Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley

An English country house full of people you wouldn’t like

English author Aldous Huxley is best known to American readers as the writer of the science fiction novel Brave New World, but, much like H. G. Wells, he also wrote plenty of non-sci-fi works about contemporary British society, as well as philosophical nonfiction. (I would imagine British readers are more familiar with the totality of his career.) Huxley had published one or two volumes of short stories before releasing his debut novel, Crome Yellow, in 1921.

Crome is the name of an English country estate and the village adjacent to it. Denis Stone, a poet, takes the train from London to spend a few summer weeks with his friends Priscilla and Henry Wimbush, the owners of Crome. The Wimbushes are hosting six, sometimes seven, houseguests, including their niece Anne, whom Denis is in love with, so far unrequited. The guests are roughly half male, half female. There is some minor suspense about who might end up with whom, romantically, but mostly the book is just about the conversations between these people. Huxley uses his characters to satirize different aspects of British culture at the time. Denis, for example, offers the opportunity for Huxley to criticize literature, while a painter named Gombauld allows for discussions about art. Mr. Scogan expresses political and philosophical views that sympathize with the more fascistic aspirations of Huxley’s Brave New World dystopia. The female characters are mostly on hand to examine the roles of women in Britain and modern versus traditional ideas of marriage and sexuality.

For the reader arriving a century late to the party, it’s often difficult to ascertain which portions of the novel are supposed to be humorous and satirical and which aren’t. (Again, the British reader probably has the upper hand in this regard.) For example, a long story is told involving little people. Is that story supposed to be funny simply because they’re little? A preacher gives a sermon about World War I and the evil Germans. Is that supposed to be funny? There are also quite a few passages of poetry in the book. Is this supposed to be humorously bad poetry? Or good poetry with humorous content? Literati who habitually read poetry in the 1920s could tell you, but I can’t. Denis is the most obvious source of humor because he’s portrayed as a sad-sack loser, unlucky in love and literature.

I find English literature of this time period a bit tiresome because of its attitudes towards class. Prior to World War II at least, English society (or so its literature would have you believe) was divided into two segments: those who work for a living, and those who don’t. Very few English writers concerned themselves with the former category, while almost everyone wrote about the latter. In Crome Yellow, Huxley is making fun of the idle rich—their intellectual pretensions, their frivolous lives, their narcissistic eccentricities, their cluelessness towards the lower classes. Even so, Huxley chose to write about these annoying leisure-class dilettantes, and readers are forced to spend their time with them. Huxley still doesn’t think the lower classes are worth writing about. No doubt there would have been servants at Crome waiting on these houseguests, but they’re never mentioned. When the Wimbushes and their guests visit the nearby village, they regard the townsfolk with paternalistic condescension.

There is really no one to like in this book. Still, it’s more interesting than your average English country house comedy of manners. I appreciate that Huxley tried to do something different here. This isn’t stodgy Victorian lit, nor is it the overt artsiness of a James Joyce novel. Although the satire was aimed at readers of a hundred years ago, enough of the book will still prove mildly amusing to a 21st century audience.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

A clever dystopia until it gets too preachy

Brave New World is one of those books that many American high school students are forced to read in English literature classes. It may very well be, however, one such book that they remember enjoying. Aldous Huxley’s science fiction novel of a dystopian future was first published in 1932 and now resides securely on many “best of” literary lists of the greatest novels of all time. After having first read the book in high school, I decided to reread it a few decades later and found it not quite as amusing as I remember. Brave New World is at its best early on when Huxley maintains his sense of humor. Towards the end, however, the novel takes itself too seriously.

The story takes place in London in the year 2540. We are first introduced to the baby factory where humans are manufactured to fit into one of five prescribed social castes. Biological reproduction is now considered disgusting, but indiscriminate casual sex is encouraged. Every citizen fits into their socioeconomic niche like a finely oiled gear in a clockwork machine. Nonconformity and is outlawed for the good of the whole. Any residual discontent is nullified by drugs. Henry Ford, the American father of modern industrialism, is worshipped as a god, and worship is compulsory. Amid this tightly prescribed system, however, there are anomalies. One is Bernard Marx, a high-caste worker who doesn’t fit into and doesn’t buy into this shallow world around him. Bernard craves solitude, individuality, meaning, and love. He’s not even satisfied when the woman of his dreams, Lenina Crowne, wants to have casual sex with him.

After establishing this future London, the plot makes a surprising turn to New Mexico, where Bernard and Lenina venture on vacation. There, on a Native American reservation where the inhabitants live a “primitive” existence (by 2540 standards), Bernard finds a white man living among the Indians. With ulterior motives, Bernard brings this wild young man, whose name is John but who is often referred to as “the Savage,” back to civilized London. If Bernard was a fish out of water in this society, John is even more so. Huxley contrasts the Savage’s old-fashioned (i.e. twentieth-century) morals with the vapid hedonism of the dystopian Londoners.

After contrasting the ways of the Savage with the meaningless existence of the “brave new world,” what is Huxley’s prescription for societal ills? Shakespeare and the Bible. Really? For such a daring book that has been frequently banned for its racy content, Brave New World ultimately delivers a surprisingly conservative ending that’s almost Victorian in its traditional morality. Is Huxley merely directing his satire from one vision of society to another? Though he might be exaggerating some of the Savage’s Christian religious fervor, it seems unlikely that Huxley’s glorification of Shakespeare is insincere.

The surprising thing about Brave New World is that the future it satirically depicts has turned out to be the opposite of where society seems to be heading in the 21st century (at least as far as Americans are concerned). Instead of Huxley’s vision of soulless science, free love, and selfless conformity, the United States moves toward a future that’s anti-science, anti-intellectual, pro-religion, anti-sex, anti-birth control, and pro-redneck individualism. At least our rampant income disparity parallels Huxley’s stratified caste system. Huxley’s brave new world, come to think of it, doesn’t seem so bad, with its blissful ignorance, unlimited sex, and total lack of material wants. By comparison, maybe we’re the ones living in a dystopia.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R21UBZNUESUX71/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm