Huxley Revisited

I've just finished reading two more of Huxley's pre-WWII novels, Eyeless in Gaza (1936) and After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (1939). I'm not entirely sure why I picked up these particular books at this time. I've been meaning to continue my project of reading through all of Huxley's fiction which I began a couple of years ago, but seem to have let drop after re-reading Brave New World. Then finding a small gap in my book club reading list, I saw an opportunity to return to Huxley, and not only were these two novels the next up, but I also happen to own both in original American first editions. They are not in perfect condition, and are missing dust jackets, but they are handsome volumes that have beckoned to me ever since I picked them up for about $5 apiece from a bookseller in Shreveport. We found several little treasures there, in an old rambling two-story house filled with books. You had to make an appointment to browse the shelves, since the owner ran the business as a mail order operation. Of course, that was years before the Internet would become the principal means of distribution.

For some reason, I read them out of chronological order, which may have been a mistake. In any case, Eyeless in Gaza seems to me the far superior work, but that could have as much to do with personal taste as any objective criteria. The shadow of World War II hangs over Eyeless in Gaza even more than After Many a Summer (which was the English title of that novel). In fact, the shadow of both world wars falls over the action and characters, since it follows in broken chronology the life of Anthony Beavis, the central figure of the story, who came of age just prior to World War I, and who like many of his contemporaries, reacted with disgust and cynicism to the war and its aftermath.

Similar to most of Huxley's protagonists, Anthony leads a very privileged and cerebral existence, but is troubled both by his own lack of engagement and by the apparent meaninglessness of human existence. As often happens with Huxley's fiction, Anthony eventually encounters a sort of spiritual guide who convinces him that there is meaning in life, but the quest for it requires both disengagement and commitment to something greater than and exterior to the individual self and more mundane desires. Fittingly, given the date of publication, there is also a strong pacifist element to this quest for greater humanity that runs counter to fascism and communism, as well as to capitalism and Christianity and, to a certain degree, the intellectualism that tends to attract Anthony. As is frequently the case with Huxley, there is a nod in the direction of Zen Buddhism, but even that is a bit too specific for Huxley's quest for some form of mystical escape from the brutality of the human condition.

One notable feature of Eyeless in Gaza is the non-chronological progression of the narrative. Huxley focuses on four distinct periods of Anthony Beavis's life, from his childhood in the 1890s, just after the death of his mother, to 1935 when the novel closes with a sort of spiritual epiphany for Anthony. Several recurring characters, including his childhood friend, Brian Foxe, and Helen Amberley, the daughter of his first mistress, help tie the story together and help us sort out Anthony's growth as an individual as the narrative jumps between dates in the 1890s, 1914, the late twenties, and the early to mid thirties. As the novel draws to a close, Anthony is determined to follow his new-found spiritual leader in what appears an obviously hopeless attempt on the eve of war to convince the English and the rest of Europe and the world that violent means can only lead to even more violent ends, that pacifism is not cowardly but requires a supreme act of courage.

Shortly after publishing Eyeless in Gaza, Huxley moved to California and took up residence in the U.S. After Many a Summer Dies the Swan is the first novel published after his emigration, and the first with an American setting. Naturally enough, the object of his satire shifts from upper-class English mores to the crass materialism of California and America in general. The plot of After Many a Summer revolves around the quest of a wealthy industrialist for prolonged, if not actually eternal, life. And although there is a good deal of silliness in the story, as well as the usual amount of sexual desire, both repressed and otherwise, the novel raises a number of interesting issues related to the recurring hope that science and medicine will eventually allow us, or those among us who can afford it, to put off the unpleasantness of aging and dying for an indefinite amount of time. Of course, Huxley also introduces a character who represents the opposing view, that life is hardly worth extending unless it has some meaning and purpose other than sexual gratification and material acquisitiveness. And even more than in most of his other novels, the characters in After Many a Summer are little more than mouthpieces representing the different perspectives in Huxley's philosophical discussion of the meaninglessness of human existence and the necessity to undertake some form of self-examination that will result in a quest for spiritual enlightenment and understanding.

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan marks the beginning of Huxley's American phase. I've actually already read several of these later novels -- including his last, Island (1962), shortly after it was first published. I'm not sure they are worth taking the time to read again, but since I have first editions of some of them, I may go ahead and have another look. In any case, I believe Eyeless in Gaza is probably the last really good novel Huxley wrote. In fact, all of his fiction, from Crome Yellow on, is marred by his desire to construct philosophical arguments. And after all, the appeal of Brave New World is more owing to its insights into our misguided use of science and the way that has warped human nature than to its elements of plot and character, which are both rather minimal and sometimes laughable. But at the same time, Huxley has a natural satiric wit that makes his fiction entertaining even when he burdens it with the most tedious lectures on science and religion and spirituality. He was, after all, a very intelligent man, and he made no apologies for that intelligence. Ever since I discovered him when I was in high school, I've been attracted to that aspect of his writing.