THE GENIUS AND THE GODDESS

by Aldous Huxley ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 24, 1955

As told in retrospect by John Rivers, this stormy idyll of his youth returns to the period spent in the household of Henry Maartens, a sick genius, and Katy the wife of half his years, revives the sequence of events in which he was a by no means innocent spectator. Naive, fatuous, and a prude, Rivers is at first an admiring audience for Maartens- but is soon to suspect that his spectacular brilliance and noisy egotism feeds on the youth of the lovely, luminous Katy in a symbiotic relationship. Katy, called away by a dying mother, returns home to a husband vitiated by her absence, also at death's door and dependent for his recovery on the elan vital she will give him. Tuckered out herself, she only finds the life impulse through her seduction of Rivers, who- in restoring Katy- is able to restore Maartens. But other events here become increasingly discordant; Rivers' love for Katy is tormented by conscience; Ruth, the Maartens' daughter, at an impressionable adolescent age, is Jealous; and finally Katy, caught up-sharply by Ruth- is cornered by the fact that she is more human than divine and a quarrel leads to a fatal accident.... Huxley's first novel in seven years, and by no means subtle in its satire, this is rather a sportive speculation on the face of love and the many phases of passion. Not important, but there will be those who find his name intellectually fashionable, to which this theme will lend a certain fillip.

Pub Date: Aug. 24, 1955

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1955

Categories: FICTION