The Genius and the Goddess

I love it when I accidentally stumble upon a piece of literary treasure that leaves me changed, for the better, in having read it.

Huxley manages to capture the Grace of a Goddess, her husband, a Genius, the dynamics of their family unit and household and the unsuspecting guest (John Rivers) who is invited into their world and lives. Told conversationally and in recollection over the course of one evening, we learn of the impact made to John Rivers' life and universe when he experiences love, passion and devotion to a woman-embodied goddess being.

Layers of delirious and delicious insight pour forth from Huxley's writing, leaving you tickled, delighted, bemused, charmed and awed. This story has some truly funny moments with richly show more developed characters you will miss once the novella is done.

Don't deny yourself another moment, Huxley fan or not. If you appreciate a bit of philosophical brain-candy that tugs at the heart-strings of emotion and epiphany, then purchase this treasure by a literary giant today show less

The prevailing tone suggests Saul Bellow, but the novel is often a vehicle for Huxley’s ideas about humanity’s capacity for love and honesty. Focusing on the ideas, this work dovetails nicely with the recent epistolary Balzac.

The novel is a remembrance of the titular characters, an aging absent minded physicist and his much younger wife. The depiction of the protagonist does challenge belief to some degree. Despite the circumscribed incident at the core of the narrative, I felt this novel may have benefited by being 50-100 pages longer.

It is also fascinating to see how Huxley viewed the United States.

I am sitting here with a USB stick I have just received from Australia, compliments of my mother, on which she has painstakingly copied hundreds of files from the floppy disks of my youth, amongst which I am convinced lies the key to my writerly fame and fortune.

(The last said very much tongue in cheek - not that I'm not convinced, just that I'm a fool. For thinking that either the files are readable - most are not, we're talking files that pre-date even MS DOS - or that fame and fortune await if I even manage to open the blighters.)

This book...this book...I read in Mozambique, in love and in lust and completely, absurdly infatuated with my delinquent, mendicant lifestyle and utterly terrified by the sneaking suspicion that it would show more sooner or later end in disaster (I suppose you could say it did, or it didn't, depending on which end of the conformity-to-convention spectrum you choose to sit).

Since I can't remember tiny iota of what Huxley wrote, other than that his words left me profoundly shaken as well as stirred, here are the collected quotations I stored and today managed to resurrect....Oh yes, and you can poke fun at my out-of-date (like the files) method of quoting, as well.

"...the muses are the daughters of memory.". [b:The Genius and the Goddess|9856965|The Genius and the Goddess|Aldous Huxley|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1291795929s/9856965.jpg|16335183] p. 9.

"...there's only one solution...l-o-v-e. Or if you prefer, the decent obscurity of the learned languages, agape, caritas, mahakaruna.". Ibid., p. 24.

"What a gulf between impression and expression!...our ironic fate - to have shakespearean feelings...the pure lyrics of experience [transmuted] into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash.". Ibid., p. 36.

"...husbands: insupportable, but worth it....[?]...". Ibid., p. 43.

"...anger translates too well to lust, and sorrow surrenders to sensuality.". Ibid., p. 91.

"...morality is simply the systematic use of bad language.". Ibid., p. 94.

"...the divine was...in the nocturnal apocalypses of love...". Ibid., p. 98.

"What's lemonade? Something you make out of lemons. And what's a crusade? Something you make out of crosses...". Ibid., p. 102.

"...neither a methodist nor a masochist be.". Ibid., p. 103

"...the inner predestination of temperament and character...[and] the predestination of events...". Ibid., p. 115.


Clearly, I shall to have read this again. show less

I wasn't sure what to expect with this, but I found it quietly enjoyable.

Stated first edition. Gift inscription on inside board, otherwise near fine.