Reviews

Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley

jeremiah042's review against another edition

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Well, I’m going to have to read that again, because I have no idea what just happened.

rickyturner's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This book starts out funny and gets progressively more dark and strange. Overall I liked it but I found it hard to follow, with the focus being on several characters and moments of long, drawn out prose. The character of the artist was both the most annoying and most engaging for me.

theaurochs's review against another edition

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4.0

Huxley is a very powerful writer who here has capture the real essence of the zeitgeist of the twenties. A few times in my life I have read books that, above and beyond any plot or characters, just so perfectly capture a feeling, the spirit of the age I'm living in, that they start to resonate on a higher level.
Antic Hay starts to do that for me, but for a time I never even experienced. It really expresses the existential dread of a generation who have just experienced the worst conflict the world has ever seen and yet exist in the certainty that another, worse conflict is unavoidable. Its characters, or caricatures, are each filled with ennui and angst, and express this in different ways from hedonism to sadism to pretending to be someone else. The entire novel is pervaded by a sense of the failings of Victorian morality of the kind which can just no longer stand in the 20th century- the characters are on the edge of the failing upper class, and are very wary of the horrors they can see lurking on the horizon. Especially Capitalism, whose shadow looms large over proceedings. In a lot of ways it feels like it should be an English Great Gatsby; there are certainly a lot of parallels to be drawn to that other work.

So far I've made it sound pretty depressing, and to be fair it certainly is, but this is also a satire in the grandest tradition, and there is a fair dose of genuine humour in here too. A large part of the book could also be seen as the setup to one joke towards the end, the payoff for which is just delightful.
One of the largest negatives however is some of this satirical humour, and the feeling that some of the time the joke is on you, the reader. Especially when you are, for example, into the fifth page of reading a monologue about how to advertise pneumatic trousers- hard not to imagine Huxley laughing in his grave.

Ok, but what is this novel actually about? It is a tableaux of socialites, living their miserable lives in London, and how these lives all intertwine. Gumbril, our main character, quits his job as a teacher after the modern school system of memorising facts becomes too much for him to bear, and embarks on meandering adventures through his equally un-anchored social circle. We have a hopeless artist/poet who bemoans that no-one can relate to his vision. We have the naive young scientist completely absorbed in his studies. We have bullish gents galore. And of course The Muse, the one woman who has the entire group of men entirely enraptured.
There is little in the way of genuine plot, and if that bothers you, then this novel is unlikely to be for you. It is a slice-of-life, a portrait and a social satire, and it accomplishes these very well.
Another negative for the modern reader is the wealth of Latin, French, and classical references that are thrown throughout the book; whilst this does serve to realise the upper-class literate society of the time, it is unfortunately a barrier to understanding- to me at least!

An eminently relate-able book, that should probably be prescribed reading for any angsty teenager- the issues you're facing at that age are neither new nor unique, and people have coped with them before.
So good book overall, and Huxley is far more than just Brave New World!

florismeertens's review against another edition

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Decadentie, ennui en zinloosheid in het Engeland na de Eerste Wereldoorlog. De personages voelen meer als representaties van levenshouding (afgezien van Gumbril) dan als mensen, maar wel goed uitgewerkte en verfrissende representaties. Van de stereotype dweepzieke onbegrepen kunstenaar Lypiatt, tot de verslagen en permanent verveelde Myra Viveash, tot aan Shearwater, die zijn leven wijdt aan onderzoek naar nieren, en zich nergens anders mee bezig houdt.

kawaee's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

pickledoctopus's review against another edition

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funny lighthearted relaxing fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

roxyc's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Loveable characters? No

3.0

tbr_tyrant's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

jakemooreorless's review against another edition

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challenging reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

roxanamalinachirila's review against another edition

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1.0

Aaaah, the 1920s! You just had to be there.

No, really, you need context for this book. I guess it's true of any satirical take on society, but somehow "Antic Hay" lacks anything else to make it interesting (at least as far as I'm concerned). No plot as such, no real characters, and some monologues that made my eyes glaze over. I had to flip a page back every now and then to go over the same paragraph again.

The lack of scene breaks doesn't help, either. Sometimes time passes, scenes change, and there's nothing to warn you about it except maybe a character having changed clothes in the mean time, or suddenly being elsewhere, doing something else.

"Antic Hay" is about nothing in particular. It's just a bunch of young people hanging around London, living in a world that is unfortunately cursed to be peppered with Latin, French, Italian and English words such as "rhodomontading".

Theodore Gumbril is the "main" character of this book in which not much happens. In the first chapter, he quits his job as a teacher. He decides he wants to create pneumatic underwear for the comfort of people sitting on hard surfaces everywhere, and to that purpose (at some point in the book, not immediately) contacts a sort of businessman and proposes a deal for them. He also acquires a fake beard and seduces a woman while wearing it, then tries to seduce another and only succeeds at winning her heart (but not any of her other organs) when he removes it (and claims he's shaved).

There's a guy who's obsessed by the workings of kidneys to the exclusion of all else, until he falls in love with a woman who's not his wife (and then decides to really have a relationship with his wife).

There's a guy who's an artist/poet/philosopher and bad at everything (and considers suicide).

There's a guy who's some sort of a critic.

There's a woman who's one love died in the war and now she's desired by all men (no causal relationship).

There's the kidney-dude's wife, who wants an affair and has it with the fake-beard, then looks for him from place to place in the city, has a second affair with a dude from Gumbril's circle, then gets raped by another dude from their social circle.

There's a pure of heart virgin girl who dates fake-beard (and from whom he loses the beard), but she vanishes when he stands her up.

And there are a lot of in-jokes, such as the "beaver" thing, which I assume are much funnier if you know what they refer to.

All in all, I see other people had fun with this book, but I found it to be one of the most boring experiences I've ever gone through. Alas, my book club decided to read "Brave New World" for its new meeting and even if I liked the book the first time I went through it, it might be too soon for me to see the word "pneumatic" again.