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A review by msand3
Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
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!