EYELESS IN GAZA

by Aldous Huxley ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 9, 1936

I might as well acknowledge at the start, that I am not a Huxley fan. Perhaps that gives additional value to the statement that I found this easier reading than any other Huxley book I have read. Perhaps it means that the most ardent admirers will not find this so wholly Huxley. Be that as it may -- it has a fascination, it makes demands on one's attention and intelligence, and the result is worth the effort necessitated. For it is not a conventional patterned book. It is the fictionized biography of a man in his middle forties, and one learns to know him, his thoughts, his motives, his aspirations, and the changing focus and various influences of his development , much as one does with learning to know, intimately, a new found acquaintance. There is no attempt at consecutive narrative. One learns of this event in 1934 -- then jumps back to 1914 -- forward again -- back, and farther back. One meets this or that or the other person in his many colored background. One fits this missing piece, or that, into the incomplete picture. At the end, one feels that most of the story is there, actually or implicitly, and that one has watched a man in his actual growth. Not a book for hammock reading, but definitely a book for the thoughtful reader, interested in unique methods and stimulated by Huxley's brilliant and facile philosophic concepts.

Pub Date: July 9, 1936

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1936

Categories: FICTION