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Lädt ... Narrenreigen (1923)von Aldous Huxley
Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. Rather sad novel of frustrated love and frustrated ambition among the post WW I generation in London An enjoyable and harmless portrait of life amongst a group of friends in the aftermath of WW1 - staying out late, drinking, and partying in London. A lovely look at a life no longer available - a look at the young, unmarried flirtatious and presumptuous, with their hopes, anticipations, and disappointments that invariably proceed. "Gumbril's Patent Small Clothes" is the summary of the humour that ran through the story (particularly apt for me as I was reading the book on a hard public seat, unsympathetic to one's lumbar ganglia!). In addition, this character's purchase of a false beard, transforming him into "The Complete Man" is suitably humourous; and yet the novel is not all fun and games; Myra Viveash recalls with sorrow the loss of her one and only love due to the war, which in turn makes her cold and nonreciprocal towards her portrait artist who becomes so disillusioned with his work and life that he seriously contemplates suicide. Indeed the exhibition of his that was described by the critics as being insincere marked the start of his depression. Overall a good mix of characters and social life in 1930's London. Not the most memorable novel I’ll ever read. Apart from pneumatic trousers (a chindogu candidate if ever there was one), little remains a couple of months on as I write this review. Perhaps it’s because I’ve read so, so many other novels that attempt to spoof the era after WW1 that it just kind of got lost in the haze. Why is it that so very many writers have to describe that era using witty, ascerbic satire rather than writing about it in any way seriously? Was that stance itself actually a tribute to the age? Gumbril, who the book opens with and mostly focusses on, is probably the most memorable of the caricatures, and his pursuit of the “Complete Man” fantasy was at times amusing and wry. But, although it was a good novel, it was only mildly amusing and not a patch on Decline and Fall, for example. Despite being written after his opening Crome Yellow, I prefer the earlier work although I can’t really put my finger on why.
The story is told richly and elegantly with few of the interruptions which, despite their intrinsic interest, mar so much of Mr Huxley's story-telling. The disquisition on Wren's London should be in a book of essays but the parody of the night-club play is so funny that one welcomes its intrusion. The 'novel of ideas' raises its ugly head twice only, in the scenes with the tailor and the financier, crashing bores both of them but mere spectators at the dance. They do not hold up the fun for long... Since 1923 Mr Huxley has travelled far. He has done more than change climate and diet. I miss that undertone in his later work. It was because he was then so near the essentials of the human condition that he could write a book that is frivolous and sentimental and perennially delightful. Ist enthalten inBemerkenswerte Listen
London life just after World War I, devoid of values and moving headlong into chaos at breakneck speed - Aldous Huxley's Antic Hay, like Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, portrays a world of lost souls madly pursuing both pleasure and meaning. Fake artists, third-rate poets, pompous critics, pseudo-scientists, con-men, bewildered romantics, cock-eyed futurists - all inhabit this world spinning out of control, as wildly comic as it is disturbingly accurate. In a style that ranges from the lyrical to the absurd, and with characters whose identities shift and change as often as their names and appearances, Huxley has here invented a novel that bristles with life and energy, what the New York Times called "a delirium of sense enjoyment!" Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.912Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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