Eyeless in Gaza

by Aldous Huxley

🎧Run Time = 15 hours and 38 minutes

A modernist classic from the author of Brave New World, who was hailed as “a genius” (The New Yorker): Cynical socialite Anthony Beavis searches for meaning in life — and his worldview is dramatically transformed after he joins the Mexican Revolution. “An important book” (The New York Times Book Review) performed by an Earphones Award–winning narrator!

Though somewhat overshadowed by Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, Huxley’s modernist novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) is often regarded as his finest work. The writer and historian Simon Heffer dubbed it, unequivocally, ‘his only great novel.’

The plot centres on Anthony Beavis, a dilettante social theorist, a man inclined to recoil from life. The pleasures of the physical world disgust him and the universe of ideas is but a poor refuge. Having long lost the art of intimacy, he betrays friendships and toys with the affections of women. But as Beavis approaches middle age, his world of perfect detachment begins to lose its appeal. Finally realising that his withdrawal from life has been motivated not by intellectual honesty but by moral cowardice, Beavis, devastated and at crisis point, meets the remarkable and redoubtable Dr Miller.

The novel’s style and setting create a unique atmosphere. Placed mainly in the inter-war years of the 20th century, the story is told in short, dated sections without following strict chronology: we encounter characters and events through fractured time, forward and backward, resulting in an unusual perspective. Eyeless in Gaza – a quotation from Milton’s Samson Agonistes – will come as an exciting, enriching surprise to many who know only the more popular Huxley. Especially in this persuasive recording by Jamie Parker.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Novels, Philosophy, British Literature, English Literature

528 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Aldous 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.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The past and the present are psychologically and physically bound…

The snapshots had become almost as dim as memories. This young woman who had stood in a garden at the turn of the century was like a ghost at cock-crow. His mother, Anthony Beavis recognized. A year or two, perhaps only a month or two, before she died. But fashion, as he peered at the brown phantom, fashion is a topiary art.

On the whole Eyeless in Gaza is about the power of memory… You wish to forget your past errors but your memory doesn’t let you go… You desire to turn your back on the faux pas of your youth but your memory keeps torturing you and you remain in thrall to the past…

The richly vibrant voice spoke on, and, with every word it uttered, Anthony felt more guilty – more guilty, and at the same time more completely and hopelessly committed to his guilt. The longer he delayed and the more she said in this strain of resignation, the harder it was going to be to undeceive her with the truth.

And in the end your recollections of the past make you change your ways in the present.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eyeless in Gaza was one of the most profound books I've ever read. After reading it I immediately wanted to read it again. I wanted to sleep with the book under my pillow...but it was a book I checked out of the library, so naturally I was concerned with it being a health risk so close to my face.

[Jonfaith · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was the chief difference between literature and life. In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is high; in reality, very low.

Practically bed ridden, incapacitated and unable to sleep I completed this chewy hulk of a novel in 24 hours. Overflowing with ideas, Eyeless asks about Action: what is one to do? Anthony, one of the novels chief characters remains preoccupied with freedom throughout his life. The narrative rotates between 5 or so timelines and flips back to each periodically, like Moloch gleefully dealing Texas Hold'em. Others are debauched or likewise stalwarts in various ideologies. Huxley asserts through the fog of politics and history that a point might be, just keep it simple. Take it easy on your colon. Don't try to fuck people over. Make amends. There are no overt references to gardens, but I accept that such is implied. This was published in 1936 and with Spain and the Dark Times on the horizon, this is penned in a certain panic. I wondered whether our own anxiety will crystalize in such a masterful experiment.

[Bram De Vriese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huxely never disappoints. Sometimes this is more philosophy than fiction.

[Ivana Books Are Magic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1936, Eyeless in Gaza is, at times, referred to as the most personal of Huxley’s works. Whether this is true, I can’t say for sure, but supposedly the protagonist of the novel is based on the Huxley himself and that is what makes this novel ‘more personal’. But aren’t all novels personal? What I can say, having read this novel and all, is that the protagonist Anthony is quite engaging. The novel does focus on the life of the protagonist- socialite Anthony Beavis, but don’t expect the typical life story told in a chronological way. The narrative is not exactly chronological and the novel isn't plot driven. Eyeless in Gaza is, among other things, a novel of ideas.


“I used to think I had no will to power. Now I perceive that I vented it on thoughts, rather than people. Conquering an unknown province of knowledge. Getting the better of a problem. Forcing ideas to associate or come apart. Bullying recalcitrant words to assume a certain pattern. All the fun of being a dictator without any risks and responsibilities.”
― Aldous Huxley, Eyeless in Gaza


Much like the Point Counter Point, Eyeless in Gaza is quite a successful novel. The novel’s title is a symbolical reference to a biblical event, Samsung losing his eyes and thus becoming –eyeless in Gaza. The writing is, most of the time, quite brilliant. Huxley does know how to write good philosophical prose. What impressed me the most was the fact that this book manages to be so many things at once. Eyeless in Gaza is at the same time a novel of ideas and a novel with developed characters and a story. A narrative that is fragmented and hard to follow but still makes sense. Philosophical ideas that suffer from some repetition but don't lose their charm and freshness.

“The world was their love, and their love the world; and the world was significant, charged with depth beyond depth of mysterious meaning. The proof of God's goodness floated in those clouds, crept in those grazing sheep, shone from every burning bush of incandescent blossom – and, in himself and Joan, walked hand in hand across the grass and was manifest in their happiness. His love, it seemed to him, in that apocalyptic moment, was more than merely his; it was in some mysterious way the equivalent of this wind and sunshine, these white gleams against the green and blue of spring. His feeling for Joan was somehow implicit in the world, had a divine and universal significance. He loved her infinitely, and for that reason was able to love everything in the world as much as he loved her.”

There are many things I liked about this novel, and even (at times) almost absurd interruptions in the narrative didn't bothered me. I don’t mind when the narrative is not chronological. As long as the writer can keep my interest, I’m fine with numerous interruptions. Although, Huxley perhaps takes it a bit too far at times. To be honest, while I was reading it did sometimes seem that the pages got somehow mixed up and the author didn't care or couldn’t put them back in order. Still, I suppose that makes this book quite unique.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not that I had problems following the story. I didn't mind the fact that the chapters of the book are not ordered chronologically. It is just that at times, it felt like a bit too much. This novel doesn’t have any major flaws but it bothered me a little how Eyeless in Gaza was sometimes a bit sentimental and cynic. These two emotions that the author masterfully makes fun of and yet doesn't succeed in completely avoiding himself sometimes felt out of place! To be fair, perhaps one cannot entirely avoid these emotions. The contrast between the two made them stand out a bit more, but in a way that also makes this novel seem more human, so I can't hold it against the author.

What else? As I said, the novel functions well as a whole. It is true, that reading this novel required concentration, but not in a bad way if you understand what I mean. It required concentration and a bit of effort, not because the story was difficult to follow, but because of all the philosophical parts, all those ideas that take pages and pages to develop. As I already stressed, I loved reading all those philosophical passages, but maybe this novel would have profited by being just a little bit shorter? Not a lot, just a bit shorter. Something like minus 50 pages and Eyeless in Gaza would perhaps have been much easier to read. Nevertheless, taken as it is, this book is very very good and it can teach us something about the author himself. On the second thought, I really wouldn't have like it to be shorter.


I do hope I’ll have the chance to reread Eyeless in Gaza. I remember that when I wrote down my first review I noted that: ‘It is definitely not the book to read in small print, so try to avoid it if you can.’ As I’m thinking of rereading this book, perhaps I should purchase a nicer copy? I do enjoy reading Huxley and it's been to long since I read him last. To sum up, Eyeless in Gaza is not my favourite work of his, but it is a great novel. Huxley is always such an unique and interesting thinker and I enjoyed reading this one. I can honestly recommend it to everyone. It is a must read for fans of Huxley!

[Ant · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a shame that Huxley is almost solely noted for his rather simplistic Brave New World, when the brilliance of half forgotten works like Point Counter Point & Eyeless in Gaza are covered by their years as though stone locked into the times they were written, away from todays readers. Both employ brilliant structures to tie in various storylines, albeit in entirely different ways, but Eyeless in Gaza was probably one of the most personal & introspective novels of his to date. So much so that I was mistaken in believing it was based on memoirs in the first few chapters. The central character, Anthony, was a not so thinly disguised Huxley & the entire novel seemed to be a type of purging of the self as he took it to criticize this characters flaws liberally. But back to the intriguing structure. The opening chapter has the main character randomly shuffling through old photographs, some taken thirty years ago, some ten. With each photo a character in his past, some dead, others still alive, and as each photo is picked up & studied, he is briefly taken back to a place in time. This I believe, gives hint at the seemingly random blocks of experience forming the chapters of small stories and giving insights into the characters as each new random time frame is relived. Some go back into the past, some are shot forth to near where the story had begun, & beyond, from Anthony at the age of around thirty four to when he was around seven, to when he was in his early twenties, and a little later. The characters around him are given parts of their personality, their faults, their ultimate outcomes and the roots of their predicaments but only in the ebb and flow of the story. For indeed this story does not follow a chronological begin that reaches an end, but like a tide, in its ebbs and flows does reach a high mark eventually but only after all the missing pieces have been satisfied more or less to the whole.


The unusual structure of the book gives the reader the vantage point of seeing clearly cause and effect, of how our natural character deepens and hardens to a potential self destruction unless we choose the path of change. It is not sermon like, never patronizing, but very cleverly juxtaposed, almost to the point of a science.


In the kind of writing that you come to expect from Huxley, it is a story of ideas, but not quite so much as in his earlier novels. If Point Counter Point had hinted of the mystical at the end, this story builds definitely towards an end of pacifism and mysticism. It appears to be the turning point of Huxley from cynic to mystic and while there is much cynicism in the book, (every character is an ugly caricature) there is self awareness of this cynicism as shown as yet another useless ugliness as it detaches itself from the egotistical intellectualism which would otherwise give it a self righteous excuse to feel pride. The writing style follows the evolution we see of Huxley's from the wordy verbose beginnings we see in Chrome Yellow & Antic Hay to where it stands in this novel; quiet, relatively sparse and inward.


It very much felt as thought he was talking of his own experience when discussing much of the books content. From the moment the pages are opened as he looks upon the photos, to when he is finally transformed spiritually by Miller and of course his own life's experiences, you feel Aldous Huxley is there behind the words.


There were various themes carried over from other novels. The suicide of the ascetic; the worthlessness of class and indulgence and the artificiality of persona. And again, his predictions of the rise of the Fascists in Hitler and Mussolini are chillingly close. One thing I have to say he missed big time though; his spiritual inspiration Miller, speaks at length as to the benefits of vegetarianism to prevent the rise of destructive revolutionaries, and not that I don’t see the absolute benefit of such a meat free diet, however Hitler, it must be known, was a vegetarian.


It was refreshing to see Huxley bring in his friend and respected contemporary, D.H Lawrence into mention as he considered Lawrence's philosophy against his own and, brings into question whether Lawrence's praise of the physical, the sexual really went far enough, almost painted him as a prude for not looking further into the primordial, past the obvious and towards the within. I could only imagine the debates they had in real life.


This really is a great work, one of searching, of a subtle, subliminal, but very real dissatisfaction, and of making terrible human mistakes in the midst of many others making terrible human mistakes, a book filled with passionate pondering, with sharp reflections of 'us', as always, and finally with a message that eventually finds its fruition in his much later essays and works. This is the beginning of his wanderings, with the erudite edge which separates Huxley from most all novelists then and now. This is Huxley.

[Bob Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Finding Anthony Beavis"

Just because I'd read "Brave New World" when I was in high school didn't mean I knew Aldous Huxley's work, so I recently read EYELESS IN GAZA. Strangely enough, over four decades later, I came out with a different impression ! Though I had no idea what the title meant, I found a strong character study of an indecisive man, a flawed character whose weaknesses lead directly to the demise of his best friend. His courage continually gives out at crucial moments and he tends to get involved in activities that he cannot sustain. It is a novel of betrayal, of failure as a man, and of disillusionment leading to final enlightenment. From a dog falling out of an airplane and splashing two naked lovers on a rooftop with blood, to a grim ride with an injured friend in the mountains of Mexico, the images are vivid, the symbolism striking. Anthony Beavis is an intellectual, but his knowledge and erudition ultimately do not mean much, they do not give him strength, rather scholarship is more of an excuse for his existence. Huxley decries such a chasm between real life and cloistered academicism, a split viewed in several characters. "Eyeless" would refer to the innate blindness of such people; their inability to distinguish basic human values and responsibilities from the bookish froth around them. In the end, influenced by a doctor with the values of positive pacifism and humanity, perhaps akin to Buddhist ideas, Anthony comes to enlightenment.

EYELESS IN GAZA is above all a book of philosophy, masquerading quite successfully as fiction. If you just want an enjoyable novel, an interesting plot, this is not your cup of tea---it is not a book to read on the plane to Miami. Huxley asks numerous deep questions and answers them, either in his own monologue as author, or in the dialogues of his characters. He sets out his answers as to `the meaning of life' on the last pages. It is a serious book written brilliantly. Preferring my philosophy in a more emotional style, I found Huxley's ruminations a bit too much at times. They made me impatient and I felt relieved, rather than sorry, to reach the end of the 423 pp. book. Yet, as a book with something to say, it has to be considered as one of English literature's important works.

[Pete daPixie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was Samson who fought the Philistines, whose 'nazirite' locks were lost due to female duplicity and resulting in his enslavement and his condition of being 'eyeless in Gaza'.
Along with Hesse, Huxley was required reading back in my teenage years, after all, there he was on the cover of Sgt Pepper. Having read 'The Doors of Perception-Heaven and Hell', 'Brave New World' and 'Island' all those years ago, it has been a joy to return to this masters writing and still find it exquisite.
'Eyeless in Gaza' was published in 1936. Huxley's highly intellectual narrative is supremely erudite and flows across the pages like honey. Even so, I have to admit that I was hanging on to this story by the barest of threads for a while. Each chapter hops backwards and forwards across the first few decades of the twentieth century, continually introducing characters, school friends, family and lovers.
There are echoes of autobiographical detail written into some characters, the suicide of Brian Foxe seems to be an exorcism of Huxley's own brother Trevenan, and the main character Anthony Beavis suffers his mother's death, like Huxley himself. Written in the inter war years the author expounds his concerns and ideas in terms of twentieth century human relationships, socio-politics and religions. Perhaps not an easy read, over four hundred pages of a steep incline, but certainly, the view from the top is magnificent.

[Issicratea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a follow-up to Huxley’s first novel, Crome Yellow, written in 1921, when he was in his mid-twenties. I found it fascinating to see how much he had developed as a novelist by 1936, when he published Eyeless in Gaza. The later novel is far richer and far more ambitious than the earlier. It does not content itself with skimming wittily across the surface of life, but attempts (successfully, in my view) to go deep.

Eyeless in Gaza is not a novel for those readers who complain when they can’t find anyone to like or admire in a work of fiction. Most of the characters are more or less morally reprehensible; and those few that aren’t, like the kind, hapless, vulnerable Brian Foxe, the protagonist’s boyhood friend, don’t prosper in the novel’s cruel world. Everyone is more or less damaged, propping themselves up with drugs or alcohol or sex or intellectual speculation. (As an intellectual himself, Huxley is funny and perceptive on the ways in which ideas and reading can serve as ways of hiding from the world.)

Huxley once stated that his aim in his fictional works was to “arrive, technically, at a perfect fusion of the novel and the essay,” and Eyeless in Gaza is pretty unashamedly a novel of ideas. The novel is complex in its structure, threading together different chronological moments in the life of its semi-autobiographical protagonist, Anthony Beavis, from his boyhood at the turn of the twentieth century, through to his early forties, in 1933-34. Together with the third-person narrative, we have extracts from Anthony’s diary, which allow us to see him in first person, cogitating furiously away in an attempt to dig himself out of his spiritual impasse. We also have a few episodes narrated through different focalizers, such as Brian Foxe and Anthony’s on-off love interest, the angry, mercurial Helen Ledwidge, née Amberley, who was, for me, the standout character of the novel. (I was interested to read that the character was based in part on the German-Jewish novelist Sybille Bedford, whom Huxley and his wife befriended in the 1930s in the South of France).

I was quite surprised at how visceral some of the episodes in this novel are, despite the generally cerebral character of Huxley’s narration. The scene in which Helen and Anthony’s moment of post-coital reflection on a roof terrace in the South of France is interrupted when a dog splatters to its death on them, dropped from a passing plane has probably left an indelible mark on my memory, as has that in which a young, rebellious Helen concludes an afternoon’s serial shoplifting, intended to shock her more conventional sister, by stealing a kidney from a slab in a butcher’s shop.

I puzzled for a while over the title of the novel, Eyeless in Gaza, which comes from Milton’s Samson Agonistes, where the blinded Samson bitterly portrays himself as the former predicted “deliverer of Israel”, now to be found “eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves”. I think the point of it is to try to capture Anthony’s state as the novel closes, morally abject and blind in some ways, but at the beginning of an upwards curve (into Huxley’s own mysticism and pacifism). I found it poignant, though, in the way in which it likened the partially sighted Huxley to the blind Milton and, beyond them, the blind archetype of Samson. From abjection and blindness come the possibility of redemptive insight—that was, perhaps, ultimately, what I saw as Huxley's message in this book.

[Mj · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Eyeless in Gaza when I was 18 and again in my 20's. In my opinion this is Huxley's best novel. Early on Huxley's main character, who is no doubt based on himself, states:

"Like all other human beings, I know what I ought to do, but continue to do what I know I oughtn't to do"

And that sums up his quest for transformation. The novel simultaneously weaves together 3 separate story timelines showing how his childhood shapes the mistakes of his adolescents and the cushion his sardonic personality provides in adulthood.

Ultimately I think this is a novel about one trying to engage their real self and transcend their mistakes and fears by finding meaning in a higher power. For Huxley that was mysticism and pacifism right before WWII broke out.

The text is quite often cerebral and cynical but other times is beautifully poetic and optimistic. I can hardly believe this is same author who wrote Brave New World.

[Lavinia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roman de idei, foarte concentrat dpdv intelectual, nu foarte lejer pentru neuronii mei. Nu e greu, dar nu e totusi o lectura de vacanta, ca sa zic asa. Motiv pentru care am luat si retetele Babettei pe linga, ca suport :)
Ma bucur ca nu i-am dat pace si m-am tot caznit cu el, putin cite putin. Ceea ce a fost foarte bine, pentru ca finalul, sa zicem ultimele 150 de pagini, dupa ce m-am prins eu cum sta toata treaba, a fost excelent.

Pe linga faptul ca e asa mai intelectuala de felul ei, cartea e scrisa sub forma unui puzzle. Cele 50 si ceva de capitole se intind pe vreo 30 de ani, dar din fericire se concentreaza pe citeva evenimente (disparate) mai importante, iar cititorul nu are decit sa faca legaturile de rigoare pentru a stabili continuitatea. Si odata ce te obisnuiesti cu stilul, povestea e intr-adevar captivanta. Cum spuneam, pe mine m-a prins mai mult in partea a doua, cind deja am reusit sa fac multe dintre legaturi.

Romanul se concentreaza pe viata lui Anthony Beavis si a cercului sau de prieteni din scoala generala, trecuti prin Eton si apoi Oxford, deci intelectuali din stratul superior al societatii: Brian, Hugh,Mark. In plus, Mary Amberley, care devine la un moment dat un soi de marchiza de Merteuil si din jocurile si pariurile careia se naste unul dintre cele mai dramatice momente ale romanului - sinuciderea lui Brian. Dramatic e si destinul ei, pentru ca dintr-o doamna sofisticata ajunge o mizerabila dependenta de morfina. Fiica ei, Helen, cu care Anthony are o relatie esuata, e unul din personajele cele mai interesante si consistente.
Am un singur regret, ca nu am citit-o in engleza; tatal lui Anthony e lingvist si face tot timpul jocuri de cuvinte amuzante, unele dificil sau imposibil de tradus, imi dau seama.

Cartea e in pregatire la Polirom, ceea ce e bine, editia pe care eu o am, cumparata de la anticariat, e aparuta in ’74, iar de atunci nu cred sa se mai fi republicat la noi.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Through apparently random journal entries (1902-1935) we follow the life of Anthony Beavis and his circle of friends, lovers, family and acquaintances. What a time to be ‘growing up’ (something of a misnomer when applied to Anthony) . It takes in WW1 and the palpable lead up to WW2. It feels very autobiographical: is the author Anthony? If so, he is far from easy on himself. We are in Anthony’s /Huxley’s mind for the duration. An outsider/voyeur afraid to get ‘involved’ with the dirty business of ‘Life’, keen therefore to avoid the pain which must inevitably accompany it.

In choosing such a course he weaves a tangled web for himself and others and ultimately must change direction. I felt to be there with him, looking through his eyes. The death and destruction of the Great War, consequent revenge on Germany, a General Strike in the land fit for heroes. The rise of Hitler and the Beast in the East. Communism v Fascism, Old world v new.

Superb writing and so quotable. But this little snip will have to do: “...she suffered herself to be kissed and, her face still set and stony, stepped across the threshold into the horribly familiar nightmare of her mother’s life.”

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eyeless in Gaza has me frustrated. This is very high quality writing and some high level plotting. Evan so I am not a fan. Our central character, Anthony Beavis, is a scholar attuned to fining meaning in obscure scholarship. He is sufficiently well off that he can peruse a comfortable and self-centered life style. He and most of the people around him are more or less self-centered and un happy. There are several discontinuous time periods ranging from before WWI and some vague point past the European version of America’s depression. Time jumps are artfully used to give us a deep understanding of Anthony, how he came to be who he is and why he has reason to be dissatisfied. We are given many chapters to come to dislike this person and then asked to care about his recognition that he does not like himself either. Having laid out a complex and unhappy persona, the resolution is too pat and for me unsatisfying. The added irony is that the book ends and was written just before World War II which could mock its resolution. Mine Is not the general opinion. I admire the writing but was not convinced by the plotting.

It has been decades since I last attempted an Aldus Huxley book. I remember being very happy with Brave New World, and Brave New World Revisited. After Many a Summer (Dies the Swan) was a warning that I probably missed much in all of 3 these books and should re-read them. I take up Eyeless in Gaza as a more mature and better read person. I do not believe I missed anything important, but I know I will not be re-reading this one.

Anthony Bevis is not a nice person. As a youth he was something of a victim to his father’s scholarly but boring and aesthetic preferamces. The mother to his future best and closest friend will provide for him holidays where the two boys can experience some of the good life but with constant urgings to lead spiritual lives. The friend, Brian Foxworthy becomes extreme about being exactly the perfect person his mother most wants and in so doing becomes the victim of Anthony’s casual disinterestedness and preference for compromise and accommodation.

By seeing Anthony in time slices assembled in thematic rather than temporal sequence Huxley maneuvers the reader from some level of sympathy to a full agreement with Anthony’s dissatisfaction with himself. This is the central conflict of the plot and upon its resolution hangs the pleasure in; or disappointment in the book.

There are some wonderfully deep thoughtful quotations and scholarly essays. These are 'heavy' thoughts on the human condition. For me these tended to be too long and to contribute to the heavy handed preachiness of this novel. The writer has an assumption that his reader is also well read and a deep thinker. Too much so. A lighter hand might have made this book more accessible and less like an extended sermon. I appreciate that this kind of writing is respectful towards the reader. I like being treated like an intelligent person, but this goes beyond that.

Having built the book on the assumption that we are thoughtful and well read, the resolution did not work for me. It approached the trivial and was almost predictable. We are asked to read a long pages in preparation for Anthony to squarely face himself only to be dropped into his life after an incomplete melodrama that is the climax of the book.

The question that Huxley may not have appreciated as he finished this book in 1936 was: Is the resolved Anthony Bevis ready for what is about to happen two years later?

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

on speech-giving:
"It's easy enough, once you've made up your mind that it doesn't matter if you make a fool of yourself. But it's depressing. There's a sense in which 500 people in a hall aren't concrete. One's talking to a collective non, an abstraction, not to a set of individuals. Only those already partially or completely convinced of what you're saying even want to understand you."

on marriage:
only boring people stay married.

Empirical facts:
1. We are all capable of love.
2. We impose limitations.
3. We can transcend self-imposed limitations.
4. Love breeds love. Hate breeds hate.

Anthony on his celibacy:
"Mark's asceticism was undertaken for its own sake and above all, for HIS, that he might feel himself more separate, more intensely himself in a better position to look down on other people. Whereas what I was trying to do was to avoid occasions for emphasizing individual separateness through sensuality. Hate, anger, ambition explicitly deny human unity; lust and greed do the same indirectly and by implication - by insisting exclusively on particular individual experiences and in the case of lust, using other people merely as a means for obtaining such experiences... lust is still incompatible with pacifism; be made compatible only when it ceases to be an end in itself and becomes a means towards the unification through love of two separate individuals. Such a particular union, a paradigm of union in general."

On God:
"God may or may not exist. But there is the empirical fact that contemplation of the divinity - of goodness in the its most unqualified form - is a method of realizing that goodness to some degree in one's own life."

There is a stormy base to all life, then darkness/peace connected at one point, at the end is light, the final peace.

[David Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a Latin phrase used early in Aldous Huxley’s Eyeless in Gaza that reads, “Video meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor,” which, near as I can tell, means, “I see better things, and approve, but I follow worse.” This saying does a good job tying together the events in the novel. Many of the characters know how they should behave, and yet, they do just the opposite. They act foolishly or callously when it is more convenient, amusing, or less painful—both for themselves and the others in their lives—to do so. On top of these often unlikable decisions they make, many of the characters are intellectuals who are divorced from reality. They are capable of analytically dissecting their peers, but they have no skills or desire to interact; they prefer to know but not experience.

The chief example of this is Anthony Beavis, the protagonist who is based heavily on Huxley himself. His erudition is unmatched by most of the other intellectuals in the novel, yet he can’t grasp the emotions of those around him. He often finds himself knowing what to do but resists because it is simply easier to remain passive. His one true friend, Brian Foxe, similarly realizes the problematic nature of the gap between his knowledge and actions. He so believes in a pure, ideal version of love that he thinks any physical expressions of that love will tarnish it. It is his inability to express this love which prevents him from achieving happiness in his only relationship.

Outside of these two, there is an interesting, if not greatly flawed, array of characters who pop in and out of the story. They are easily able to do this because of the structure Huxley establishes. The narrative jumps back and forth from Anthony’s early childhood to his middle age after he has made numerous mistakes throughout his life. This method not only allows for easily changeable views of the characters when readers learn about their earlier lives, but helps build the story to a more emotional climax than it otherwise would have done. Several outcomes are mentioned early on in the novel, but readers don’t find out the intimate details or what decisions the characters made until the very end.

If there is a central plot in the novel, then it is one of Anthony overcoming his shyness and aversion to an involvement with reality. He slowly recognizes his need to work with others and put his theories in to practice, no matter what the consequences. Huxley periodically inserts journal entries from Anthony in his forties that describe his transition from arrogant intellectual to selfless mystic. These entries cover a range of topics that are largely still relevant today: the tug of war between institutionalists and insurrectionists, how much effect art can really have on people, individual desires that drive military aggression, and the heightening of political divisions to Manichean levels. What Anthony ultimately discovers, though, is that he must “cultivate the difficult art of loving people” to achieve the true pacifism he advocates. It takes him the entire course of the novel to get to this realization and manage to go through with it. While this may seem like a simple process, the “art of loving people” means not only acknowledging that others should be treated well but working tirelessly to ensure that they are. This is a notion most people probably realize and strive towards but few ever attain.

[Ben Weeks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very surprised by Eyeless in Gaza. From the books that Huxley is well know for, I was expecting a dystopian commentary involving various chemical mind-states. What I got was a deep inquiry into the nature of man through the telling of various social circumstances of a fictional British bourgeois circle in the early 1900s. His criticisms of the idle rich are quite endearing, and seem to warn of the sort of dystopic future that he paints in his other novels. Huxley treads the line of being moralistic without being overbearing quite well. While he clearly has an agenda which settles in a Buddhist inspired active pacifism, he tells the story quite well, with well written and contrasting characters that made me inquisitive and inspired until the very end.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in August 2000.

The title of this novel refers to the Biblical story of Samson. Having told Delilah the secret of his strength - that it depended on his hair remaining uncut - Samson was betrayed to his enemies the Philistines, and taken with a shorn head to be a slave in their city of Gaza. Blinded to make him harmless, he was forgotten until brought before the crowd on a feast day. By then his hair had regrown, and even blind he was able to pull down the temple on the heads of the celebrating Philistines (and kill himself at the same time).

This story may not seem immediately relevant to Huxley's novel, which is about the confused arguments of thirties intellectuals, mainly left wing, and the events which shaped their ideas. This is particularly the case when we remember that the novel was published several years before the Second World War broke out, so that the war cannot be seen as the bringing down of the temple unless we credit Huxley with an uncanny gift for accurate prophecy. (Additionally, Samson deliberately brought down the building to destroy others, and this cannot be said of the origins of the Second World War in the political debates of the thirties.)

The real meaning of the title must be a pointer to the way in which the characters in the novel think that they are doing something new and revolutionary, something that will destroy the outdated society around them. This would of course give it an ironic twist, since Huxley must have been aware that this feeling was shared by the radical intellectuals of every generation and of every political viewpoint.

The novel is centred around Anthony Beavis, and tells the story of his life by picking out the important events in the development of his personality, from the death of his mother during his childhood onwards. The arrangement of these events is not chronological, but parallel - dated chapters, like entries in a diary, are arranged so that the significant events are revealed together, alternating between the different periods of Beavis' life. Some days have several chapters - a description of a party in 1926 occupies six of them - and the main concentration is on the period from autumn 1932 to spring 1935, which sees Beavis involved in an uprising in Central America and in public speaking for the pacifist movement.

An oblique connection is made between the events of the novel and the First World War. One of the most important sequences of events, which leads up to the suicide of one of Beavis' closest friends, takes place in July 1914 between the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the declaration of war on Serbia by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This war was of course the one which entailed the self-destruction of the former world order, as the major colonial powers tore themselves apart. The War itself is hardly mentioned directly; Beavis' part in it was minor and overshadowed by the suicide.

The clear symbolic nature of this event leads one to look for connections between historical events and other important turning points in the novel. The most prominent of these are accompanied by two of the most repulsive descriptions in modern literature. The end of an affair between Beavis and Helen Elberley is caused by her repulsion when a dog falls from an aeroplane onto the house where they are staying, covering them in blood; and the revolution in Latin Anerica causes another old friend of Beavis', Mark Staithes, to lose a leg when a wound becomes gangrenous. (Other important moments are the abduction of Helen's later lover, the Communist agitator Ekki Giesebrecht, by Nazi agents in Switzerland, and the final event of the novel, in which Beavis goes to speak at a pacifist meeting in the fact of death threats.)

None of these events actually coincides with important dates in the history of the thirties, as far as I can tell, but they certainly have a symbolic air about them, particularly the dead dog. Whatever the meaning of these events individually, taken together they symbolise the ferment of the thirties, the opposition between political extremes (communism/fascism, pacifism/militarism) that was eventually resolved by the war.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost didn't read this, looking through unread books that I thought I might never start. It had been on my shelf for a few years, a nice old copy from 1938, thick paper making it look even longer than it was. Then I read the first page and was thankful that I had just finished my last book. The plot revolved around the life of Anthony Beavis, moving back and forth between 1904, when he was a child, attending the funeral of his mother, to the mid-1930s, watching the world on the brink of another war. Central to his adult life is an early love affair with an older woman, an affair that has consequences in the lives of his friends as much as in his own. School, university, love and loss, mistakes and adventures all play their part in the novel. Occasional philosophical asides reminded me of Iris Murdoch in part, and just like her books, showed that novels which on the surface are about human relationships, can also make us think about the bigger things in life. A very good book, if slightly of its time.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difficult read which attempts to examine the whole of human behavior with an ever-present underlying theme: The only outcome of violence is more violence and even though love often causes confusion, disorientation, heart-break, and endless guilt, it is the only possible way to move forward.

For those thinking they might want to dive in to this, I'd highly recommend noting the dates of each chapter. The non-linear presentation was very confusing before I started actively paying attention to what time period in which each chapter took place. Also, there may be times when a seemingly pointless exchange between characters brings you to tears of boredom, but hang on, there are so many worthwhile descriptions, so many thoughtful observations that by the time you reach the last page, enlightenment will be the strongest lingering emotion, leaving the brief frustration a faded memory.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some books can be read in large chunks and some cannot. Wanting to meet a book club deadline, I read this in daily 50 page chunks. Disadvantaged also by not knowing 4 additional languages (including Latin) and philosophical schools of thought and certain artists, I may have missed some of the salient points. Add in a non-chronological time sequence and I have to conclude this is a challenge to read. The sections of the book I enjoyed most were when the characters actually did something or at least talked about doing something versus the parts of the book that were so much "washing machine" cycles with trains of thought going round and round.
The book club discussion added some context so that I had a better grasp of what the author was trying to accomplish and I award him an "A" for effort. In the end, this will probably be the last of this author I read as I also did not enjoy Brave New World for different reasons.

[Andreea · Rating 5 out of 5]

...although the last chapter seems somehow from another book (something like "I do not truly believe this, but this is where the writing brought me")... It is about how people change, how they turn to be totally and unexpectedly different from what they considered their true nature... It is very intelligently built, bringing past events in the present, there are no corny characters, archetypes are absent (I wouldn't think of the doctor as archetype, as long as one may trace down his evolution), the charaters are alive and kicking...

[Agne Zainyte · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will leave you broken into thousand pieces and it will be up to you to decide how do you want to "glue" yourself back. But make no mistake, you will be broken afterward.

Absolute masterpiece! I found myself lucky to read this book in my early 20's as I could relate to young Anthony so much (we happen to share the same cynical worldview as well as similar philosophies).

I could not grasp the impact of this book until I finished it. Then all I wanted is to read it again, recycle all that material, analyse it as now I know the consequences. Jumping between timelines works brilliantly in this type of storytelling.

In one of the chapters Mark complains about written novels not being real enough, characters are never flawed enough to resemble real people (and then he gives an example that empty cigarette box sometimes can upset more than lost loved one) and that is what Huxley did in this book. He presented characters, flawed and real, there were no protagonists or antagonists, there were only people.

Ending of the book was the most visual experience I have ever read, but then I realised that it felt so not because of the visual written scenery but because of extensively written character emotional landscape.

That is why this book is so powerful: there are no good guys, no bad guys. The reader equally finds oneself empathising with the protagonists and antagonists (although there is no line separating them). All characters are charming and witty and at the same time broken and filthy. What is it like to be human? There is no one answer, or as it is said in the book "knowledge and experience are two separate things", knowing what is it to be human and experiencing it are two different things.

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 star. An interesting, thought provoking, character based, long novel about Anthony Beavis and his close friends and associates, covering the significant events in Anthony’s life during the period 1903 to 1935. The novel moves backwards and forwards in time. Anthony is a lost soul, finding it difficult to make firm decisions and commit fully to relationships. He tends to go with the flow. He seeks enlightenment. During the course of the novel there are a number of intellectual meditations on topics including sociology, democracy and authoritarianism. Where does individualism fit in civilised societies.

Here are some examples of the author’s writing style:
‘Certain memories, certain trains of thought are like the aching tooth one must always be touching just to make sure it still hurts.’
‘That was the chief difference between literature and life. In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is high; in reality, very low.’
‘Leaving you defenceless against the full consciousness of the fact that you can’t do without your fellow humans, and that, when you’re with them, they make you sick.’

The novel was first published in 1936.

[Zainab · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I've had a queer feeling that I'm not really there..."

Huxley has some things to communicate to us about pacifism and human nature and some other stuff. But by the end he does so with such vehemence it's as if you're reading a different book altogether. Or more likely I only woke up to the message closer to the end. Anyways, his embarrassing descriptive precision makes for a sumptuous read. It's terribly interesting how Brian, Anthony, and Helen all change dramatically as they grow older and yet somehow stay the same, or become more of themselves.

'That was the chief difference between literature and life. In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is high; in reality, very low.
"Books are opium," said Mark.
"Precisely."'

[Jens Personius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book delves into and dissects both social issues and conflicts of the human psyche through engaging dialogue and monologues. Reading Eyeless in Gaza feels like peering into the genius mind of Huxley himself. This book is not one which you can easily pick up, read a few pages, then set down and come back to a couple of days later. Certainly this book is not for everyone, but if you are an active and involved reader who can enjoy a book more for its intellectual content rather than just its storyline, then I'm sure you will very much enjoy this read.

[Горана Ђурић · Rating 4 out of 5]

После Врлог новог света, била сам убеђена да више нећу читати Хакслија, каква је то грешка могла да буде!!!!!
Одличан роман, инспирисан делом животом писца, радња не тече линеарно, већ се иде напред и назад кроз године са причом о губитку и издаји и кукавичлуку и кривици и љубави и недостатку љубави, о пацифизму и социјализму и капитализму и бесмиселености свега тога. Све ово звучи сувопарно, а има и делова за умирање од смеха, или бар прилично комичних ситуација. Браво, Хаксли, не одустајем од тебе!

[Sam White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huxley's first real foray into the mysticism that would become the underlying theme in his later works. A real turning point in his career in which he went from popular author to cultural curator, providing piercing insight into a variety of topics. Many of predictions including "the problem of happiness" have been realized. As scary as that is, Huxely always held out hope for the individual despite the hopelessness of society.

[jude · Rating 4 out of 5]

found it quite hard to wrap my head around but it was an incredible read anyways, lots of big cool words that i didn’t know and huxley has an amazing way of describing very normal things - like wrinkles on a face or clouds in the sky. very beautiful stuff :)

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 5 out of 5]

When we first meet Anthony Beavis in the first chapter of Aldous Huxley’s astonishing EYELESS IN GAZA, it is the 30th of August, 1933, and, as it should so happen, our nominal protagonist’s forty-second birthday. He is sharing the day and his temporary French Riviera living arrangements with Helen Ledwidge. We begin very much in medias res, for all intents and purposes. The location and the fact of the date announced at the commencement of the introductory chapter corresponding to Anthony’s birthday will only be made known to the reader belatedly. What we have in the first two paragraphs is merely a detailed account of Anthony Beavis meditating on snapshots (which is to say actual photographs in his possession) of two women, one of these women his mother, who we are immediately informed was to die shortly after the dawn of the 20th century (and therefore not long after the photo scrutinized by her son was taken), the other woman Mary Amberley, a personage initially more opaque, though we are told that a particular photograph of her was presumably captured about a decade after the aforementioned one of Anthony’s mother; we can probably likewise infer from the nature of his reported musings that Mary was at one time Anthony’s lover. That we are reading a sophisticated novel intent on parcelling out relevant information on its own schedule is testified to all the more by that fact that a crucial revelation is delayed and then delivered in a casual, almost underhanded manner: Mary Amberley (probable former lover of Anthony Beavis) is the mother of Helen Ledwidge (formerly Helen Amberley and currently Anthony’s mistress). Although we will come to know that Anthony has for many years (at least since the mid '20s) been working on an encompassing sociological treatise of some kind, in the opening pages of EYELESS IN GAZA all we have is an impregnable sense of his possessing the big-picture overview, equal parts dispassionate and halfway cynical, common to characters in Aldous Huxley novels who we are led to understand are in large part characteristic of the author’s inclination to grapple with elements of his own character by way of instrumentally modified surrogates. It is right there in the consideration of the snapshots. “Twenty years, thirty years after the event, the snapshots revealed only things remote and unfamiliar. But the unfamiliar (dismal automatism!) is always the absurd. What he remembered, on the contrary, was the emotion felt when the unfamiliar was still the familiar, when the absurd, being taken for granted, had nothing absurd about it. The dramas of memory are always Hamlet in modern dress.” A few pages later, Anthony is bemoaning to Helen (and himself) the legacy of Proust and that eminent author's particular mode of memorialization, a matter of “all the stale soap suds of countless previous washings […] all the accumulated years of dirt [laying] crusty on the sides of the tub or hung in dark suspension in the water.” It is then ironic that EYELESS IN GAZA at first seems to largely replicate the Proustian modality in some key ways. Proust confessed a constitutive fidelity to the philosophy of Henri Bergson, a philosopher mentioned more than once in EYELESS IN GAZA, and in Bergson, author of MATTER AND MEMORY, there is a consistent reiteration of the basic conceit that memory is never lost or retrieved but rather arranged and rearranged incessantly, the human being marked by a consciousness constrained by organic limitations such that the whole edifice of memory entire cannot be assimilated in its unity, but must rather be handled piecemeal, not unlike photographs (or chains of photographs) referred to sequentially (though hardly as standalone objects). For a time EYELESS IN GAZA seems to be moving associatively between spatial and temporal domains with an aleatory roving analogous to that undergone in Proust’s massive multi-volume RECHERCHE. The first seven chapters take place in 1933, 1934, 1933, 1902, 1926, 1902, and 1934. Most chapters are narrated quasi-omniscient third person and with a strong sense of immediacy, or presence. In Bergson, memory isn’t memory of the past but the actual past still here, the human being blinkering in its incapacity to process everything all at once. The shift between domains at first may seem arbitrary (associative, aleatory). As a rule, Huxley hews close to the the perspective of Anthony Beavis, though at times the narration reaches beyond him, covering the inner lives of other characters and intimate activities with which these characters come to be occupied independent of Anthony’s company, the most significant variation early on arriving by way of the fifth chapter, the one set in 1926, its depicting an incident from Helen Amberley’s childhood, culminating in a personally transformative experience for the young girl when a spirit of perverse defiance propels her to traumatize herself in the handling of a butcher’s offal. In the first chapter Anthony has already delivered a prognosis concerning Helen: “The mind is its own place; she carried her hell about with her.” Whether the fifth chapter in any way serves as a confirmation of this assertion (or a localization of its pathological origins), it cannot help but bounce off it, reflect it, or pass back through it with the application of a critical eye. And it is not long after this that the reader ought to have established firmer ground, clearer on what it is Huxley is up to. EYELESS IN GAZA is anything but associative-digressive reminiscence. It is in fact a very meticulously constructed pedagogical fiction, not floating here and there in time, but rather presenting rigorously developed temporal regimes or territories as coextensive. Multiple stories from (and aside) the life of Anthony Beavis are set alongside one another such that they may be made to enter into direct dialogue, the novel’s most crucial insights dependent upon the judicious mobilization and methodical situation of expressive counterpoints. I would call it a matter of dialogic synthesis rather than dialectical synthesis, because the meanings of these counterpoints do not close-off or reduce to formulae; they open out, pluralize, and intensify (or produce meaning intensively). In 1902: Immediate aftermath of the (Second) Boer War, Anthony is a boy who has lost his mother (Maisie), and now finds his world immediately transformed on numerous fronts, his having instantaneously become aware of the lack of emotional availability and haplessness of his philologist father John as well as his pedantic rationalist (closeted) uncle James. Also in 1902: pitied at boarding school as the boy who has lost his mother, Anthony is included by alpha kid Mark Staithes in a bit of ritualistic bullying targeting a boy colloquially knows as Goggler Ledwidge (whose surname Helen will later assume in marriage). When the boys are called-out by their peer Brian (Horse-Face) Foxe, who is loved by them all for his radically uncustomary goodness and nobility of spirit, young Anthony feels deeply split, continuing to participate in the public humiliation, excited to have finally been included, but pierced simultaneously by shame. “That sudden derisive burst of laughter was the expression of a kind of envious resentment against a superiority which he loved and admired,” this being envy-resentment normally kept “below the surface in an unconscious abeyance.” In 1914: Anthony has become involved in an affair with the older Mary Amberley, she a beautiful, brilliant, well-connected (friends with Guillaume Apollinaire!), and genially amoral woman who, tiring of her younger lover, plays a game with him and his friend Brian (formerly Horse-Face) Foxe which leads to many ethical convolutions in the mind of Anthony Beavis and ultimately full-on tragedy. In 1926 (to 1928): Anthony reconnects with Mary Amberley, the latter falling or having fallen into middle-aged disrepair, addicted to or becoming addicted to morphine and equally addicted to Gerry Watchett, onetime aristocrat whose divine right to wealth and prestige has been rescinded by circumstances beyond his control and who has in consequence become something or a confidence man, Mary, who has come to disgust him, mere mark. Gerry is also having sexual relations with Mary’s daughter Helen, who is on the verge or marrying her suitor, Hugh Ledwidge, effectively a cultured neuter. More halfway cynical, dispassionate, and piercingly brilliant than ever, Anthony is working on his great work in the field of sociology. From the absolutely extraordinary eleventh chapter: “Why do we imagine solid matter exists? Because of the grossness of our sense organs. And why do we imagine the we have coherent experiences and personality? Because our minds work slowly and have very feeble powers of analysis. Our world and we who live in it are creations of stupidity and bad sight.” In 1933: Anthony and Helen’s idyll on the Riviera (already hampered by the fact that Anthony’s requisite savoir faire as lover is not the equivalent of actual intimacy) reaches its termination in the form of a dog falling from an airplane, splattering the couple with its viscera (return of the instantiation of traumatic offal). In the aftermath of Helen’s hasty departure, a bereaved Anthony, suddenly realizing the love he was unable to give her is a love he nonetheless feels and wants to give (presumably it has been “below the surface in an unconscious abeyance”) ends up following the now bitterly determined Mark Staithes to Mexico so as to help foment revolution, which does not go well as such, but also results in Anthony’s connecting with pacifist, spiritualist guru, physician, and anthropologist Miller, the man who will ultimately help Anthony Beavis finally get his house in order (and begin to adequately formulate a worthy sociology). Beginning with the second chapter of EYELESS IN GAZA, most of those situated in 1934 take the form of diary or journal entries composed by Anthony, seeking to set down as they generally do a new conception of spiritual rather than political praxis, Miller having supplied the necessary seed to instigate new growth. Forgiveness of foe, one who has wronged you or (more difficult yet) one you have harmed. “Consistently applied to any situation, love always gains. It is an empirically determined fact. Love is the best policy. The best not only in regard to those loved, but also in regard to the one who loves. For love is self-energizing. Produces the means whereby its policy can be carried out. In order to go on loving, one needs patience, courage, endurance. But the process of loving generates the means to its own continuance. Love gains because, for the sake of that which is loved, the lover is patient and brave.” This is a formula for the sort of love that EYELESS IN GAZA manifests, giving space for the folly of creatures who in any number or specific ways cannot have known or done better. Anthony has reached a new belated and fully human maturity, such that it the final chapter, set in 1935, he is able to achieve a fortifying vision of cosmic unity. It may sound like fanciful spiritual expostulation, though it is grounded in simple, concrete precepts. “Life and all being are one. Otherwise no living thing could ever derive sustenance from another or from the unliving substance around it.” Part of this vision of unity involves a conflation of organic material— blood offal and gore and exploded dogs—brought to bear in each of the coextensive temporal regimes. Implicit indications of this business have previously insinuated themselves into the novel. Anthony stargazing with Brian Foxe at boarding school in 1902: “Anthony meanwhile was still looking at Sirius. ‘Alive,’ he repeated to himself. ‘Alive.’ It was like a heart in the sky, pulsing with light. All at once he remembered that young bird he had found last Easter holiday. It was on the ground and couldn’t fly. His mother had made fun of him because he didn’t want to pick it up. Big animals he liked, but for some reason it gave him the horrors to touch anything small and alive. In the end, making an effort with himself, he had caught the bird. And in his hand the little creature had seemed just a feathered heart, pulsing against his palm and fingers, a fistful of hot and palpitating blood. Up there, above the fringes of the trees, Sirius was just such another heart. Alive. But of course Uncle James would just laugh.” Helen in Basel, February 23, 1934: “And suddenly, emerging from behind high houses, she found herself beside the Rhine. Leaning over the parapet, she watched the green water hurrying past, silent, but swift and purposive, like a living thing, like life itself, like the power behind the world, eternally, irresistibly flowing; watched it, until at last it was as though she herself were flowing along with the great river, were one with it, a partaker of its power.” The teaching of kindness and compassion extends from that of unity. It is a spiritual principle in the efficacy of which I believe but have great difficulty practicing. I am in twelve-step recovery, where a key aphorism would have the recovering addict seek to “identify instead of compare,” but that can be tremendously difficult day to day. EYELESS IN GAZA is doing just this work: seeking to understand and love rather that to hold up to judgement, to include rather than exclude. I would also suggest that Anthony may not fully grasp the roll choice plays in his attainment of salubrious wisdom. Miller has led him to understand that one has the choice to use the self and the mind for good. I would suggest that what one actually gets is the experience of arrival at and passage through choice. The younger Anthony already professed to understand that the individual human being is no real self, a chemical compound rather than an element. It is an insight that prefigures institutional psychiatrist and philosopher Félix Guattari’s later insistence on the primacy of molecular becomings. Anthony finds a choice, arrives at its unmasking, decides to make good on it, but it is the course of events that have brought him to progressive situational insights and ultimately to Miller. Grace is just that: happening upon your Miller (or Aldous Huxley novel). Still, there can be no arguing with the power of these paradigm-shifting epiphanies, contingent products of point and counterpoint. “Was it possible to be one’s own liberator? There were snares; but also there was a way of walking out of them. Prisons; but they could be opened. And if the torture chamber could never be abolished, perhaps the tortures could be made to seem irrelevant.” This passage comes to us from Mexico, 1933. But it makes wholly credible Anthony’s later assertion, in 1935, that everything is going to be okay, even though the reader is aware that Europe is soon to make a very ardent attempt to blow itself to smithereens, drunk to delirium on division.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Hell is the incapacity to be other than the creature one finds oneself ordinarily behaving as."

Eyeless in Gaza was first published in 1936 and said to be the most auto-biographical of all Huxley's works. The novel centres around Anthony Beavis and his group of friends spanning their lives from childhood to middle age during the first decades of the 20th century. The story is told in non-sequential chapters and from differing characters' perspective.

It is a pretty hefty tome and isn't a particularly easy read yet many commentators seem to believe it to be the greatest of the author's books, so why didn't I like it more?

Firstly; it's length, it's just too long, featuring far too many inconsequential details and sub-plots that add nothing to the overall tale.

Secondly; I found it far too difficult. The non-sequential nature of the novel did have the effect of allowing two strands of the story, one taking place in 1914 featuring the sad demise of Beavis's childhood friend Brian, the other following Anthony's and Mark's trip to Mexico to join an insurrection there in 1934, to come to a climax almost simultaneously for the reader. However, on the other hand this disjointed style hindered rather than aided my understanding of the overall message that Huxley was trying to convey. I found myself trying to remember just who the characters were and what their relationships were in the various time periods. On several occasions I found myself flipping back to a previous chapter to remind myself. Perhaps a series of flashbacks would have proved more manageable.

Thirdly; there were just too many big ideas vying for prominence, ideas concerning the great social and artistic upheavals of the day being espoused by wealthy privileged individuals who seem to have little contact or in common with the masses making them seem like unreliable commentators. Equally I found the overall bleak outlook, the defeatism and pacifism on show at the end of the novel something of a dampener. Huxley seems be trying to prove that there is more to life than love but ultimately concludes that really there isn't.

On a couple of occasions I was tempted to give up on this book but there also elements of this book which I found enjoyable. The characterisation was generally well done as was the depiction of their surroundings. At times Huxley displays a certain satirical humour whilst at times, particularly the section involving Anthony and Mark in Mexico, the author proves that he could, if he wanted to be, an entertaining storyteller.

Having read and enjoyed the author's Brave New World I was looking forward to reading this book but found it somewhat over-blown and disappointing. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.