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Jesting Pilate: An Intellectual Holiday
First published in 1926, the author recounts his experiences in the mid-1920s traveling through several countries (India, Burma, Malaya, Japan and America), and offers his observations on their people, cultures, and customs. Open-minded, keen-sighted, sometimes iconoclastic, always provocative, Huxley's views on British imperial power, Gandhi, the social life of Delhi, Indian art, Malaysian cuisine and so much more are entertaining.
238 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1926
About the author
Aldous Huxley
964 books14.3k followersAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
December 18, 2011
A travel memoir, obviously. India takes up half the book, the other places the last half in rapid succession. No matter – the charm of the book is Huxley's superbly balanced, thoughtful insights on everything from the caste system to Christian persecution in history, from how practical matters shape the seriousness of sin to Hollywood pabulum to cultural differences in music appreciation.
A truly learned and reasonable man, Huxley is at turns inspiring, funny, admiring and scathing. His description of India is dead-on, and it exquisitely captures that mixture of pity, contempt, understanding and reverence that the open minded Westerner comes to feel for Indian life. The book is a wholly admirable exercise in the broadening of an already open mind.
A truly learned and reasonable man, Huxley is at turns inspiring, funny, admiring and scathing. His description of India is dead-on, and it exquisitely captures that mixture of pity, contempt, understanding and reverence that the open minded Westerner comes to feel for Indian life. The book is a wholly admirable exercise in the broadening of an already open mind.
June 1, 2026
A hundred years ago, Aldous Huxley took a round-the-world trip starting in Italy with stops in Port Said, India, Burma, Malaya, Java, China, Japan, the United States, and London. In all of these locations, the author mused about the local culture, sometimes positively, sometimes (especially in the U.S.) negatively. One interesting point he makes in this book -- Jesting Pilot -- is:
Those who like to feel that they are always right and who attach a high importance to their own opinions shoulod stay at home. When one is travelling, convictions are mislaid as easily as spectacles; but unlike spectacles, they are not easily replaced.Most of the book is taken up with Huxley's rather extensive stay in India, and these sections also constitute the most interesting material as well. The region Huxley seemed to have disliked the most was the United States, especially Los Angeles. Interestingly, this is where he ended up.
February 2, 2026
3,5*
Jubiliejinis skaitinys - knyga išleista 1926 m.
Kiek senstelėjęs tekstas - Indija jau nebe tose sienose, Birma pakeitusi pavadinimą, o ir tais 1924-iais (kada autorius keliavo po tuos kraštus) Mahatma Gandhi jam buvo asketas ir šventas žogus, bet tik jau ne politikas.
Jei būtų tik kelionių apybraižos, greičiausiai, tas šimto metų dulkių sluoksnis trukdytų kvėpuoti, tačiau čia labiau pamąstymai apie istoriją, politiką, literatūrą, kultūrą, tradicijas, rasę, religiją, filisofiją ir kt., kuriuos sukėlė lankomos vietos.
"There is no science of politics, because there is no such thing as a political laboratory where experiments can be made."
[...]"It is significant that Buddha, whom one fells to have been the most intellectually powerful of all the great religious leaders, should have rejected completely the idea of a personal God and gone beyond it."
Jubiliejinis skaitinys - knyga išleista 1926 m.
Kiek senstelėjęs tekstas - Indija jau nebe tose sienose, Birma pakeitusi pavadinimą, o ir tais 1924-iais (kada autorius keliavo po tuos kraštus) Mahatma Gandhi jam buvo asketas ir šventas žogus, bet tik jau ne politikas.
Jei būtų tik kelionių apybraižos, greičiausiai, tas šimto metų dulkių sluoksnis trukdytų kvėpuoti, tačiau čia labiau pamąstymai apie istoriją, politiką, literatūrą, kultūrą, tradicijas, rasę, religiją, filisofiją ir kt., kuriuos sukėlė lankomos vietos.
"There is no science of politics, because there is no such thing as a political laboratory where experiments can be made."
[...]"It is significant that Buddha, whom one fells to have been the most intellectually powerful of all the great religious leaders, should have rejected completely the idea of a personal God and gone beyond it."
November 30, 2013
While I agree with Michael Palin's assessment that it's a strange choice of title, it's otherwise quite a fun read. The Imperialism is a bit hard to stomach, but as long you understand the whole "product of your time" concept it's not too tough to come to grips with.
In 1926, Huxley visited Indian, Burma, Malaya, Japan, China, and America--all places I have been (though China just the airports) on this trip. Reading old travel writing is cool because while some things have entirely changed, more than you'd expect are still the same. (Or same-same, as they say here.) I would rank it as one of the best travel books I've ever read, less so for the countries he visited and more for his perceptive insight and evocative writing.
After spending three days at a political campaign, he reveals how useless he finds it all.
Personally I have little use for political speaking. If I know something about the question at issue, I find it quite unnecessary to listen to an orator who repeats in a summarized, and generally garbled, from the information I already possess; knowing what I do, I am quite capable of making up my own mind on the subject under discussion without listening to his rhetorical persuasions. If, on the other hand, I know nothing, it is not to the public speaker that I turn for the information on which to base my judgment. The acquisition of full and accurate knowledge about any given subject is a lengthy and generally boring process, entailing the reading of many books, the collating of numerous opinions. It therefore follows, inevitably, that the imparting of knowledge can never be part of a public speaker's work, for the simple reason that if his speeches are boring and lengthy--and boring and lengthy they must be, if he is to give anything like a fair and full account of the facts--nobody will listen to him.
At times his writing is wonderfully vivid, transporting the reader to the scene. Consider this, for instance.
It took the Tartar traders six weeks of walking to get from Kashgar to Srinagar. They start in the early autumn when the passes are still free from the snow and rivers, swollen in summer by its melting, have subsided to fordableness. They walk into Kashmir, and from Kashmir into India. They spend the winter in India, sell what they have brought, and in the following spring, when the passes are once more open, go back into Turkestan with a load of Indian fabrics, velvet and plush and ordinary cotton, which they sell for fabulous profit.
Or this:
Or journey from Penang to Singapore bean at night. We were carried in darkness through the invisible forest. The noise of the insects among the trees was like an escape of steam. It pierced the roaring of the train as a needle might pierce butter. I had though man pre-eminent at least in the art of noise making. But a thousand equatorial cicadas could shout down a steel works; and with reinforcements they would be a match for machine guns.
After a sentence with a blind assessment that democracy was the best end case scenario, Huxley checks himself. (Note the bit about the Hapsburgs is often true too of former Soviet Republics.) All one paragraph in the book, I have inserted some section breaks to make it more readable.
The implication of course is that democracy is something excellent, an ideal to be passionately wished for. But after all is democracy really desirable. European nations certainly do not seem to be finding it so at the moment. And even self-determination is not so popular as it was. There are plenty of places in what was once the Austrian Empire where the years of Hapsburg tyranny are remembered as a golden age, and the old bureaucracy is sincerely regretted.
And what is democracy, anyhow? Can it be said that government by the people exists anywhere, except perhaps in Switzerland Certainly, the English parliamentary system cannot be described as government by the people. It is a government by oligarchs for the people and with the people's occasional advice. Do I mean anything whatever when I say that democracy is a good thing? Am I expressing a reasoned opinion? Or do I merely repeat a meaningless formula by force of habit because it was drummed into me at an early age? I wonder.
And that I am able to wonder with such a perfect detachment is due, of course, to the fact that I was born in the upper-middle, governing class of an independent, rich, and exceedingly powerful nation. Born an Indian or brought up in the slums of London, I should hardly be able to achieve so philosophical a suspense of judgment.
His vagabonding nature is made clear in the following paragraphs. Huxley's perambulations are not what he is famous for, but books like Island of Brave New World couldn't have been written by someone who traveled frequently.
I have always felt a passion for personal freedom. It is a passion which the profession of writing has enabled me to gratify. A writer is his own master, works when and where he will, and is paid by a quite impersonal entity, the public, with whom it is unnecessary for him to have any direct dealings whatever.
Professionally free, I have taken care not to encumber myself with the shackles that tie a man down to one particular plot of ground; I own nothing, nothing beyond a few books and the motorcar which enables me to move from one encampment to another.
It is pleasant to be free, when one has enough to do and think about to prevent one's ever being bored, when one's work is agreeable and seems (pleasing illusion!) worth while, when one has a clear conception of what one desires to achieve and enough strength of mind to keep one more or less undeviatingly, on the path that leads to this goal. It is pleasant to be free. But occasionally, I must confess, I regret the chains with which I have not loaded myself. In these moods I desire a house full of stuff, a plot of land with things growing on it; I feel that I should like to know one small place and its people intimately, that I should like to have known them for years, all my life. But one cannot be two incompatible things at the same time. If one desires freedom, one must sacrifice the advantages of being bound. It is, alas, only too obvious.
Upon ruminating on the theory that life is found everywhere--plants, minerals, etc. (Of course, his conclusion is much broader and refers to a root cause of much of the problems of the world--uniformed habit and customs.)
To deny life to matter and concentrate only on its measurable qualities was a sound policy that paid by results. No wonder we made a habit of it. Habits easily become a part of us. We take them for granted, as we take for granted our hands and feet, the sun, falling downstairs instead of up, colours and sounds. To break a physical habit may be as painful as an amputation; to question the usefulness of an old-established habit of thought is felt to be an outrage, an indecency, a horrible sacrilege.
His feeling upon leaving India are shared by many travelers, myself included.
I am glad to be leaving India. I have met old friends…and made new friends; I have seen many delightful and interesting things, much beauty, much that is strange, much that is grotesque and comical. Bt all the same I am glad to be going away. The reasons are purely selfish. What the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over. It is because I do not desire to grieve that I am glad to be going. For India is depressing as no other country I have ever known. One breathes in it, not air, but dust and hopelessness.
In a section that feels surprisingly contemporary, he discusses that holiest of traveler grails--getting Off the Beaten Path.
Every tourist is haunted by the desire to "get off the Beaten Track." He wants, in the first place, to do something which other people have not done. The longing to be in some way or other unique grows with every increase of standardisation. … The tourist is like the reader of advertisements. He wants something for his money which no one else possesses….
But it is not alone to desire to achieve uniqueness that makes the tourist so anxious to leave the Beaten Track. It is not the anticipated pleasure of boasting about his achievements. The incorrigible romantic in every one of us believes, with a faith that is proof against all disappointments, that there is always something more remarkable off the Beaten Track than on it, that the things which it is difficult and troublesome to see must for that very reason be the most worth seeing.
He goes on in greater detail and while it's too long to quote, it's well worth reading. Later in the book, after describing how awful Hollywood movies are, and marveling that the very viewing of them didn't cause instant revolution among oppressed third-world nations, Huxley uncorks this gem.
A people whose own propagandists proclaim it to be mentally and morally deficient cannot expect to be looked up to.
Sad to say, the entertainment industry has only become far more stupid in the last 80 years. He then describes a situation that every reader is familiar with.
At sea I succumbed to my besetting vice of reading: to such an extent that the sand-fringed palm-crowned islands; the immense marmoreal clouds that seem for ever poised, a sculptor's delirium, on the dividing line between chaos and accomplished form, the sunsets of Bengal lights and emeralds, of primroses and ice-cream, of blood and lampblack; the dawns when an almost inky sea reflecting the Eastern roses from its blue-black surface, turns the colour of wine; the stars in the soot-black sky, the nightly flashing of far away storms beneath the horizon, the green phosphorescence on the water--all the lovely incidents of tropical seafaring float slowly past me, almost unobserved; I am absorbed in the ship's library.
And them amid what we'd now call beach reads, which he flew through at three per day, he discovers a copy of Henry Ford's My Life and Work. The genesis of Brave New World is apparent from the beginning.
I had never read it; I began and was fascinated. It is enough in a book to apply destructive common sense to the existing fabric of social organisaton and then, with the aid of constructive common sense, to build up the scattered pieces into a more seemly whole. … But when Ford started to apply common sense to the existing methods of industry and business he did it, not a book, but real life….Ford seems a greater man than Buddha.
Ruminating on the even then strong appeal of Buddhism in the West, Huxley states:
One is all for religion until one visits a really religious country.
One could disagree with the first part of that clause, but the point is well made. Hinduism gets a pass from most anti-religious, but the caste system is as terrible as any custom currently extant in the world.
Later he stops in the port town of Miri, where live pigs are unloaded for the benefit of Chinese immigrant labor. To get the pigs to chill out, Huxley reveals that they receive opium in their breakfast the morning of the delivery.
Upon landing in Manila…
I had been interviewed by nine reporters…I was asked what I thought of Manila, of the Filipino race, of the political problems of the islands--to which I could only reply by asking my interviewers what they thought about these subjects and assuring them, when they had told me, that I thought the same. My opinions were considered by all parties to be extraordinarily sound.
Upon arriving in Japan he comments on what was even then an expensive country.
Accustomed to deploring and at the same time taking advantage of the low standards of living current elsewhere in the East, the traveller who enters Japan is rudely surprised when he finds himself asked to pay … a wage which would not be despised in Europe…. I was glad, for sake of the rickshaw coolies, that it should be so; for my own, I must confess, I was sorry. To the slave-owners, slaver seems a most delightful institution.
Now to America, where he dallies on film sets in Hollywood and travels through Chicago onto New York. His thoughts on America show that it has changed far more than the East Asian countries that make up the bulk of his journey and book. I wonder what three words we'd use now. Almost certainly none of the ones he has chosen.
Now that liberty is out of date, equality an exploded notion and fraternity a proven impossibility, republics should change their mottoes. Intelligence, Sterility, Insolvency: that would do for contemporary France. But not for America. The American slogan would have to be something quite different. The national motto should fit the national facts. What I should write under America's flapping eagle would be: Vitality, Prosperity, Modernity.
And finally, upon returning full circle to London, he shares a sentiment that if we all thought that way would make the world a much more pleasant place to live.
So the journey is over and I am back again where I started, richer by much experience and poorer by many exploded convictions, many perished certainties. For convictions and certainties are too often the concomitants of ignorance. Of knowledge and experience the fruit is generally doubt….
I set out on my travels knowing, or thinking I knew, how men should live, how be governed, how educated, what they should believe. I knew which was the best form of social organisation and to what end societies had been created. I had my views on every activity of human life. Now, on my return, I find myself without any of these pleasing certainties…The better you understand the significance of any question, the more difficult it becomes to answer it.
Those who like to feel that they are always right and who attach a high importance to their own opinions should stay at home.
But proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experience the truth of them.
Jesting Pilate is dated, and Huxley uses some concepts and words that make a modern reader cringe (including frequent use of the word coolie and at least one instance of the n word.) Allowing for cultural context, however, there is so much greatness in this book, as many an inconsequential event leads to Huxley's thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. For anyone interested in travel, human nature, or the world at large this book is must-read material; a true classic of the genre.
In 1926, Huxley visited Indian, Burma, Malaya, Japan, China, and America--all places I have been (though China just the airports) on this trip. Reading old travel writing is cool because while some things have entirely changed, more than you'd expect are still the same. (Or same-same, as they say here.) I would rank it as one of the best travel books I've ever read, less so for the countries he visited and more for his perceptive insight and evocative writing.
After spending three days at a political campaign, he reveals how useless he finds it all.
Personally I have little use for political speaking. If I know something about the question at issue, I find it quite unnecessary to listen to an orator who repeats in a summarized, and generally garbled, from the information I already possess; knowing what I do, I am quite capable of making up my own mind on the subject under discussion without listening to his rhetorical persuasions. If, on the other hand, I know nothing, it is not to the public speaker that I turn for the information on which to base my judgment. The acquisition of full and accurate knowledge about any given subject is a lengthy and generally boring process, entailing the reading of many books, the collating of numerous opinions. It therefore follows, inevitably, that the imparting of knowledge can never be part of a public speaker's work, for the simple reason that if his speeches are boring and lengthy--and boring and lengthy they must be, if he is to give anything like a fair and full account of the facts--nobody will listen to him.
At times his writing is wonderfully vivid, transporting the reader to the scene. Consider this, for instance.
It took the Tartar traders six weeks of walking to get from Kashgar to Srinagar. They start in the early autumn when the passes are still free from the snow and rivers, swollen in summer by its melting, have subsided to fordableness. They walk into Kashmir, and from Kashmir into India. They spend the winter in India, sell what they have brought, and in the following spring, when the passes are once more open, go back into Turkestan with a load of Indian fabrics, velvet and plush and ordinary cotton, which they sell for fabulous profit.
Or this:
Or journey from Penang to Singapore bean at night. We were carried in darkness through the invisible forest. The noise of the insects among the trees was like an escape of steam. It pierced the roaring of the train as a needle might pierce butter. I had though man pre-eminent at least in the art of noise making. But a thousand equatorial cicadas could shout down a steel works; and with reinforcements they would be a match for machine guns.
After a sentence with a blind assessment that democracy was the best end case scenario, Huxley checks himself. (Note the bit about the Hapsburgs is often true too of former Soviet Republics.) All one paragraph in the book, I have inserted some section breaks to make it more readable.
The implication of course is that democracy is something excellent, an ideal to be passionately wished for. But after all is democracy really desirable. European nations certainly do not seem to be finding it so at the moment. And even self-determination is not so popular as it was. There are plenty of places in what was once the Austrian Empire where the years of Hapsburg tyranny are remembered as a golden age, and the old bureaucracy is sincerely regretted.
And what is democracy, anyhow? Can it be said that government by the people exists anywhere, except perhaps in Switzerland Certainly, the English parliamentary system cannot be described as government by the people. It is a government by oligarchs for the people and with the people's occasional advice. Do I mean anything whatever when I say that democracy is a good thing? Am I expressing a reasoned opinion? Or do I merely repeat a meaningless formula by force of habit because it was drummed into me at an early age? I wonder.
And that I am able to wonder with such a perfect detachment is due, of course, to the fact that I was born in the upper-middle, governing class of an independent, rich, and exceedingly powerful nation. Born an Indian or brought up in the slums of London, I should hardly be able to achieve so philosophical a suspense of judgment.
His vagabonding nature is made clear in the following paragraphs. Huxley's perambulations are not what he is famous for, but books like Island of Brave New World couldn't have been written by someone who traveled frequently.
I have always felt a passion for personal freedom. It is a passion which the profession of writing has enabled me to gratify. A writer is his own master, works when and where he will, and is paid by a quite impersonal entity, the public, with whom it is unnecessary for him to have any direct dealings whatever.
Professionally free, I have taken care not to encumber myself with the shackles that tie a man down to one particular plot of ground; I own nothing, nothing beyond a few books and the motorcar which enables me to move from one encampment to another.
It is pleasant to be free, when one has enough to do and think about to prevent one's ever being bored, when one's work is agreeable and seems (pleasing illusion!) worth while, when one has a clear conception of what one desires to achieve and enough strength of mind to keep one more or less undeviatingly, on the path that leads to this goal. It is pleasant to be free. But occasionally, I must confess, I regret the chains with which I have not loaded myself. In these moods I desire a house full of stuff, a plot of land with things growing on it; I feel that I should like to know one small place and its people intimately, that I should like to have known them for years, all my life. But one cannot be two incompatible things at the same time. If one desires freedom, one must sacrifice the advantages of being bound. It is, alas, only too obvious.
Upon ruminating on the theory that life is found everywhere--plants, minerals, etc. (Of course, his conclusion is much broader and refers to a root cause of much of the problems of the world--uniformed habit and customs.)
To deny life to matter and concentrate only on its measurable qualities was a sound policy that paid by results. No wonder we made a habit of it. Habits easily become a part of us. We take them for granted, as we take for granted our hands and feet, the sun, falling downstairs instead of up, colours and sounds. To break a physical habit may be as painful as an amputation; to question the usefulness of an old-established habit of thought is felt to be an outrage, an indecency, a horrible sacrilege.
His feeling upon leaving India are shared by many travelers, myself included.
I am glad to be leaving India. I have met old friends…and made new friends; I have seen many delightful and interesting things, much beauty, much that is strange, much that is grotesque and comical. Bt all the same I am glad to be going away. The reasons are purely selfish. What the eye does not see, the heart does not grieve over. It is because I do not desire to grieve that I am glad to be going. For India is depressing as no other country I have ever known. One breathes in it, not air, but dust and hopelessness.
In a section that feels surprisingly contemporary, he discusses that holiest of traveler grails--getting Off the Beaten Path.
Every tourist is haunted by the desire to "get off the Beaten Track." He wants, in the first place, to do something which other people have not done. The longing to be in some way or other unique grows with every increase of standardisation. … The tourist is like the reader of advertisements. He wants something for his money which no one else possesses….
But it is not alone to desire to achieve uniqueness that makes the tourist so anxious to leave the Beaten Track. It is not the anticipated pleasure of boasting about his achievements. The incorrigible romantic in every one of us believes, with a faith that is proof against all disappointments, that there is always something more remarkable off the Beaten Track than on it, that the things which it is difficult and troublesome to see must for that very reason be the most worth seeing.
He goes on in greater detail and while it's too long to quote, it's well worth reading. Later in the book, after describing how awful Hollywood movies are, and marveling that the very viewing of them didn't cause instant revolution among oppressed third-world nations, Huxley uncorks this gem.
A people whose own propagandists proclaim it to be mentally and morally deficient cannot expect to be looked up to.
Sad to say, the entertainment industry has only become far more stupid in the last 80 years. He then describes a situation that every reader is familiar with.
At sea I succumbed to my besetting vice of reading: to such an extent that the sand-fringed palm-crowned islands; the immense marmoreal clouds that seem for ever poised, a sculptor's delirium, on the dividing line between chaos and accomplished form, the sunsets of Bengal lights and emeralds, of primroses and ice-cream, of blood and lampblack; the dawns when an almost inky sea reflecting the Eastern roses from its blue-black surface, turns the colour of wine; the stars in the soot-black sky, the nightly flashing of far away storms beneath the horizon, the green phosphorescence on the water--all the lovely incidents of tropical seafaring float slowly past me, almost unobserved; I am absorbed in the ship's library.
And them amid what we'd now call beach reads, which he flew through at three per day, he discovers a copy of Henry Ford's My Life and Work. The genesis of Brave New World is apparent from the beginning.
I had never read it; I began and was fascinated. It is enough in a book to apply destructive common sense to the existing fabric of social organisaton and then, with the aid of constructive common sense, to build up the scattered pieces into a more seemly whole. … But when Ford started to apply common sense to the existing methods of industry and business he did it, not a book, but real life….Ford seems a greater man than Buddha.
Ruminating on the even then strong appeal of Buddhism in the West, Huxley states:
One is all for religion until one visits a really religious country.
One could disagree with the first part of that clause, but the point is well made. Hinduism gets a pass from most anti-religious, but the caste system is as terrible as any custom currently extant in the world.
Later he stops in the port town of Miri, where live pigs are unloaded for the benefit of Chinese immigrant labor. To get the pigs to chill out, Huxley reveals that they receive opium in their breakfast the morning of the delivery.
Upon landing in Manila…
I had been interviewed by nine reporters…I was asked what I thought of Manila, of the Filipino race, of the political problems of the islands--to which I could only reply by asking my interviewers what they thought about these subjects and assuring them, when they had told me, that I thought the same. My opinions were considered by all parties to be extraordinarily sound.
Upon arriving in Japan he comments on what was even then an expensive country.
Accustomed to deploring and at the same time taking advantage of the low standards of living current elsewhere in the East, the traveller who enters Japan is rudely surprised when he finds himself asked to pay … a wage which would not be despised in Europe…. I was glad, for sake of the rickshaw coolies, that it should be so; for my own, I must confess, I was sorry. To the slave-owners, slaver seems a most delightful institution.
Now to America, where he dallies on film sets in Hollywood and travels through Chicago onto New York. His thoughts on America show that it has changed far more than the East Asian countries that make up the bulk of his journey and book. I wonder what three words we'd use now. Almost certainly none of the ones he has chosen.
Now that liberty is out of date, equality an exploded notion and fraternity a proven impossibility, republics should change their mottoes. Intelligence, Sterility, Insolvency: that would do for contemporary France. But not for America. The American slogan would have to be something quite different. The national motto should fit the national facts. What I should write under America's flapping eagle would be: Vitality, Prosperity, Modernity.
And finally, upon returning full circle to London, he shares a sentiment that if we all thought that way would make the world a much more pleasant place to live.
So the journey is over and I am back again where I started, richer by much experience and poorer by many exploded convictions, many perished certainties. For convictions and certainties are too often the concomitants of ignorance. Of knowledge and experience the fruit is generally doubt….
I set out on my travels knowing, or thinking I knew, how men should live, how be governed, how educated, what they should believe. I knew which was the best form of social organisation and to what end societies had been created. I had my views on every activity of human life. Now, on my return, I find myself without any of these pleasing certainties…The better you understand the significance of any question, the more difficult it becomes to answer it.
Those who like to feel that they are always right and who attach a high importance to their own opinions should stay at home.
But proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experience the truth of them.
Jesting Pilate is dated, and Huxley uses some concepts and words that make a modern reader cringe (including frequent use of the word coolie and at least one instance of the n word.) Allowing for cultural context, however, there is so much greatness in this book, as many an inconsequential event leads to Huxley's thoughts on life, the universe, and everything. For anyone interested in travel, human nature, or the world at large this book is must-read material; a true classic of the genre.
January 31, 2024
Mai mult o carte de reflecții despre natura umană și (un pic) contextul politic al țărilor vizitate, decât un jurnal propriu-zis de călătorie. În tot cazul, foarte interesantă.
February 6, 2012
Oeuvre digne de figurer dans une hypothétique bibliothèque idéale. Avec ce même esprit critique et caustique qu'habitait un certain Albert Londres, Aldous Huxley, à travers ce "tour du monde d'un sceptique" publié en 1926, nous rappelle aussi, par la finesse de son regard et son style précieux, un autre brillant grand voyageur, le Suisse Nicolas Bouvier et son célèbre "L'usage du monde" (d'ailleurs publié chez le même éditeur). Ces voyages en Inde, en Malaisie, en Indonésie et au Japon ne constituent pourtant que l'arrière-plan d'un recueil de pensées humanistes et avant-gardistes, des idées d'autant plus réjouissantes qu'elles surgissent alors d'un humble esprit visionnaire à peine âgé de 32 ans. Il arrive parfois que l'auteur se trompe (notamment lorsqu'il aborde la peinture sous les tropiques), mais même alors ses nombreux aphorismes sonnent d'une incroyable justesse. Sa critique du joug anglais en terre indienne ne sombre pas dans un manichéisme facile, les paradoxes de l'Amérique joyeuse et puritaine sont délicieusement dépeints, la destruction des valeurs de la société moderne américaine judicieusement argumentée. Un exemple de ce caractère visionnaire ? "Partout sur le globe, les producteurs d'Hollywood sont les missionnaires et les agents de propagande de la civilisation blanche", une thèse largement développée dans un ouvrage publié plus de 80 ans plus tard, "Mainstream" de Frédéric Martel. Un ouvrage idéal qui accompagnera le voyageur en quête de pittoresque : "Il n'y a pas de touriste que ne hante le désir de 'sortir des sentiers battus'. D'abord parce qu'il veut faire quelque chose que les autres n'ont jamais fait. Le besoin d'être unique, d'une façon ou d'une autre, augmente au fur et à mesure de la standardisation". La conclusion, sous la forme du retour à Londres, est une véritable charte du Grand Voyageur : "revenu au point de départ, plus riche de beaucoup d'expériences, plus pauvre de nombreuses convictions perdues, de beaucoup de certitudes détruites. Convictions et certitudes ne sont que trop souvent concomitantes de l'ignorance. Le fruit de la connaissance et de l'expérience est généralement le doute."
September 28, 2015
I read this book as a child from my grandfathers collection. A fantastic account of the authors travels in the sub-continent. Funny and insightful, it will keep you engrossed through out. Oddly, theres not much in the way of description of food while in India, though a description of a particularly large and satisfying meal is present in the Burma section.
I recently spent a month travelling in Rajasthan, and read the chapters pertaining to those areas while there and was surprised to see that many of his observations still hold true. ( Bikaner and his views on some of the palaces ). Anyone visiting Mumbai will agree with his observation of the crows.
Aldous Huxley has surprisingly modern views for a book written in 1914, as an Indian reading it, I found I agreed with him on nearly everything, including his views on the Taj Mahal. ( I may be in the minority there ).
I recently spent a month travelling in Rajasthan, and read the chapters pertaining to those areas while there and was surprised to see that many of his observations still hold true. ( Bikaner and his views on some of the palaces ). Anyone visiting Mumbai will agree with his observation of the crows.
Aldous Huxley has surprisingly modern views for a book written in 1914, as an Indian reading it, I found I agreed with him on nearly everything, including his views on the Taj Mahal. ( I may be in the minority there ).
March 15, 2021
A mesmerizing intertwining of travel diary and collection of thoughts and ideas, of description and reflection. A vivid, lucid and masterfully informed painting of unworldly landscapes, architecture, people and life in India, Malaya, Pacific and America, triggering reflection on human nature and society.
"For materialism - if materialism means a preoccupation with the actual world in which we live - is something wholly admirable. If Western civilisation is unsatisfactory, that is not because we are interested in the actual world; it is because the majority of us are interested in such an absurdly small part of it. Our world is wide, incredibly varied and more fantastic than any product of the imagination. And yet the lives of the vast majority of men and women among the Western peoples are narrow, monotonous, and dull. We are not materialistic enough; that is the trouble. We do not interest ourselves in a sufficiency of this marvelous world of ours. [...] Every man with a little leisure and enough money for railway tickets, every man, indeed, who knows how to read, has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant, and interesting. [...] The remedy is more materialism and not, as false prophets from the East assert, more "spirituality" - more interest in this world, not in the other. The Other World - the world of metaphysics and religion - can never possibly be as interesting as this world, and for an obvious reason. The Other World is an invention of the human fancy and shares the limitations of its creator. "
"For materialism - if materialism means a preoccupation with the actual world in which we live - is something wholly admirable. If Western civilisation is unsatisfactory, that is not because we are interested in the actual world; it is because the majority of us are interested in such an absurdly small part of it. Our world is wide, incredibly varied and more fantastic than any product of the imagination. And yet the lives of the vast majority of men and women among the Western peoples are narrow, monotonous, and dull. We are not materialistic enough; that is the trouble. We do not interest ourselves in a sufficiency of this marvelous world of ours. [...] Every man with a little leisure and enough money for railway tickets, every man, indeed, who knows how to read, has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant, and interesting. [...] The remedy is more materialism and not, as false prophets from the East assert, more "spirituality" - more interest in this world, not in the other. The Other World - the world of metaphysics and religion - can never possibly be as interesting as this world, and for an obvious reason. The Other World is an invention of the human fancy and shares the limitations of its creator. "
Read
January 13, 2024I read this as a library book that has been in circulation since 1927. Seeing nearly 100 years of wear and readers’ marks was fascinating.
As a whole, I have no clue how to rate this book. There were sections that were interesting and enlightening and humorous in turn. There is one passage about travel and home and rootlessness that is one of my favorite things I’ve read in a long time.
There is also a lot here that is extraordinarily racist. I expected a fair amount of racism given the general premise — English man in the 1920s travelling around Asia — but wow was it racist.
——
The section I loved:
I have always felt a passion for personal free-dom. It is a passion which the profession of writing has enabled me to gratify. A writer is his own master, works when and where he will, and is paid by a quite impersonal entity, the public, with whom it is unnecessary for him to have any direct dealings whatever.
Professionally free, I have taken care not to encumber myself with the shackles that tie a man down to one particular plot of ground; I own nothing, nothing beyond a few books and the motor car which enables me to move from one encampment to another.
It is pleasant to be free, when one has enough to do and think about to prevent one's ever being bored, when one's work is agreeable and seems (pleasing illusion!) worth while, when one has a clear conception of what one desires to achieve and enough strength of mind to keep one, more or less undeviatingly, on the path that leads to this goal. It is pleasant to be free. But occasionally, I must confess, I regret the chains with which I have not loaded myself. In these moods I desire a house full of stuff, a plot of land with things growing on it; I feel that I should like to know one small place and its people intimately, that I should like to have known them for years, all my life. But one cannot be two incompatible things at the same time. If one desires freedom, one must sacrifice the advantages of being bound. It is, alas, only too obvious.
As a whole, I have no clue how to rate this book. There were sections that were interesting and enlightening and humorous in turn. There is one passage about travel and home and rootlessness that is one of my favorite things I’ve read in a long time.
There is also a lot here that is extraordinarily racist. I expected a fair amount of racism given the general premise — English man in the 1920s travelling around Asia — but wow was it racist.
——
The section I loved:
I have always felt a passion for personal free-dom. It is a passion which the profession of writing has enabled me to gratify. A writer is his own master, works when and where he will, and is paid by a quite impersonal entity, the public, with whom it is unnecessary for him to have any direct dealings whatever.
Professionally free, I have taken care not to encumber myself with the shackles that tie a man down to one particular plot of ground; I own nothing, nothing beyond a few books and the motor car which enables me to move from one encampment to another.
It is pleasant to be free, when one has enough to do and think about to prevent one's ever being bored, when one's work is agreeable and seems (pleasing illusion!) worth while, when one has a clear conception of what one desires to achieve and enough strength of mind to keep one, more or less undeviatingly, on the path that leads to this goal. It is pleasant to be free. But occasionally, I must confess, I regret the chains with which I have not loaded myself. In these moods I desire a house full of stuff, a plot of land with things growing on it; I feel that I should like to know one small place and its people intimately, that I should like to have known them for years, all my life. But one cannot be two incompatible things at the same time. If one desires freedom, one must sacrifice the advantages of being bound. It is, alas, only too obvious.
September 2, 2020
Agréable voyage avec un jeune gentleman du nom d'Aldous Huxley déjà célèbre en 1925.
Le périple à travers les Indes Britanniques, la Malaisie, le Japon, l'Amérique et une belle conclusion au retour à Londres est l'occasion pour le futur auteur du "Meilleur des Mondes" de nous embarquer avec lui et nous livrer ses impressions parfois superficielles et empreintes de préjugés mais délicieuses d'un humour très british...
Le récit est émaillé de réflexions sur l'architecture et les arts des Indes (le chapitre sur Agra est drôle et délicieux tant l'auteur n'aime pas le Taj Mahal), les mœurs des autochtones et des fonctionnaires britanniques...
On y perçoit la très grande culture des "littérateurs" des générations précédentes.
Le voyage est aussi une occasion pour une réflexion profonde sur la civilisation, l'humanisme, ou la réalité coloniale, on y perçoit un auteur déjà inquiet des soubresauts de l'histoire du début du 20ème siècle mais empreint parfois de myopie occidentale incapable de voir au-delà de l'opposition entre "matérialisme" et "spiritualité" et"n'anticipe"pas encore les maux futurs de cette tendance...
Mais comme il le dit si bien en conclusion : "En voyage vous perdez aussi facilement vos convictions que vos lunettes, mais il est plus difficile de les remplacer"...et l'auteur en fera d'autres de voyages et d'expériences...
Le périple à travers les Indes Britanniques, la Malaisie, le Japon, l'Amérique et une belle conclusion au retour à Londres est l'occasion pour le futur auteur du "Meilleur des Mondes" de nous embarquer avec lui et nous livrer ses impressions parfois superficielles et empreintes de préjugés mais délicieuses d'un humour très british...
Le récit est émaillé de réflexions sur l'architecture et les arts des Indes (le chapitre sur Agra est drôle et délicieux tant l'auteur n'aime pas le Taj Mahal), les mœurs des autochtones et des fonctionnaires britanniques...
On y perçoit la très grande culture des "littérateurs" des générations précédentes.
Le voyage est aussi une occasion pour une réflexion profonde sur la civilisation, l'humanisme, ou la réalité coloniale, on y perçoit un auteur déjà inquiet des soubresauts de l'histoire du début du 20ème siècle mais empreint parfois de myopie occidentale incapable de voir au-delà de l'opposition entre "matérialisme" et "spiritualité" et"n'anticipe"pas encore les maux futurs de cette tendance...
Mais comme il le dit si bien en conclusion : "En voyage vous perdez aussi facilement vos convictions que vos lunettes, mais il est plus difficile de les remplacer"...et l'auteur en fera d'autres de voyages et d'expériences...
Read
June 18, 2026Este o carte de călătorii, dar una în care locurile vizitate nu sunt neapărat partea cea mai importantă. Mai interesant este modul în care vedem lumea prin ochii lui Huxley și felul în care acesta percepe popoarele, culturile și diferențele dintre societățile pe care le întâlnește. Cartea devine astfel mai mult decât o simplă relatare de drum: este și o radiografie a mentalităților epocii, dar și a modului în care un intelectual occidental privea restul lumii în perioada interbelică.
Este genul de carte care merită citită nu atât pentru destinații, cât pentru perspectiva asupra lumii pe care autorul o oferă și pentru a înțelege cum oamenii unei alte epoci priveau alteritatea.
Este genul de carte care merită citită nu atât pentru destinații, cât pentru perspectiva asupra lumii pe care autorul o oferă și pentru a înțelege cum oamenii unei alte epoci priveau alteritatea.
November 22, 2016
Amusing and insightful at various points. Huxley sure loves to have an opinion.
I can't help but find his contemptuous dismissal of the Taj pretty hilarious. At times he shows impressive self awareness (at least in terms of the era), though blind spots are clear to us reading 80+ years later. His elitist criticisms of democracy and popular taste are a little cringeworthy.
Loved the descriptions of India. How different to my experience. The most fully formed writing comes at the end in his bitter denunciations of America.
I can't help but find his contemptuous dismissal of the Taj pretty hilarious. At times he shows impressive self awareness (at least in terms of the era), though blind spots are clear to us reading 80+ years later. His elitist criticisms of democracy and popular taste are a little cringeworthy.
Loved the descriptions of India. How different to my experience. The most fully formed writing comes at the end in his bitter denunciations of America.
January 12, 2021
[1928 edition, Doubleday, Doran, & Company, 326 pages]
In some ways outdated (being almost a century-old book), Aldous Huxley still has a lot of wisdom to share. His observations of humanity still ring true. Being unable to travel due to COVID, it was a much needed esoteric journey through the world (and the past).
I appreciate being re-reminded how travel is a form of meditation, self-reflection, and “inquiry of values”. Things greatly lacking from our hyperactive, hustle-obsessed world.
In some ways outdated (being almost a century-old book), Aldous Huxley still has a lot of wisdom to share. His observations of humanity still ring true. Being unable to travel due to COVID, it was a much needed esoteric journey through the world (and the past).
I appreciate being re-reminded how travel is a form of meditation, self-reflection, and “inquiry of values”. Things greatly lacking from our hyperactive, hustle-obsessed world.
January 24, 2020
I adored this book! If you love traveling, philosophy and Huxley's work, you will too.
May 21, 2019
A travel diary of a journey undertaken nearly a century ago -- the book was first published in 1926. On his journey Huxley and his companion(s) (whose name(s) are never mentioned) visit India, Burma, Malaya, Java, Borneo, the Philippines, China, Japan and the USA.
His observations are interesting historically, because the first three countries he mentioned were still under British colonial rule, while the Philippines were under American rule. At the end of his journey he concludes that travel is broadening, that it makes one aware of human diversity, and that awareness of that diversity should make one more tolerant, but not too tolerant. His views change with each country he visits, and one can see how each one changes the way he sees things.
The first country he describes is India. As a Westerner he regards India as too "spiritual", and doesn't think that attitude has done India much good. Back then India was one country, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (which he did not visit). Muslims and Hindus lived side by side. He describes a visit to the River Ganges, where about a million Hindus had gathered for an eclipse of the sun. They were there to save the sun from a serpent that threatened to eat it. Huxley writes:
After he had visited the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) he made an observation about Christian mission and colonialism that I, as a missiologist, found interesting:
When he visited the USA he describes his reaction to an advertisement for a firm of undertakers in Chicago, where the undertaker became a mortician, the coffin became a casket, and the deceased became "the loved one" -- a phenomenon that was to lead a couple of other British authors to write books about it -- The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh and The American Way of Death by Nancy Mitford.
The thing that really caught Huxley's attention, however, was the difference in values that this indicated, between the USA and Europe. The undertaker was proud of providing a necessary "service". Huxley thought that the people who really provided a necessary service did not represent higher values, as the undertaker's advertisement implied, but rather lower values. Higher values, for people in Europe, were represented by unnecessary services, like art and religion (Huxley seemed to have changed his mind about the value of religion by the end of his journey). In American modernity and materialism unnecessary services were just unnecessary.
Huxley gives us fascinating glimpses into other places, other times, other values. Travelling eastwards round the world, he thought India needed to modernised, but after crossing the international date line from the East to the West, he seemed to change his mind, and thought that America was too modern.
His observations are interesting historically, because the first three countries he mentioned were still under British colonial rule, while the Philippines were under American rule. At the end of his journey he concludes that travel is broadening, that it makes one aware of human diversity, and that awareness of that diversity should make one more tolerant, but not too tolerant. His views change with each country he visits, and one can see how each one changes the way he sees things.
The first country he describes is India. As a Westerner he regards India as too "spiritual", and doesn't think that attitude has done India much good. Back then India was one country, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (which he did not visit). Muslims and Hindus lived side by side. He describes a visit to the River Ganges, where about a million Hindus had gathered for an eclipse of the sun. They were there to save the sun from a serpent that threatened to eat it. Huxley writes:
To save the sun (which might, one feels, very safely be left to look after itself) a million Hindus will assemble on the banks of the Ganges. How many, I wonder, would assemble to save India? An immense energy, which, if it could be turned into political channels, might liberate and transform the country, is wasted in the name of imbecile superstitions. Religion is a luxury which India, in its present condition, cannot possibly afford. India will never be free until the Hindus and the Moslems are as tepidly enthusiastic about their religion as we are about the Church of England, If I were an Indian millionaire, I would leave all my money for the endowment of an Atheist Mission (Huxley 1994:91).
After he had visited the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) he made an observation about Christian mission and colonialism that I, as a missiologist, found interesting:
The Dutch and English were never such ardent Christians that they thought it necessary to convert, wholesale and by force, the inhabitants of the countries which they colonized. The Spaniards, on the contrary, did really believe in their extraordinary brand of Catholic Christianity; they were always crusaders as well as freebooters, missionaries as well as colonists. Wherever they went, they have left behind them their religion, and with it (for one cannot teach a religion without teaching many other things as well) their language and some of their habits (Huxley 1994:161).
When he visited the USA he describes his reaction to an advertisement for a firm of undertakers in Chicago, where the undertaker became a mortician, the coffin became a casket, and the deceased became "the loved one" -- a phenomenon that was to lead a couple of other British authors to write books about it -- The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh and The American Way of Death by Nancy Mitford.
The thing that really caught Huxley's attention, however, was the difference in values that this indicated, between the USA and Europe. The undertaker was proud of providing a necessary "service". Huxley thought that the people who really provided a necessary service did not represent higher values, as the undertaker's advertisement implied, but rather lower values. Higher values, for people in Europe, were represented by unnecessary services, like art and religion (Huxley seemed to have changed his mind about the value of religion by the end of his journey). In American modernity and materialism unnecessary services were just unnecessary.
Huxley gives us fascinating glimpses into other places, other times, other values. Travelling eastwards round the world, he thought India needed to modernised, but after crossing the international date line from the East to the West, he seemed to change his mind, and thought that America was too modern.
January 19, 2025
Jesting Pilate, a travelogue across six countries ought to have been a very dated book considering how much the world it describes has changed in the hundred years since it was first published, but I found many parts of it, especially about India to be surprisingly relevant for 2025.
Huxley's observations about India made me laugh, frown and shake my head at some of his broad and rather simplistic generalisations, but much of the time I found myself nodding in agreement for little seems to have changed. He wryly observes how Macaulay-educated Indians aspire to little more than safe clerical jobs, and empathises that while bulls and cows are protected from direct killing, they are often subject to neglect and animal cruelty. His observations on cleanliness and hygiene in India with philosophical asides to the views of Tolstoy and Voltaire on work and life, made me cringe with shame about the veracity of his statements which are sadly relevant to the country even today, despite all the development and overall prosperity and improved quality of living. Huxley is perhaps right to some extent when he declares that spirituality is the cause of India's problems, saying 'A little less spirituality, and the Indians would now be free— free from foreign dominion and from the tyranny of their own prejudices and traditions'. One presumes that he is referring to the religious practices of the crowds thronging the temples and rivers and not about the Indian spiritual texts, considering how he would later go on to study Vedanta and give lectures on it. While ancient India was obviously part of a sophisticated civilisation as can be seen from the magnificent temples and the depth of knowledge in the Sanskrit texts of yore, it is painful to agree with the author who implied a hundred years ago that many Indians could do with a few lessons in the basics of civilised behaviour.
Huxley does not spare the Western world either, placidly noting how 'in modern America the Rome of Cato and the Rome of Heliogabalus co-exist and flourish with an unprecedented vitality'. He calls the Hollywood films of his time as depicting stories of a 'crude, immature, childish world' and 'a grotesquely garbled account of our civilisation' and suggests an interesting view that the West in his time was not 'materialistic enough' and such materialism that is 'a preoccupation with the actual world in which we live' is desirable, even admirable.
His concluding note has some of the most beautiful paragraphs that I ever read in a travel book:
"if travel brings a conviction of human diversity, it brings an equally strong conviction of human unity. It inculcates tolerance, but it also shows what are the limits of possible toleration. Religions and moral codes, forms of government and of society are almost endlessly varied, and each has a right to its separate existence. But a oneness underlies this diversity. All men, whatever their beliefs, their habits, their way of life, have a sense of values. And the values are everywhere and in all kinds of society broadly the same. Goodness, beauty, wisdom and knowledge, with the human possessors of these qualities, the human creators of things and thoughts endowed with them, have always and everywhere been honoured."
Despite a few colonial affectations (which sound more amusing than elitist considering the time period he belonged to), Huxley comes across as a witty, erudite and decent Englishman not unlike the novelist Wilkie Collins who envisioned Indians empowering themselves to reclaim their legacy in his fiction. Huxley describes the poet Sarojini Naidu as combining 'in the most remarkable way great intellectual power with charm, sweetness with courageous energy, a wide culture with originality, and earnestness with humour', a description that could be equally applied, most of the time, to his own tone of voice in this enjoyable and thought-provoking book.
Huxley's observations about India made me laugh, frown and shake my head at some of his broad and rather simplistic generalisations, but much of the time I found myself nodding in agreement for little seems to have changed. He wryly observes how Macaulay-educated Indians aspire to little more than safe clerical jobs, and empathises that while bulls and cows are protected from direct killing, they are often subject to neglect and animal cruelty. His observations on cleanliness and hygiene in India with philosophical asides to the views of Tolstoy and Voltaire on work and life, made me cringe with shame about the veracity of his statements which are sadly relevant to the country even today, despite all the development and overall prosperity and improved quality of living. Huxley is perhaps right to some extent when he declares that spirituality is the cause of India's problems, saying 'A little less spirituality, and the Indians would now be free— free from foreign dominion and from the tyranny of their own prejudices and traditions'. One presumes that he is referring to the religious practices of the crowds thronging the temples and rivers and not about the Indian spiritual texts, considering how he would later go on to study Vedanta and give lectures on it. While ancient India was obviously part of a sophisticated civilisation as can be seen from the magnificent temples and the depth of knowledge in the Sanskrit texts of yore, it is painful to agree with the author who implied a hundred years ago that many Indians could do with a few lessons in the basics of civilised behaviour.
Huxley does not spare the Western world either, placidly noting how 'in modern America the Rome of Cato and the Rome of Heliogabalus co-exist and flourish with an unprecedented vitality'. He calls the Hollywood films of his time as depicting stories of a 'crude, immature, childish world' and 'a grotesquely garbled account of our civilisation' and suggests an interesting view that the West in his time was not 'materialistic enough' and such materialism that is 'a preoccupation with the actual world in which we live' is desirable, even admirable.
His concluding note has some of the most beautiful paragraphs that I ever read in a travel book:
"if travel brings a conviction of human diversity, it brings an equally strong conviction of human unity. It inculcates tolerance, but it also shows what are the limits of possible toleration. Religions and moral codes, forms of government and of society are almost endlessly varied, and each has a right to its separate existence. But a oneness underlies this diversity. All men, whatever their beliefs, their habits, their way of life, have a sense of values. And the values are everywhere and in all kinds of society broadly the same. Goodness, beauty, wisdom and knowledge, with the human possessors of these qualities, the human creators of things and thoughts endowed with them, have always and everywhere been honoured."
Despite a few colonial affectations (which sound more amusing than elitist considering the time period he belonged to), Huxley comes across as a witty, erudite and decent Englishman not unlike the novelist Wilkie Collins who envisioned Indians empowering themselves to reclaim their legacy in his fiction. Huxley describes the poet Sarojini Naidu as combining 'in the most remarkable way great intellectual power with charm, sweetness with courageous energy, a wide culture with originality, and earnestness with humour', a description that could be equally applied, most of the time, to his own tone of voice in this enjoyable and thought-provoking book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2022
Trapa de evacuare era ridicată. Atârnate la înălțime, deasupra deschizăturii, becurile electrice își trimiteau lumina orbitoare în adâncul pătratului cambuzei. Paznicul, aplecat deasupra marginii puțului, urla și dădea din mâini. Motorul cu abur îi răspundea zdrăngănind. Douăzeci de saci cu cartofi au apărut năvalnic din adâncuri. La zece picioare deasupra punții, aceștia au fost aplecaţi într-o parte de o a doua frânghie transversală, au atârnat preț de o clipă dincolo de copastia navei, apoi, la un alt semnal al paznicului, au fost lăsați să cadă pe barja aflată în așteptare. Paznicul a mai ridicat o dată mâna. Motorul a zdrăngănit din nou. Două lațuri goale s-au ivit dintr-o parte a vaporului, au biciuit puntea în cădere și au dispărut în puț, încolăcindu-se ca niște șerpi. La capăt, jos de tot, niște omuleți au prins capetele libere ale funiei, au stivuit sacii, legându-i strâns. Paznicul a zbierat. Un alt chintal de cartofi a apărut năvalnic, s-a legănat într-o parte și a dispărut peste marginea navei. Și așa a continuat lucrul toată noaptea. Eu priveam totul cu admirație, curiozitate și, într-un final, cu un sentiment tot mai acut de groază. Transportarea unor bucăți de materie dintr-un punct de pe suprafața pământului către altul – iată toată munca omului! Iar înțelepciunea Orientului, mă gândeam eu, stă în convingerea că e mai bine să lași bucățile de materie la locul lor. Fără îndoială, înțelepții Orientului au dreptate până la un punct. Sunt multe bucățele de materie care ar putea fi lăsate la locul lor și nimeni nu ar suferi din cauza asta. De pildă, aceste picături de cerneală pe care eu le transfer cu atâta sârguință din sticluța lor pe suprafața hârtiei…
Am ancorat – şi în ce hazna! La Port Said se vorbesc toate limbile, se acceptă toate monedele. Dar schimbul lor valutar e jaf la drumul mare, iar cei de acolo își folosesc talentul de a vorbi limbi străine doar ca să înșele. Industria locală de bază pare să fie producerea și vânzarea fotografiilor indecente. Le găsești grămadă în aproape fiecare magazin; îți sunt băgate pe gât de fiecare gură-cască – la prețuri care scad amețitor, pe măsură ce te îndepărtezi, de la un sovereign până la jumătate de coroană. Abundența ofertei este dovada unei cereri tot atât de mari de astfel de produse din partea călătorilor aflați în trecere. În astfel de chestiuni, se pare că oamenii sunt mai plăcut impresionați de reprezentare – fie ea picturală sau verbală – decât de realitatea carnală. Este un fapt psihologic bizar căruia nu-i găsesc nici o explicație satisfăcătoare.
Am ancorat – şi în ce hazna! La Port Said se vorbesc toate limbile, se acceptă toate monedele. Dar schimbul lor valutar e jaf la drumul mare, iar cei de acolo își folosesc talentul de a vorbi limbi străine doar ca să înșele. Industria locală de bază pare să fie producerea și vânzarea fotografiilor indecente. Le găsești grămadă în aproape fiecare magazin; îți sunt băgate pe gât de fiecare gură-cască – la prețuri care scad amețitor, pe măsură ce te îndepărtezi, de la un sovereign până la jumătate de coroană. Abundența ofertei este dovada unei cereri tot atât de mari de astfel de produse din partea călătorilor aflați în trecere. În astfel de chestiuni, se pare că oamenii sunt mai plăcut impresionați de reprezentare – fie ea picturală sau verbală – decât de realitatea carnală. Este un fapt psihologic bizar căruia nu-i găsesc nici o explicație satisfăcătoare.
December 19, 2024
"Întotdeauna mă simt puțin stingherit când nu pot să admir ceva ce toată lumea admiră – sau cel puțin se spune că admiră. Eu sunt nebun sau restul lumii? Lumea este cea care suferă de prost gust sau doar eu?"
Niște însemnări care, puse laolaltă, întrunesc ceea ce aș putea numi un "jurnal de călătorie". Huxley are un stil aparte, ușor presărat de umor și puțin iute, atât pentru cititor, cât și pentru anumite instituții sau forme de guvernământ (dar, în fine, tot pentru cititor). Mi-a plăcut mai ales partea întâi, despre India și Birmania, pentru că mi s-au părut a fi transcrise gânduri sincere, fără floricelele pe care nu le dorește nimeni, dar care sunt atât de des întâlnite în jurnalele de călătorie. Pe alocuri a fost chiar amuzant să citesc ceea ce, de multe ori, am gândit și eu despre unele popoare. Recomand!
Niște însemnări care, puse laolaltă, întrunesc ceea ce aș putea numi un "jurnal de călătorie". Huxley are un stil aparte, ușor presărat de umor și puțin iute, atât pentru cititor, cât și pentru anumite instituții sau forme de guvernământ (dar, în fine, tot pentru cititor). Mi-a plăcut mai ales partea întâi, despre India și Birmania, pentru că mi s-au părut a fi transcrise gânduri sincere, fără floricelele pe care nu le dorește nimeni, dar care sunt atât de des întâlnite în jurnalele de călătorie. Pe alocuri a fost chiar amuzant să citesc ceea ce, de multe ori, am gândit și eu despre unele popoare. Recomand!
May 20, 2018
This book had to undergo emergency drying procedures after getting soaked in water inside a backpack I had washed. It took at least a day for the book's pages to wither crisp to perfection with the heat of the sun erasing all traces of the unfortunate incident. I had set aside the entire weekend to read the book but had to begin a day later as a result.
Aldous Huxley writes thought-provoking entry after mind-blowing entry of his travels across the vast expanse of Asia (South, IndoChina Southeast, East) to America. His eye for details, wide erudition and deep sociocultural awareness help transform the book into a pair of comfortable shoes that is easy to slip into. The experiences he had in his journey are easy to absorb as one's own. His uncanny powers of observation coupled with his skills in writing ensures that the reader enjoy the rush of traveling places thousands miles apart without moving an inch. Reading is the cheapest form of travel is an idiom that he enlivens with his travel memoirs.
Aldous Huxley writes thought-provoking entry after mind-blowing entry of his travels across the vast expanse of Asia (South, IndoChina Southeast, East) to America. His eye for details, wide erudition and deep sociocultural awareness help transform the book into a pair of comfortable shoes that is easy to slip into. The experiences he had in his journey are easy to absorb as one's own. His uncanny powers of observation coupled with his skills in writing ensures that the reader enjoy the rush of traveling places thousands miles apart without moving an inch. Reading is the cheapest form of travel is an idiom that he enlivens with his travel memoirs.
July 24, 2023
Tour d'un monde britannique colonisé vu par les yeux d'un "Dandy" avec de magnifiques passages de lucidité sur le voyage, sur l'autre et surtout du rapport du voyageur envers l'autre forcément différent. Là aussi où on voit comment il est difficile quand on voyage de se séparer de ses préjugés et de ses modèles culturels de référence. Livre à lire pour se poser les bonnes questions quand on voyage même si aujourd'hui le voyage n'est plus le même.
August 20, 2019
A fascinating account of a trip around the world in 1924. The emphasis is on India and the author found plenty to fault about the locals, their religions and their colonial oveloads and wasn't shy to call it out. A surprisingly modern book with many fascinating insights and observations as well as some bits that feel more like 1874 or even 1724!
January 14, 2021
Surprisingly modern views for a book written in 1914. Huxley’s humour and strong sense of reality combined jn the same book are the key of a valuable reading. I enjoyed the book at maximum. 4 stars are only because India has half of the book and the others the rest of it. I’d have liked to travel more with Huxley. Bottom line 4 stars beacause it is too short:-)
May 31, 2026
4.25🌟
Aldous Huxley realizează că, de fapt, călătoria este o experiență de autodezvoltare și de autocunoaștere, prin care omul își creează principii, amintiri și schimburi interculturale. Călătorind și explorând diferite comunități, locuri exotice și evenimente specifice poporului, cunoscute sau chiar înțelese numai de cei care dețin identitatea culturală acelui eveniment.
Aldous Huxley realizează că, de fapt, călătoria este o experiență de autodezvoltare și de autocunoaștere, prin care omul își creează principii, amintiri și schimburi interculturale. Călătorind și explorând diferite comunități, locuri exotice și evenimente specifice poporului, cunoscute sau chiar înțelese numai de cei care dețin identitatea culturală acelui eveniment.
January 28, 2021
A fascinating insight into what it was like to travel round the world during the 1920s. Lots of interesting ruminations along the way. I bought this book while browsing in a second hand bookshop, and it took years to get round to reading it. I'm so glad I did.
February 27, 2021
O carte scrisa intr-un mod inteligent de catre un om cult si perfectionist. Se observa unda de perfectionism in modul in care critica unele lucrari de arta. Personal m-am regasit in multe dintre conceptele sale asupra lumii si asupra vietii.
September 3, 2017
Pas tout récent: certains éléments ont vieilli, mais d'autres n'ont pas changé.
September 22, 2017
Fascinating comments from travelling in 1924. Written with great insight and wit.
October 26, 2020
Highly recommended
September 21, 2021
I enjoyed it. Very of its time in places, but you can see the roots of Brave New World and Huxley's later thinking. As with all Huxley, there are some wonderful quotes in there.
July 29, 2023
100 ans plus tard, le regard sur le monde de l’auteur du « meilleur des monde » est encore d’une grande actualité. Très beau voyage en sa compagnie.
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