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jelina's review against another edition
2.0
While full of sharp and witty images and commentary, the plot and characters are rough caricatures for the narrator briefly examine and dismiss. The dialogue and set up doesn't particularly shine nor is the romance particularly compelling. It is mercifully short and Huxley has a mastery of the English language best seen in his other work. If this isn't your first time reading Huxley then by all means look to the others for entertainment if it is Belial has you by the horns.
barbie611's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
sabin's review against another edition
4.0
O satira distopica despre al treilea razboi mondial declansat de babuini inteligenti. Acestia au ajuns sa-i tina prizioneri pe intelectuali si oameni de stiinta ai plenetei. Cei din urma sunt fortati sa se ucida reciproc, declansand efectiv MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) iar majoritatea populatiei lumii moare fara drept de apel.
In societatea care supravietuieste, dupa 100 de ani, avem o lume distopica in care domina cultul Satanic si sacrificiile mutantilor. Aceasta e povestea principala, a unui grup de expeditionisti care ajung in SUA si dau de nebunii astia.
In societatea care supravietuieste, dupa 100 de ani, avem o lume distopica in care domina cultul Satanic si sacrificiile mutantilor. Aceasta e povestea principala, a unui grup de expeditionisti care ajung in SUA si dau de nebunii astia.
jiji17's review against another edition
4.0
A very odd book, with an utterly cynical, strange and horrific idea of a dystopian future set after a nuclear war. It was short and easy to read and definitely very interesting, it also had some interesting points to make, but at times it was just very very weird.
However, I am very glad I read it and would recommend if you are really into dystopia.
However, I am very glad I read it and would recommend if you are really into dystopia.
msand3's review against another edition
5.0
“The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace,
The prurient ape's defiling touch:
And do you like the human race?
No, not much.”
The above quote comes in the opening pages of Ape and Essence, one of the most viciously cynical works of fiction I've ever read. The setting of the frame narrative is "the day of Gandhi's murder," which sets the tone for this pessimistic and misanthropic gem. As with some of Huxley's other writings, I get the impression that Huxley is brilliant-bordering-on-mad. He clearly expresses the fears and foibles of mid-20th-century politics and culture, but also tends to exaggerate or present extreme scenarios in his dystopian visions. The result is writing that compels me to keep reading, even if I find myself disagreeing with his critiques or shaking my head at his over-the-top conclusions. (I almost wrote "rantings," but that's the thing: he never quite reaches the point of "rant," despite some truly disturbing prophesies.) And yet these marvelously grotesque landscapes are what keep me turning pages.
In the case of Ape and Essence, Huxley delivers a text that's postmodern in structure: two Hollywood agents in 1948 discover a bizarre screenplay by a reclusive man named Tallis (Huxley's alter ego?). In the first few pages, they arrive at his desert hermitage, only to discover he has recently died. The remaining 180 pages is Tallis' complete screenplay (without notes or further commentary) about a post-apocalyptic world in which humans who have survived a nuclear war become Satanists, embracing all the most negative attributes of humanity. Moments from the frame narrative return in the screenplay, but only briefly. I can't even begin to describe Huxley's surreal imagery, in which he cynically portrays man as nothing more than apes with slight self-awareness. It must be read to be appreciated. As the screenplay's narrator intones: "Only in the knowledge of his own Essence / Has any man ceased to be many monkeys." This is a weird, wild book!
The prurient ape's defiling touch:
And do you like the human race?
No, not much.”
The above quote comes in the opening pages of Ape and Essence, one of the most viciously cynical works of fiction I've ever read. The setting of the frame narrative is "the day of Gandhi's murder," which sets the tone for this pessimistic and misanthropic gem. As with some of Huxley's other writings, I get the impression that Huxley is brilliant-bordering-on-mad. He clearly expresses the fears and foibles of mid-20th-century politics and culture, but also tends to exaggerate or present extreme scenarios in his dystopian visions. The result is writing that compels me to keep reading, even if I find myself disagreeing with his critiques or shaking my head at his over-the-top conclusions. (I almost wrote "rantings," but that's the thing: he never quite reaches the point of "rant," despite some truly disturbing prophesies.) And yet these marvelously grotesque landscapes are what keep me turning pages.
In the case of Ape and Essence, Huxley delivers a text that's postmodern in structure: two Hollywood agents in 1948 discover a bizarre screenplay by a reclusive man named Tallis (Huxley's alter ego?). In the first few pages, they arrive at his desert hermitage, only to discover he has recently died. The remaining 180 pages is Tallis' complete screenplay (without notes or further commentary) about a post-apocalyptic world in which humans who have survived a nuclear war become Satanists, embracing all the most negative attributes of humanity. Moments from the frame narrative return in the screenplay, but only briefly. I can't even begin to describe Huxley's surreal imagery, in which he cynically portrays man as nothing more than apes with slight self-awareness. It must be read to be appreciated. As the screenplay's narrator intones: "Only in the knowledge of his own Essence / Has any man ceased to be many monkeys." This is a weird, wild book!
blackoxford's review against another edition
4.0
America the Fearful
Fear turns democracy into tyranny. Perhaps fear is the foundation of democracy, the fear of material or spiritual loss. Isn’t that the sentiment behind the dispersion 0f power in constitutional government? If so, the Trump-phenomenon may be an inevitable consequence of democratic politics. And the thing to be feared most.
I am reading Ape and Essence, written in 1948, while the racist Trump rally is taking place in North Carolina. Chants of ‘Send her back’ are being directed at black congresswomen by the Evangelical Christian crowd. Huxley has his crowd at a not dissimilar rally shouting
‘Ape and Essence’ is actually a screenplay contained within this novel of post-World War II paranoia in America. The narrator of the screenplay makes the context clear: “And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life.” Then it was fear of the godless Russians who were intent on taking away America’s Christian heritage. Today it is fear of Central Americans and women with headscarves who... well, threaten to take away America’s Christian heritage.
Huxley understood the problem of democracy as well as de Tocqueville did. As his narrator says, “Today, thanks to that Higher Ignorance which is our knowledge, man's stature has increased to such an extent that the least among us is now a baboon, the greatest an orangutan or even, if he takes rank as a Saviour of Society, a true Gorilla.” It is not inapt, I think, to perceive the North Carolinans and their political hero in exactly this way. The problem is not the Gorilla, who is merely a somewhat defective human being; the problem is the baboons, who use democracy as a means to exercise their fear and hatred without fingerprints.
“Cruelty and compassion come with the chromosomes,” says the narrator. Which one gets switched on is a matter of culture, of the habits and social training to which we all are exposed. Something has gone deeply wrong in the culture of America. It has happened before in other democratic states, but rarely with such global publicity and even more rarely with such unified support from the rank and file religionists of Christianity. “Ends are ape-chosen; only the means are man's,” The narrator laments. The apes are in charge, from the bottom up. Democracy, it seems, releases “the Blowfly in every individual heart.”
Fear turns democracy into tyranny. Perhaps fear is the foundation of democracy, the fear of material or spiritual loss. Isn’t that the sentiment behind the dispersion 0f power in constitutional government? If so, the Trump-phenomenon may be an inevitable consequence of democratic politics. And the thing to be feared most.
I am reading Ape and Essence, written in 1948, while the racist Trump rally is taking place in North Carolina. Chants of ‘Send her back’ are being directed at black congresswomen by the Evangelical Christian crowd. Huxley has his crowd at a not dissimilar rally shouting
“Church and State,
Greed and Hate: --
Two baboon-persons
In one Supreme Gorilla.”
‘Ape and Essence’ is actually a screenplay contained within this novel of post-World War II paranoia in America. The narrator of the screenplay makes the context clear: “And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life.” Then it was fear of the godless Russians who were intent on taking away America’s Christian heritage. Today it is fear of Central Americans and women with headscarves who... well, threaten to take away America’s Christian heritage.
Huxley understood the problem of democracy as well as de Tocqueville did. As his narrator says, “Today, thanks to that Higher Ignorance which is our knowledge, man's stature has increased to such an extent that the least among us is now a baboon, the greatest an orangutan or even, if he takes rank as a Saviour of Society, a true Gorilla.” It is not inapt, I think, to perceive the North Carolinans and their political hero in exactly this way. The problem is not the Gorilla, who is merely a somewhat defective human being; the problem is the baboons, who use democracy as a means to exercise their fear and hatred without fingerprints.
“Cruelty and compassion come with the chromosomes,” says the narrator. Which one gets switched on is a matter of culture, of the habits and social training to which we all are exposed. Something has gone deeply wrong in the culture of America. It has happened before in other democratic states, but rarely with such global publicity and even more rarely with such unified support from the rank and file religionists of Christianity. “Ends are ape-chosen; only the means are man's,” The narrator laments. The apes are in charge, from the bottom up. Democracy, it seems, releases “the Blowfly in every individual heart.”
slashslasher's review against another edition
dark
funny
fast-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
3.5
metallicbranch's review against another edition
2.0
Certainly nothing compared to Brave New World, or even Island, another of his lesser-known books, though I found some of the post-apocalyptic descriptions in this book intriguing.
borislimpopo's review against another edition
2.0
Aldous Huxley (1949). Ape and Essence. London: Vintage. 2005. ISBN 9781409079668. Pagine 176. 6,01 €
Aldous Huxley è un autore che mi piace molto: Brave New World è e resta la mia distopia preferita, ho molto amato Chrome Yellow (se non l’avete letto, attualmente è gratis su Kindle) ma soprattutto Point Counter Point è stato il libro per eccellenza di un periodo (burrascoso) della mia vita. Naturale, quindi, che potessi essere tentato da un libro di Huxley, pur sapendo che correvo qualche rischio (Huxley è un autore discontinuo, che ha scritto anche delle solenni porcate), soprattutto dopo averne sentito parlare 2 volte a poche settimane di distanza.
La prima volta mi ero imbattuto in quest’opera minore di Huxley a partire dalla scoperta della lettera inviata da Huxley a Orwell nell’ottobre del 1949 (trovata su Letters of Note e da me riportata nel già citato post sulla distopia). La seconda nel libro di George Dyson Turing’s Cathedral, che non ho ancora terminato di leggere, e che fa iniziare così (un po’ a sproposito per la verità):
“THE CAMERA MOVES across the sky, and now the black serrated shape of a rocky island breaks the line of the horizon. Sailing past the island is a large, four-masted schooner. We approach, we see that the ship flies the flag of New Zealand and is named the Canterbury. Her captain and a group of passengers are at the rail, staring intently toward the east. We look through their binoculars and discover a line of barren coast.”
Thus begins Ape and Essence, Aldous Huxley’s lesser-known masterpiece, set in the Los Angeles of 2108, after a nuclear war (in the year 2008) has devastated humanity’s ability to reproduce high-fidelity copies of itself. On the twentieth of February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition North America arrives among the Channel Islands off the California coast. The story is presented, in keeping with the Hollywood location, in the form of a film script. “New Zealand survived and even modestly flourished in an isolation which, because of the dangerously radioactive condition of the rest of the world, remained for more than a century almost absolute. Now that the danger is over, here come its first explorers, rediscovering America from the West.” [6369-6429]
Lesser-known masterpiece! Non direi proprio, dopo averlo letto, ingannato dal giudizio di George Dyson. A dirla tutta, adesso, ho il sospetto che Dyson il libro di Huxley non l’abbia neppure letto per intero.
Anche se il libro nel complesso è mal riuscito e indisponente, Huxley è pur sempre un autore intelliugente e raffinato, e qualche perla ce la dispensa:
Tragedy is the farce that involves our sympathies; farce, the tragedy that happens to outsiders. [1080]
[…] Copulation resulted in population—with a vengeance!’ [2004]
[…] Fouling the rivers, killing off the wild animals, destroying the forests, washing the topsoil into the sea, burning up an ocean of petroleum, squandering the minerals it had taken the whole of geological time to deposit. An orgy of criminal imbecility. And they called it Progress. Progress,’ he repeats, ‘Progress!
[…]
Progress — the theory that you can get something for nothing; the theory that you can gain in one field without paying for your gain in another; the theory that you alone understand the meaning of history; the theory that you know what’s going to happen fifty years from now; the theory that, in the teeth of all experience, you can foresee all the consequences of your present actions; the theory that Utopia lies just ahead and that, since ideal ends justify the most abominable means, it is your privilege and duty to rob, swindle, torture, enslave and murder all those who, in your opinion (which is, by definition, infallible), obstruct the onward march to the earthly paradise. Remember that phrase of Karl Marx’s: “Force is the midwife of Progress”? He might have added—but, of course, Belial didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag at that early stage of the proceedings — that Progress is the midwife of Force. [2031-2039]
For a moment Dr. Poole hesitates between the inhibitory recollection of his Mother, the fidelity to Loola prescribed by all the poets and novelists, and the warm, elastic Facts of Life. After about four seconds of moral conflict, he chooses, as we might expect, the Facts of Life. [2368]
Aldous Huxley è un autore che mi piace molto: Brave New World è e resta la mia distopia preferita, ho molto amato Chrome Yellow (se non l’avete letto, attualmente è gratis su Kindle) ma soprattutto Point Counter Point è stato il libro per eccellenza di un periodo (burrascoso) della mia vita. Naturale, quindi, che potessi essere tentato da un libro di Huxley, pur sapendo che correvo qualche rischio (Huxley è un autore discontinuo, che ha scritto anche delle solenni porcate), soprattutto dopo averne sentito parlare 2 volte a poche settimane di distanza.
La prima volta mi ero imbattuto in quest’opera minore di Huxley a partire dalla scoperta della lettera inviata da Huxley a Orwell nell’ottobre del 1949 (trovata su Letters of Note e da me riportata nel già citato post sulla distopia). La seconda nel libro di George Dyson Turing’s Cathedral, che non ho ancora terminato di leggere, e che fa iniziare così (un po’ a sproposito per la verità):
“THE CAMERA MOVES across the sky, and now the black serrated shape of a rocky island breaks the line of the horizon. Sailing past the island is a large, four-masted schooner. We approach, we see that the ship flies the flag of New Zealand and is named the Canterbury. Her captain and a group of passengers are at the rail, staring intently toward the east. We look through their binoculars and discover a line of barren coast.”
Thus begins Ape and Essence, Aldous Huxley’s lesser-known masterpiece, set in the Los Angeles of 2108, after a nuclear war (in the year 2008) has devastated humanity’s ability to reproduce high-fidelity copies of itself. On the twentieth of February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition North America arrives among the Channel Islands off the California coast. The story is presented, in keeping with the Hollywood location, in the form of a film script. “New Zealand survived and even modestly flourished in an isolation which, because of the dangerously radioactive condition of the rest of the world, remained for more than a century almost absolute. Now that the danger is over, here come its first explorers, rediscovering America from the West.” [6369-6429]
Lesser-known masterpiece! Non direi proprio, dopo averlo letto, ingannato dal giudizio di George Dyson. A dirla tutta, adesso, ho il sospetto che Dyson il libro di Huxley non l’abbia neppure letto per intero.
Anche se il libro nel complesso è mal riuscito e indisponente, Huxley è pur sempre un autore intelliugente e raffinato, e qualche perla ce la dispensa:
Tragedy is the farce that involves our sympathies; farce, the tragedy that happens to outsiders. [1080]
[…] Copulation resulted in population—with a vengeance!’ [2004]
[…] Fouling the rivers, killing off the wild animals, destroying the forests, washing the topsoil into the sea, burning up an ocean of petroleum, squandering the minerals it had taken the whole of geological time to deposit. An orgy of criminal imbecility. And they called it Progress. Progress,’ he repeats, ‘Progress!
[…]
Progress — the theory that you can get something for nothing; the theory that you can gain in one field without paying for your gain in another; the theory that you alone understand the meaning of history; the theory that you know what’s going to happen fifty years from now; the theory that, in the teeth of all experience, you can foresee all the consequences of your present actions; the theory that Utopia lies just ahead and that, since ideal ends justify the most abominable means, it is your privilege and duty to rob, swindle, torture, enslave and murder all those who, in your opinion (which is, by definition, infallible), obstruct the onward march to the earthly paradise. Remember that phrase of Karl Marx’s: “Force is the midwife of Progress”? He might have added—but, of course, Belial didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag at that early stage of the proceedings — that Progress is the midwife of Force. [2031-2039]
For a moment Dr. Poole hesitates between the inhibitory recollection of his Mother, the fidelity to Loola prescribed by all the poets and novelists, and the warm, elastic Facts of Life. After about four seconds of moral conflict, he chooses, as we might expect, the Facts of Life. [2368]
saltypitchfork's review against another edition
4.0
It's certainly unique - I think whatever it's trying to say gets muddled at times but there's enough fascinating ideas here to keep me interested and horrified. Also its written beautifully and I enjoy the layered narration. Though, it's again hard to tell whos saying what, and what ideas are being critiqued. Is the author of the fake movie script a little too into himself? Or is it entirely huxley's voice? Hard to tell, but a handy way to hide any flaws it might have. "Oh? No, that's TALLIS speaking, I'm not that haughty and pretentious, ha!" Or maybe it's critiquing everyone at the same time, including Huxley himself?
You know, it just might be genius.
Oh, by the way, not for the weak of heart! AT ALL! Holy shit. It gets dark.
7/10
You know, it just might be genius.
Oh, by the way, not for the weak of heart! AT ALL! Holy shit. It gets dark.
7/10