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.

The Twilight of the Souls by Louis Couperus

Neuroses of the Dutch

Louis Couperus (1863–1923) is one of the most prominent authors in modern Dutch literature, and many of his works have been published in English translation. His novel The Twilight of the Souls, published in 1902, is the third book in a series of four novels known as The Books of Small Souls, the first two volumes being Small Souls and The Later Life. These novels chronicle the lives of the fictional Van Lowe family. The eight Van Lowe siblings grew up on the East Indian island of Java, where their father was Dutch governor general. When the first novel begins, the father is deceased, the siblings are now in their thirties, forties, and fifties and residing in The Hague, most with children of their own. Collectively, the prestige and fortunes of the Van Lowes have taken a gradual downward turn since Papa’s glory days in the diplomatic service.

The first two novels concentrated primarily on Constance van der Welcke (née van Lowe) and her immediate family. The Twilight of the Souls broadens its focus to other members of the Van Lowe clan, allowing the reader to learn more about siblings who were barely mentioned in the two previous volumes. The family gathers weekly at elderly Mama van Lowe’s house for Sunday dinner and card games. Her children do their best to keep Mama unaware of the family’s problems, but some scandals and tragedies are too big to sweep under the rug. In the opening chapter of The Twilight of the Souls, we find that Ernst van Lowe is going mad. A bachelor who leads a largely solitary life, Ernst is hearing voices and experiencing hallucinations. He envisions scores of “souls” chained to him, wailing in pain, whom he must guard and protect. The rest of the family comes to Ernst’s aid in finding him psychiatric help. He is not the only Van Lowe, however, experiencing mental problems in this novel.

At times in this novel, Couperus gives a somewhat romanticized depiction of mental illness, in that the hallucinations described are almost operatically dramatic. There’s nothing here beyond the realm of realism, however; Couperus almost invariably draws his characters with an authentic psychological verisimilitude. The reader has no trouble believing or relating to the psychological maladies of the characters—Gerrit’s depression, Paul’s OCD and germaphobia, Mama’s forebodings of death. In the Van Lowe family, Couperus has created an ensemble cast with whom the reader can identify and become emotionally invested. While The Twilight of the Souls is a very fine novel in its own right, its merits are compounded by the foundation that Couperus built in the first two novels, upon which this third installment productively builds.

The whole idea behind the concept of “small souls” is that these characters are shaped and controlled by rather petty concerns—social climbing, family squabbles, keeping up appearances, and so on. This never feels shallow or inconsequential, however, because it is a reflection of real life, or most of our real lives, anyway. In each novel, certain characters strive to rise above the “smallness” of their lives to find a deeper meaning and a more fulfilling existence. Most readers can identify with such endeavors, especially when revealed with the sensitivity and insight that Couperus brings to these books. In the saga of the Van Lowes, one is sure to find some engaging parallels to their own personal and family dramas.

Another plot thread taken up in this book is that Adriaan van der Welcke, now 16 or 17 years of age, has decided that he does not wish to pursue a career in the diplomatic service and instead wants to become a physician. This leads us to volume four in the series, entitled Dr. Adriaan.

Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin): A Memoir by Sly Stone with Ben Greenman

Sly accentuates the positive

Sly Stone, the leader, songwriter, and record producer for Sly and the Family Stone, passed away recently at the age of 82. Very late in life, Sly decided to get off drugs and write his autobiography. Entitled Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), it was published in 2023. The book includes an introduction by Questlove, leader of the Roots (Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show band). Questlove was also the publisher of the book, through his company AUWA books.

In 1998, rock journalist Joel Selvin published Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History, which contained first-hand testimony from many members of Sly’s band, family, and entourage. That book painted a very dark portrait of Sly. As he became more famous and wealthy, his drug use increased, and he became progressively more unhinged, at times allegedly threatening those close to him with violence. Sly’s Thank You reads like it was written in response to the stories told in Selvin’s book. Rather than own up to any wrongdoing, Sly either responds to such accusations with denial or ignores them entirely, opting for safer subjects. He discusses all of his recordings, album by album, with a sentence or two about most songs. He spends a few chapters giving detailed recaps of his talk show appearances. There’s a chapter about his wedding, which took place on stage in Madison Square Garden, plus a lot of name-dropping of celebrities he often hung out with or just met once.

Sly (and perhaps Questlove) wants you to come away from this book with the idea that he was an artist that was taken advantage of and creatively stifled by the music industry, but that’s a difficult theory to buy into. The book is filled with instances of people going out of their way to give Sly the opportunity to do what he does best (including Michael Jackson, for one), but Sly chooses to sabotage his own career with his drug use and his self-destructive behavior. Sly had a reputation for skipping out on scheduled concerts, not only dissing his fans but also his own band. Here he blames everybody but himself for those numerous no-shows. Sly confesses that he used a lot of drugs, and that he liked them, but he fails to mention much of the scary behavior that Selvin’s book discusses at length. In Selvin’s Oral History, there is a very harrowing story told by Sly’s ex-wife about how his unfed pit bull mauled their toddler son. Sly, however, dispatches the incident in two sentences. Much like Keith Richards’s autobiography Life, there’s much bragging about drug use, partying, and macho tough-guy brandishing of weapons. Richards, at least, seems to respect women, while Sly seems to view them as his sexual servants. Overall, Sly comes across as a child who never grew up. He wants what he wants, when he wants it, regardless of the consequences, and he needs managers and girlfriends to take care of his basic needs because he’s incapable of doing so himself. Sly mentions his friend Bobby Womack often in this book. Sly could have learned a thing or two from Bobby about how to write a memoir. Womack’s My Story is candid, forthright, and accountable, the exact opposite of Sly’s Thank You.

One thing this book does well is capture the conversational voice of Sly. Though I’m sure it required some unsung effort on the part of coauthor Ben Greenman, this memoir is written as if it came straight out of Sly’s mouth. Sly claims credit for initiating the phrase, “Different strokes for different folks” (from his song “Everyday People”), and this book is chock full of similar funky, pithy aphorisms, many of which rhyme. As an orator, Sly falls somewhere between Snoop Dogg and Nipsey Russell. The prose is enjoyable to read, but what it has to say isn’t always pleasant. I love the man’s music, but when all is said and done, I didn’t come away from this liking Sly. Maybe I’m wrong, and Sly was a wonderful human being, but that’s not the impression one gets from this book.

The Lottery Ticket by Jules Verne

Foregone conclusions in Norway

The Lottery Ticket is a novel by Jules Verne published in 1886. It was also published in English translation under the alternate title of Ticket No. 9672. Like most of Verne’s fiction, this novel is one of his Voyages Extraordinaires, a series that consists of about 60 books. Although Verne is largely remembered today as a science fiction writer, the one element that really ties all of his work together is a love of travel, geography, and exploration. The Lottery Ticket is not science fiction but rather one of Verne’s geographical adventures. To be honest, however, there really isn’t even much adventure in this one.

The Lottery Ticket is set in the Telemark region of Southern Norway. The Hansen family, consisting of the widow Dame Hansen and her young-adult children Joel and Hulda, run an inn in the village of Dal near the Rjukan Falls, a popular tourist destination. Hulda is engaged to a fisherman named Ole Kamp, who is off on a commercial fishing voyage to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. The two young lovers’ wedding is set to take place when he returns. His ship, the Viking, however, misses its expected return date by over a month. The Hansens fear the vessel is lost at sea and Hulda may never see her betrothed again.

Like many a Verne novel, this one takes forever to get going. The story doesn’t really start until chapter 11 or 12 (out of 20). Everything prior to that is just getting acquainted with the characters and the setting. Through the daily lives of the Hansen family, Verne delivers a primer on Norwegian geography, culture, and scenery. Verne traveled to Norway in 1861, and I would assume many of the towns and sites mentioned here probably comprised his itinerary during that trip. He definitely visited the Rjukan Falls. The lottery ticket mentioned in the book’s title is really a ridiculous plot element that can only lead to a predictable conclusion. The novel would have been better without it. The one real opportunity for adventure in this novel is the search for Ole’s lost ship, but all of that happens “offstage.” The main characters are not involved in that manhunt, and the details are only relayed secondhand and after the fact.

Despite being utterly predictable, The Lottery Ticket is a pleasant enough read. The characters are likable, and the setting is inviting. There is a satisfaction that comes from watching the events unfold in their obvious manner. Verne provides enough of a travelogue of Norway to maintain one’s interest. Verne was very good at writing about the scientific and geographical aspects of his fiction. He was able to get readers excited about those subjects. When he describes an exotic locale, he typically gives you enough of an education to make you want to go and visit those places. When it came to putting plots together, however, Verne’s efforts were often clumsy and formulaic, by today’s standards anyway. There are exceptions, of course, such as the excellent Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Even given his faults, I still think Verne was a better storyteller than H. G. Wells. The Lottery Ticket is certainly not one of the more extraordinary voyages in Verne’s Voyages Extraordinaires, but like almost all of his books, it’s a satisfactorily fun ride nonetheless.

The Snoring Bird: My Family’s Journey Through a Century of Biology by Bernd Heinrich

Intriguing memoir of father and son zoologists

Bernd Heinrich is a German-American entomologist, ornithologist, and professor of biology at the University of Vermont. In addition to his scientific papers published in academic journals, he has written quite a few books on science and nature for the general public. Bernd’s father Gerd Heinrich (1896–1984) was a self-taught naturalist, zoologist, and entomologist. The Snoring Bird, published in 2007, is a dual (auto)biography, written by Bernd Heinrich, about his father’s life as well as his own. The title refers to a rare Indonesian bird, the snoring rail or Celebes rail, that Gerd pursued on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History. This father-son memoir provides a revealing look into the lives and research pursuits of these two scientists. By following the arcs of their scientific careers, the reader gains an understanding of how practices and priorities in the field of biology have changed over the past century.

Bernd Heinrich’s upbringing was uncommon, to say the least. His father was involved in unconventional relationships with women that amounted to unofficial polygamy, with three—sometimes four, perhaps—wives/lovers living together in the same household. One of these was Bernd’s biological mother, but for all intents and purposes he was raised by three moms. Though the Heinrich family was German by heritage, they owned a feudal estate called Borowke, located at times (and currently) within Poland. When World War II broke out, the Heinrichs found themselves caught between the Germans and the Russians. Gerd, though firmly anti-Nazi, enlisted in the Luftwaffe (German air force) to avoid execution. When Bernd was five years old, the family fled to West Germany just ahead of the Communist invasion. Several years later they emigrated to the United States.

Throughout all this turmoil, one constant in the family’s life was a love of nature. Gerd Heinrich traveled all over the world gathering animal specimens, some for his own studies and many for natural history museums. In his personal area of expertise, ichneumon wasps, he named over 1,000 new species. Bernd Heinrich began assisting his father at a young age, gathering wasps and taxidermizing small mammals. After the family fled Poland, they lived for several years in a cabin on a West German nature preserve, where Bernd developed a love for the outdoors. Later the Heinrichs settled on a farm in Maine, where Bernd would spend all day out in the woods and meadows, engaged in entomological and zoological activities.

I had previously read A Naturalist at Large: The Best Essays of Bernd Heinrich, and I found it rather boring. Though I share Heinrich’s love for birds, I am less than fascinated by the minutiae of his insect research. Overall, however, I found The Snoring Bird quite captivating. I was more enthralled by the first half of the book (mostly about Gerd), because of its World Wars and exotic expeditions, than the second half (mostly about Bernd). Like just about every autobiography these days, there’s an element of “Daddy didn’t love me the way he should.” Bernd working out his father issues doesn’t become overly obtrusive or annoying, however, because the bulk of the book concentrates on the science. The interweaving of science writing and personal memoir provides an enlightening vicarious look into the life of a biologist. One really gets an understanding of the practical work behind the intellectual pursuits. This book also sheds light on science history—biology in particular—by relating how geographical exploration, taxonomy, and description (Gerd’s domains) fell out of favor, to be supplanted by experimentation, DNA analysis, and the formulation of theories on behavioral evolution (Bernd’s world). If you’re a natural scientist, or have ever dreamed of being one, The Snoring Bird is a very stimulating read.  

Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov

Inaction hero

Oblomov, a novel by Russian author Ivan Goncharov, was published in 1859. The title character, Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, is a member of the minor nobility (the English translation uses the word “barin” as the Russian equivalent of “baron”). He owns the family’s country estate, called Oblomovka, where he grew up. Oblomov resides, however, in a shabby apartment in St. Petersburg, where he lives the lazy life of a confirmed bachelor. Since Ilya has become the bearer of his parents’ estate, the Oblomov name has fallen in status, and the farm is not performing well financially.

The first few chapters of the novel are quite satirical. The running gag is that Oblomov refuses to get out of bed. From his prostrate position, he receives visits from a few friends who represent different segments of Russian society: a civil servant, a journalist, and fellow gentlemen, both Russian- and German-born. Oblomov’s failure to rise from his bed is indicative of the way he conducts his life in general. He is incapable of making decisions and committing to any form of action, neither in business nor personal matters. Like an overgrown man-child, he is utterly dependent upon his landlady, who takes care of his every need like a surrogate mother.

After this introduction, the novel flashes back to Oblomov’s childhood at Oblomovka. This is portrayed in heavily nostalgic realism. On the one hand, Oblomov enjoys his youth in an idyllic country setting. On the other hand, Goncharov pokes fun at this country-gentry life by exaggerating its quaintness, insularity, and simplicity. Growing up at his family estate, Oblomov’s every desire is catered to by his parents and servants, which contributes to his inactivity and ineffectualness as an adult. Following this trip down memory lane, the novel then takes another change in tone as it veers into a quite poignant romance. While at the beginning of the novel Goncharov wants the reader to laugh at Oblomov, over the course of the book one definitely comes to feel for him. As the novel proceeds, it becomes more realistic, less humorous, and as a result more compelling.

Oblomov was a popular novel in Russia, and the title character came to represent a recognizable type of Russian gentleman, as in “He’s such an Oblomov.” What this novel has to say about Russian society circa 1859, however, was largely lost on me, and probably will be unclear to most English-language readers. Only Russians themselves, or scholars of Russian history, will likely comprehend the social commentary. There is much made here of the distinctions between gentlemen of the landed gentry or nobility, and the lower peasant and servant classes. The attitude toward the latter segments of society ranges from sympathy to condescension. The rather generalized interpretation that I came away with is that Oblomov represents the minor nobility clinging to old ideas that are out of place in modern society, and as a result the dignity and standing of Oblomov’s class is sinking towards obsolescence as it phases into a lower-middle class.

Regardless of any social or political content, however, Oblomov is a novel that can be appreciated simply as a drama of human nature. People from different walks in society are shown living their lives in accordance with the hands they were dealt in life. Towards the end of the book in particular, the characters feel real, and they inspire real feelings in the reader. I would have preferred more naturalistic realism and less satirical humor—more Turgenev than Gogol, if you will—but I still found Oblomov quite engaging.

Lazarus Laughed by Eugene O’Neill

Strange multi-masked biblical tragedy

Lazarus Laughed is a full-length drama by American playwright Eugene O’Neill, winner of the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature. O’Neill wrote the play in 1925. It was published in book form in 1927 and first performed on stage at the Pasadena Community Playhouse in 1928.

Set in ancient times, Lazarus Laughed is based on the biblical story of Jesus Christ raising Lazarus from the dead. Or rather, it’s O’Neill’s speculation on what might have happened after that miracle took place. Christ does not appear in the play. He has already departed Lazarus’s house before the curtain opens, though he is discussed and debated in absentia. Here in O’Neill’s take on things, the resurrected Lazarus ascends to the height of a messiah to rival Christ himself. Lazarus defies Christian and Jewish teachings by leading a cult whose members deny the existence of death and live for laughter and pleasure. 

The drama begins in Lazarus’s hometown of Bethany, in present-day Palestine. Subsequent scenes take place in Athens and Rome, where Lazarus meets Emperor Tiberius and his successor Caligula. Stylistically, this drama is heavily influenced by Greek tragedy. O’Neill tries to evoke the experience of an ancient theatrical production. A chorus (actually more than one) chants narration and commentary throughout the play, and almost all of the actors are masked. Soon after completing Lazarus Laughed, O’Neill used such stylistic elements to again emulate Greek tragedy in The Great God Brown, a play set in modern times.

Lazarus Laughed has only been staged a few times over the past century, probably because O’Neill really didn’t make it easy to produce this drama. In some scenes, his stage directions call for as many as 150 actors on stage at once. Other than Lazarus and his wife, just about everyone else is wearing masks. One scene asks for 49 different male masks and 49 different female masks, and the actors change masks in each scene. O’Neill calls for masks varying in size, emotional expression, age, and ethnicity, and specifies multiple combinations of those characteristics, thus probably at least 500 detailed and well-crafted masks are required to pull this off the way he wanted it. I would imagine the few theatres and schools who actually staged this play likely cut corners in mask manufacturing because O’Neill’s specifications would be cost prohibitive and near impossible to follow to the letter.

Other than simply telling a story about Lazarus and Tiberius, what is the point of all this? I don’t know what literary critics might say about it, but for me personally, I get a message similar to that taught by the ancient Greek and Roman Stoics, that fear of death prevents us from truly living our lives. Lazarus’s repeated assertions in this play that there is no death can be taken two ways: 1) that eternal life in Heaven means there is no death, or 2) that death simply brings a nothingness that is neither to be felt nor feared, so enjoy yourself and live your life on Earth to the fullest. Based on the behavior of Lazarus’s followers in this play, and on how O’Neill lived his life, I’m guessing he meant the latter. There has to be a better way to get that across, however, than having Lazarus and his crowd of followers laughing and yelling, “There is no death!” many times over. If staged with all the grandeur that O’Neill intended, Lazarus Laughed might have been a sight to see, but on the page it mostly comes across as a bit silly.