CROME YELLOW (UPDATED w/LINKED TOC) by Aldous Huxley - A delightful read, no other way to describe it

A comical cast of outlandish characters has gathered in the small English town of Crome for a social outing at the estate of Henry Wimbush. Among the odd, learned guests are a highly prolific writer; an idealist with plans for a Rational State; and a sensitive poet haplessly in love with Wimbushs niece.

A delightful read, no other way to describe it
Huxley's talent, especially in his first novel, is to pour out ideas (the subjects and issues covered here are staggeringly diverse for such a short book) without losing the human spark or light touch that keeps you reading. Crome Yellow, the story (I use the word loosely) of fairly lazy aristocrats whiling the weeks away at a luxurious country estate, manages to be at once a dozen (or more) intelligent essays--on all different subjects and from many points of view, a romantic comedy, a character(s) study, a social satire, and a charming short story collection. Aldous Huxley was a young man and when he wrote Crome Yellow in the early twenties (not long out of college) he was more agnostic skeptic and social critic than the psychedelic mystic and dystopian prophet he would become. Yet the themes, and sometimes more, of his later work are all present here. There's a suggestion of mysticism and the "other world," albeit in a more comic manner than The Doors of Perception. Denis, with his anxieties around women and self-loathing, hand-wringing intelligence, is an early version of Bernard in Brave New World. And early in the book (at a pig pen of all places) a character hypothesizes about the future--and describes almost exactly the world Huxley would portray in Brave New World! It's fascinating to see, in this modernist society tale, the seeds of Huxley's future work. But better yet are all the ideas and separate stories Huxley crams into Crome Yellow: the historical tale of a dwarfish aristocrat and his gigantic son, a romantic escapade on the roof between a dashing visitor and the well-read yet thick Mary, the frequent and inept attempts of Denis to woo Anne, and cynical but comparatively content Mr. Scogan, who imagines stories to fill the mock books in the library, and cross-dresses as a fortune teller to scare the villagers at the annual fair. All in all, a great, quick read and a touchstone for all of Huxley's themes in a most unlikely vehicle.

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