult task of living integrally?”

I don’t actually agree fully with this analysis of intellectualism, because for some people this process does entail striving beyond the quotidian necessities of life. It is true, however, that for others, intellectualism is just an escape from the world. Instead of either extreme, I would like to have it both ways, meaning the Middle Way. THIS, is the truly difficult life, but the one that I hope to live :)

[Kate Savage · Rating 2 out of 5]

I give this book two stars but not because I consider it mediocre. It's just an average of two extremes: some moments superb and some moments catastrophically bad. Particularly if you're a feminist, or have any investment in a non-rapey world.

THE GOOD:
Huxley pays attention to class. A person's position of power or disenfranchisement is shown as the foundation for the most intimate of thoughts (you can only believe certain things when you have a guaranteed weekly income). It is latent in any physical object (a house is described not just architecturally but historically, through political economy: meaning you trace the rounds of theft and disenfranchisement behind the splendour of the rich). I began the book with excitement, thinking somebody had combined the delicate social psychology of Henry James -- which bathes a reader’s brain in the jubilation of being a social primate, capable of reading thoughts into actions and faces that in turn can read your own -- somebody had joined this with a subject matter that actually mattered. James is all the petty interplay of the frivolously rich; Huxley promises to delve straight to all the big questions.

Most of the action of the novel is gathering to talk (until the very end, where Huxley throws in several astonishing events). Sometimes the conversations are marvellous, like the rousing argument between a right-wing paramilitary leader and an upper-class scientist about phosphorus.

THE BAD: At other times it's all impossible to believe. In an actual life, when very intelligent people get together, no one ever is allowed to monologue for an entire chapter, with only occasional three-word questions here and there to keep the good lecturer going. It feels too obvious that Huxley had written an essay and wanted to push it in there somewhere. As Huxley himself writes in the book: "people who can reel off neatly formulated notions aren’t quite real; they’re slightly monstrous. Living with monsters becomes rather tiresome in the long run." So does reading about them.

And of course you'll get uneasy about the gimmick of a novelist writing a novel about a novelist writing a novel about a novelist writing a novel . . . "And so on to infinity, like those advertisements of Quaker Oats where there's a Quaker holding a box of oats, on which is a picture of another Quaker holding another box of oats, on which etc., etc." Very cool idea . . . for an oat package.

THE TERRIBLE: RAPEY! ALERT!

I mentioned Henry James earlier, who could do one thing Huxley can't: write of a woman who thinks. In PCP, women can be funny, shrewd, wicked or good, but they cannot be thinkers.

There’s more, and there’s worse: Rape is real, and a legitimate subject for literature. A crucial subject for literature, even. But while I live in the world with soaring sexual abuse rates, I’m not about to have any patience with an author -- particularly a male author -- who presents rape as a great way to win your girl.

It's all throughout the book, but the real rapey-charmer is the paramilitary strike-breaker, Webley, who writes this gem of a letter to the lady he fancies:

I warn you: one of these days I’ll try the good old methods. I’ll do a slight Rape of the Sabines and then where will your ineffable, remote superiority be? How I hate you really for compelling me to love you so much! It’s such a damnable injustice -- getting so much passion and longing out of me and giving nothing in return. And you not here to receive the punishment you deserve! I have to take a vicarious revenge on the ruffians who disturb my meetings [. . . at which point he describes beating up some commies . . .] it was really you I was fighting. If it hadn’t been for you I wouldn’t have been half so savage. [. . .] The next fight will be against the real enemy -- against you. So be careful, my dear. I’ll try to stop short of black eyes; but in the heat of the moment one never knows.

Whew, what a charmer! So MANLY! Nothing says I love you like a “slight rape” threat!

The female characters appear to be into this bruise-your-face 'uncontrollable passion.' It feels like I'm reading an Ayn Rand novel.

When rape isn't happening or being threatened, misogyny can be more versatile. Philip, the character stand-in for Huxley himself, gets irritated that a woman he thinks is hot wants to actually talk to him. He thinks: "A woman who uses the shapeliness of her breasts to compel you to admire her mind -- [. . .] trying in private life, very trying indeed." You heard right -- she's just using her boobs to make a man listen to her ideas. Very bad manners.

When he pushes for sex, and she is clear she doesn't want his "pouncing and clawing," Philip leaves her with this lecture: "if you were really and consistently civilized, you'd take steps to make yourself less desirable. Desirability's barbarous. It's as savage as pouncing and clawing. You ought to look like George Eliot. Good-bye."

She sexually assaulted me first . . . by not making herself ugly enough for me to not want sex.

If Huxley had been interested in doing some of the same insightful analysis of gender that he does with class, this could be one of the best books, even if it couldn't escape the inevitable problems of a "novel of ideas." But he fails spectacularly.

[Mirna]

Dolazi na red "in my time of need"; Huxleyju se uvijek rado vraćam.
Nije mi lako sažeti dojmove, budući da je Kontrapunkt knjiga koja je, doslovno i najjednostavnije rečeno, pretrpana svime i svačime. Odlučila sam ignorirati činjenicu da se radi o romanu, kao i samu radnju (ako ona kao takva uopće i postoji, jer dobiva se dojam da su sekvence događaja nanizane jedino sa svrhom da se izolirani esejistički zapisi nekako povežu). Premda su me pojedini dijelovi osvojili te sam se na iste vraćala za vrijeme čitanja, to isto ne mogu reći za knjigu u cjelini.
On opet piše o ljudima, secira ih. Likovi (kojih zaista ima mnogo i nije ih najlakše upamtiti, osobito u početku) iskorišteni su kao sredstva-predstavnici ideja, kao primjeri rastezljivosti granica svega što je ljudsko.
Analize i dijalozi su iscrpni i temeljiti, riječi kao da su odvagnute matematičkom preciznošću-pogađaju u srž, cinizam nenametljiv i doziran, tek toliko da začini tekst...jer neke istine trebaju malo cinizma da postanu komične. Valjda su tada lakše probavljive.
Huxleyja se nekad naziva vizionarom, čovjekom koji je bio ispred svog vremena, koji je predvidio "moderno društvo" kakvo danas imamo. A meni se čini da je samo imao istančanu sposobnost opažanja i procjene. 1928./2018.-isti ljudi, slične priče, nove okolnosti.
U svakom slučaju, većim dijelom zabavno i stimulativno štivo... :)

[Andrés Cabrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una de las mejores novelas que he podido leer. Si bien es difícil resumirla, Contrapunto se basa en diferentes historias, múltiples voces polifónicas que tienen una realidad en común: la Inglaterra de principios del siglo XX. Cada personaje tiene un concepto bajo el cual rige su vida (en ese sentido, todos estos serían "monstruos", como bien dice Huxley, pues no hay nadie que viva así en la vida real). Se está ante el positivista científico, el hedonista, el erudito burgués, el proletario venido a burgués, el aristócrata hipócrita y deleznable, entre otros.

La entrada a este momento histórico preciso se da sobre la base de la pérdida del "mundo" anterior, de ese periodo histórico en el que los aristócratas vivían con elegancia y solvencia. Estos, ahora se perciben como seres en decadencia: burgueses con una moral deleznable, apresados bajo las "apariencias" y "encantos" que perduran en una sociedad desencantada.

Sin duda alguna, esta novela vale cada palabra escrita (y leída, por supuesto). Sólo queda dedicarle un buen tiempo.

[Stefania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heilige Dankgesang!
O Aldus Huxley είναι όντως ο πιο πνευματώδης και ασεβής αγαπημένος μου!