Aldous Huxley
Novelist, critic and intellectual explorer. (The Bus 6.19)
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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED (2.2) 6 OCTOBER 2022
The Stop
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894 - 1963), was an English novelist, essayist and social critic. Born in Godalming, Surrey, he was the fourth child in a family with deep intellectual connections. The grandson of the prominent Victorian biologist Thomas Henry Huxley,1 his father, Leonard, was a biographer and teacher and his mother, Julia, was a feminist and freethinker who with her husband founded Prior’s Field School, an experimental school for girls.2 Two of his brothers became renowned scientists: his older brother, Julian, was a celebrated biologist, humanist and eugenicist, while Andrew (from Leonard’s second marriage) won the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.3 From an early age, Huxley also planned a career in science, but while at Eton he was ‘struck blind’ by keratitis.4 He eventually regained some sight, but remained partially blind for the rest of his life and - though he read with ‘great difficulty’ - dedicated himself to a literary career.5
Despite his poor eyesight, Huxley won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford and studied English literature - ‘reading with the aid of a magnifying glass and … drops that dilated his pupils.’ He graduated from Oxford in 1916, the same year he began writing poetry, and - most importantly for his literary career - spending time at Garsington Manor. The residence of the socialite Lady Ottoline Morrell, Garsington was a ‘gathering place for intellectuals and writers’ including Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell, T. S. Eliot and D. H. Lawrence.6 By all accounts, Huxley ‘held his own amid this galaxy of wits’ and they considered him an ‘intellectual comer and promising poet.’ He also met his first wife, Maria, at Garsington.
In 1921, Huxley published his first novel, Crome Yellow. A parody of his Garsington experiences, the novel offended and angered many of his acquaintances, but established him as an ‘important writer’ and the resultant income allowed him to pursue his literary ambitions. Further novels - Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) - contributed to his commercial success with their ‘satires of contemporary society and conventional morality,’ but in 1932, having moved to southern France, he published the anti-utopian novel Brave New World. This book ‘vividly expresse[d] Huxley’s distrust of 20th-century trends in both politics and technology’ by presenting a ‘nightmarish’ future society controlled by science. It also ushered in the themes and ideas which occupied him for the rest of his life: ‘the gap between technology and human wisdom; the misapplication of evolution; the failure of education to create a whole man; [and] the increasing centralisation of power, with its elevation of ends over means.’7
Huxley’s growing concern about what he considered society’s ‘emptiness and aimlessness’ led to Eyeless in Gaza (1936), a novel-length criticism of the absence of spiritual values which also introduced his interest in Eastern philosophy and mysticism. Upon moving to Los Angeles, California in 1938, Huxley worked as a well-paid Hollywood screenwriter8 while continuing his ‘prolific literary output’ of novels, articles and editorials. He also continued exploring Eastern mysticism during this time, an interest which led him to experiment with mescaline - an experience he described to his editor as ‘the most extraordinary and significant experience available to human beings this side of the Beatific Vision.’ The result of his explorations with mescaline was the highly influential collection of essays, The Doors of Perception (1954).9
In 1955, Maria died of cancer and in 1956 Huxley married his second wife, Laura. In a collection of essays - Brave New World Revisited (1958) - he examined the present day and found it ‘alarmingly resembled’ the reality of his 1932 novel. Huxley continued to explore both the world around him and his inner self, but in 1960 he was diagnosed with cancer. He spent the following two years completing his final novel - Island (1962) - a utopian vision of a Pacific Ocean society in which he attempted to positively spin the negative themes he’d first addressed in Brave New World. At the age of 69 - on 22 November 1963 - Huxley died.10 In a sad irony, one of the 20th century’s most significant authors and thinkers - who’s death would have certainly been front page news - died almost unnoticed as this was the same day as President Kennedy’s assassination.11
The Detour
Today’s Detour is to a short (6:45) animated explainer about the relation between humans, carbon emissions and global warming. Predictably a bit bleak - but it ends on a hopeful note: there is a way to continue progress without ruining the planet, but only if we ‘keep the engines, but lose the carbon.’
The Recommendation
Following the dystopian theme introduced by Huxley’s Brave New World, today’s Recommendation is Logan’s Run (1976). Loosely based on the 1967 novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, it’s the story of a post-apocalyptic hedonistic utopia in which the balance between resources and population numbers is maintained by killing everyone once they reach the age of 30. Though most accept this situation, some attempt to flee the sealed city by running. These ‘Runners’ are hunted by the ‘Sandmen’ who kill them as they try to escape. One day Logan, a Sandman, is forced to become a Runner and flee the city.
Starring Michael York, Richard Jordan, Jenny Agutter, Farrah Fawcett-Majors and Peter Ustinov, the film was released to mixed reviews, but found a new life as one of the staple Saturday afternoon TV movies so common in the late 1970s and early 1980s,12 and spawned a spin-off television series that ran for 14 episodes on CBS in 1977-1978. To quote Roger Ebert, it’s a ‘vast, silly, extravaganza,’ but it’s fun - and certainly a film of its time.
Logan’s Run streams on a variety of services.
The original trailer: Logan's Run (Original Trailer, 1976)
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is composed of five tracks from 197613 - the year Logan’s Run was released: ‘Lowdown’ (Boz Scaggs), ‘She’s Gone’ (Hall and Oates), ‘Year of the Cat’ (Al Stewart), ‘Beth’ (KISS) and ‘Take the Money and Run’ (Steve Miller Band). Enjoy!
The Thought
Today’s Thought is a rather Stoic one from the British/American popular philosopher Alan Watts (1915-1973):14
‘No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
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Until the next stop …
T. H. Huxley’s ‘vigorous public support’ of Darwin’s theory of evolution earned him the nickname ‘Darwin’s Bulldog.’ For more information about him, see: T. H. Huxley (Britannica).
Prior’s Field School - just outside of Godalming - is still going strong: Priors Field School. Julia was also the niece of the English poet, critic and essayist Matthew Arnold, probably most famous for the poem ‘Dover Beach.’ For more information about Julia Huxley, see: Julia Huxley (Humanist Heritage) and for more information about Matthew Arnold, see: Matthew Arnold (Britannica).
Another brother, Noel (or ‘Trev’) committed suicide in 1914 after suffering debilitating depression. For more information about the brothers, see: Julian Huxley (Britannica) and Andrew Huxley (Britannica).
See: Keratitis (Britannica).
Sources for today’s Stop include: Aldous Huxley (Britannica), Aldous Huxley (Biography) and Stevens, Jay. Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream. London, Paladin: 1989.
For more information about these individuals, see: Leonard Woolf (Britannica), Virginia Woolf (Britannica), Bertrand Russell (Britannica), T. S. Eliot (Britannica) and D. H. Lawrence (Britannica).
Brave New World is a topic for a Stop in itself, but a quick summary can be found here: Brave New World (Britannica).
Some of his notable films include Pride and Prejudice (1940) and Jane Eyre (1943).
The title is from a line in William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: ‘If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.’ Jim Morrison borrowed the title to name his rock band, The Doors.
An intellectual explorer to the very end, following a last request scribbled on a pad of paper in his deathbed, Laura injected Huxley with two 100 mm syringes of LSD.
Not only Huxley had his death-thunder stolen by JFK’s assassination. C. S. Lewis (of The Chronicles of Narnia fame) also died the same day. For more information about Lewis, see: C. S. Lewis (Britannica)
I must have seen it at least five times this way.
1976 … Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, the year before before Star Wars changed film and, of course, the Bicentennial. I turned 7, so my memories are a bit narrow, but I remember that in the town of LaGrange, GA where we were living the city painted the fire hydrants as Revolutionary War characters - and I definitely remember hearing the Hall and Oates and Al Stewart tracks on the radio.
For more information, see: Alan Watts (Encyclopedia).