Crome Yellow

Huxley's first novel is a pleasant little confection. "Chrome yellow" is, of course, an artist's pigment, and the book's fictional country manor Crome features visits from artists. The "yellow" qualifier alludes to aestheticism and decadence (cf. The Yellow Book and the "Yellow Nineties"). This aspect of the title may have contributed as much to the book's alleged notoriety as any of its contents did. The plot eventuates in little of anything, while the short chapters serve as amusing exercises in drawing characters and playing with ideas.

Crome Yellow satirizes the Bloomsbury-set scene at Garsington Manor, framed by the visit of the callow poet Denis Stone. He is preoccupied with mooning over young Anne Wimbush, who is slightly his show more senior. The high point of Stone's deployment is his disquisition on the magic power of words and literature (106-107). I wonder if this character might be a critical self-portrait of the book's author.

New Thought and Theosophical notions are in the air of Crome, entertained especially by Anne's mother Priscilla Wimbush, the lady of the house. Some of the most engaging passages are monologues from Mr. Scogan, an old school friend of Henry Wimbush. Scogan provides a sardonic counterweight to the naive Stone, and some of his prophecies about a rationally-organized future society (22, 114-116) anticipate the content and themes of Huxley's Brave New World. show less

Huxley's satire ranges between the mild and the vicious. Largely directed towards second tier Bloomsbury, there is plenty of room for send-ups of others who drop into the house party and fair at Crome. The types that populate Crome include Priscilla, the mystic, Scogan, the rationalist, and the solipsistic Denis, the novel's protagonist, who serves as the epitome of dramatic irony, all underscored when he finally awakens to himself after seeing Jenny's caricature of him. The description of Scogan as "saurian" points towards Bertrand Russell, just as Priscilla takes on the characteristics of Lady Ottoline Morrell. And consider this passage: ". . . and of old Lord Moleyn one wondered why he wasn't living in gilded exile on the island of show more Capri among other distinguished persons who, for one reason or another, find it impossible to live in England." This is a sideways jab at the travel (mainly) writer Norman Douglas who exiled himself to Capri following one scandal (among others) with an underage boy.

Well, you can see from just the above paragraph what Huxley had in mind. So it's no surprise that any large scale appreciation of the book would be mostly gone today, almost a century after it was published. Even first tier Bloomsbury has begun to fade into obscurity. And but for Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster there is not all that much to get excited about when it comes to the group's literary and artistic endeavors--Clive and Vanessa Bell were second rankers, as were Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, and even Lytton Strachey. As for Leonard Woolf, he is remembered only because of his wife. Bloomsbury and the types of people who populated the Bloomsbury world served up a daily dose of pretension, amateurism, and arrogance. Much of that comes through with the second teamers depicted in Crome Yellow.

Crome Yellow is a picture of post World War I Britain, particularly its upper middle classes. The history of Crome itself is built on a legacy of midgets who begat giants all too morally flawed to last the day. Undoubtedly, Huxley's book cost him friends and associates. But Huxley himself was always a man who could change. The mysticism of Priscilla, mildly mocked in Crome Yellow, would become part of the essence of Huxley's being later on. And the rationalized pacificism of Scogan would come to dominate Huxley's social outlook as well. Huxley, in fact, announced his "conversion" to pacisfism in 1935, just in time for Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland a few months later. Yes, Huxley could change. But why was it always for the worse? show less

Huxley summarizes the typical first novel of a young aesthete in chapter three: “Little Percy . . . was never good at games, but he was always clever.” After university, “he is bowed down with melancholy thought” and “writes a novel of dazzling brilliance.”
Bingo. The sharp-nosed rationalist, Mr. Scogan, has described the plot of the book the protagonist, Denis Stone, has in mind. Stone is Huxley’s alter ego in this slim, satirical first novel. Huxley’s plot is a notch above Stone’s: a languorous summer at an estate in the English countryside as a variant on the old “ship of fools” setting that gives the author opportunity to throw together various “types,” which he skewers as pointedly as one of the characters, show more Anne, does in her red sketchbook.
Yet the portraits Huxley draws are not, for the most part, malicious. There is some degree of sympathy for the host, Henry Wimbush, who would have enjoyed the annual party he throws on his estate if it had only happened three hundred years previously and he were reading about it. There’s even a small degree of tenderness in the depiction of the feckless young Denis.
Nothing redeems the successful inspirational author, Mr. Barbecue-Smith, however. One feels that Huxley, in addition to whispering to himself, “don’t be Denis” is also admonishing himself: throw away your pen if you have to; under no circumstances become Barbecue-Smith! Nor is there anything redeemable in Mr. Scogan, whose twentieth-century update of Plato’s Republic (delineated in chapter twenty-two) would serve Huxley later as his blueprint for Brave New World.
The book is peppered with words I ought to look up, and would if it weren't so hot. And I enjoyed the poems in various styles (but all bad) that Huxley creates as the work of two or three of the characters. All in all, an enjoyable summertime read. show less

Very much of its time, being incredibly insulting to a certain set of pretentious intellectuals of that era. It's hard to make timeless satire, as what's being satirized fades into the mists of time. There's some pretty prose here, but it's hard to tell if it's part of what's being satirized or not (is the style itself a joke on the people who would like it?).

Chrome Yellow by Aldous Huxley was his debut novel and was originally published in 1921. Although a social satire of it’s time, I am afraid that this book hasn’t held up well as it seemed exceedingly dated to me. Unfortunately my take away from the book was that it was quite dull and largely pointless.

The story follows Denis Stone, a young aspiring writer, as he goes to stay at a country house called Crome. Denis appears to be suffering from a case of puppy love, but the object of his desire seems to find him too young and is amused by his attentions. The other guests are a varied group of eccentrics and are apparently thinly disguised portraits of Huxley’s acquaintances in real life. Other than some historical lectures and a few show more religious sermons not a lot happens. I was crying out for a murder and a visit from Hercule Poirot to liven things up!

As I mention above, Crome Yellow is the author’s debut novel and seemed to me a loosely disguised critique of various cardboard characters and their ability to pontificate about life, culture, philosophy, etc. without really saying very much at all. show less

In 1921 twenty-seven year old Aldous Huxley published his first novel Crome Yellow, a novel that came to be much loved by Barbara Pym among others. Huxley is perhaps now best known for his novel Brave New World, a novel I actually read about twenty-five years ago – and can now (typically) remember nothing about. We are however reminded of that later forward looking novel by one of the characters Mr Scogan describing what he sees as the ‘impersonal generation.’

“An impersonal generation will take the place of Nature’s hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to show more find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world.”

Crome Yellow is one of those ‘modern comedies’ which emerged in England after the First World War, written by a new generation, a generation for whom the world was changing. Crome Yellow is a novel of ideas, and the society of the ‘bright young things’ of the 1920’s. Huxley satirises quite deliciously the changing fads and fashions enjoyed by this society.

“One entered the world, Denis pursued, having ready-made ideas about everything. One had a philosophy and tried to make life fit into it. One should have lived first and then made one’s philosophy to fit life…Life, facts, things were horribly complicated; ideas, even the most difficult of them, deceptively simple. In the world of ideas, everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled. Was it surprising that one was miserable, horribly unhappy?”

The Crome of the title is a large country house with a long and colourful history. The house of Crome is famously modelled on Garsington Manor, home to Lady Ottaline Morrell, who frequently invited writers such as T S Eliot and Huxley himself to stay. Here Denis Stone a naïve young poet comes to stay for one of those lengthy country house parties of the times. Parties such as this of course allowed young people like Denis to enjoy a period of generous hospitality all at his host’s expense.

“Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay. Let us be
duly thankful for that, my dear Denis–duly thankful.”

Denis is certainly not alone; Henry Wimbush and his exotic wife Priscilla have been joined by a host of colourful guests. Each of these guests has agendas of their own and opinions they have every attention of sharing. There is Mr Scogan a cynical philosopher, Gombauld a modern young painter, the pompous journalistic Mr Barbecue- Smith and flirtatious Ivor arrives later. Jenny, whose partial deafness allows her a role as an observer of the rest, Anne who Denis falls for rather hard but who prefers Gombauld and Mary whose virginity has become a burden she feels she must rid herself of – but who? These characters are allegedly based upon some of those famous Bloomsbury figures who surrounded Lady Ottaline and her set –including Huxley himself and the artist Dora Carrington.

While Priscilla is obsessed with spiritualism, her husband Henry concerns himself with compiling a detailed history of Crome, extracts of which we are given – these stories within the story were my favourite bits.

There is very little of any plot as such – the book revolves mainly around the amorous goings on of one of two characters and the ideas, opinions and philosophies which the rest of the party take every opportunity to expound.

Crome Yellow is brilliantly imaged, wittily satirical and memorable; and I was initially prompted to read it by kaggsy’s review of it. I think it took me a little while to settle into it when I first picked it up, so I suspect it would improve greatly upon re-reading but I thoroughly enjoyed it, and so I’m very glad that I decided to read it. show less

Original review from February 2004

Young poet Dennis Stone attends a country house party at Crome. There are lots of philosophical conversations about artistic matters, the host tells interesting stories about his ancestors and Dennis suffers the pangs of unrequited love. I don't get the title; Crome is the name of the house and village, but why Yellow? The house is built of rosy brick, not of golden Cotswold stone so it's not that.

Updated after re-reading in March 2013

On opening the red notebook that crystal image of himself crashed to the ground, and was irreparably shattered. He was not his own severest critic after all. The discovery was a painful one.

After reading "Crome Yellow" for a second tine, I wonder whether the title refers show more to the Yellow 90s and The Yellow Book, since the characters spend their time in intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual in some cases) conversations and Mary''s determination not to be sexually repressed was quite shocking for the early 1920's.

Aldous Huxley's first novel is a mean-spirited satire on some of his friends in the Bloomsbury Group, and I can quite see why Lady Ottoline Morrell and Dora Carrington would have been annoyed and upset by their representation in this novel (as Priscilla Wimbush and Mary Bracegirdle respectively). The author's caricatures are just as harsh as Jenny's drawings in her red notebook.

Even though nothing much happens and the young protagonist Dennis is quite tiresome, the satire and the interactions between the characters are amusing and overall it is a good read and I am increasing my rating from 3.5 to 4 stars. show less