After the Fireworks: Three Novellas

by Aldous Huxley, Gary Giddins

"After the Fireworks is a major work and a turning point for Huxley, leading directly to  Brave New World .” —Gary Giddins A striking collection of three lost classic pieces of short fiction by Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, now available as a Harper Perennial Olive Edition. In the title novella, set in Rome, a renowned novelist sets out on a walk down Via Condotti toward the Spanish Steps when he encounters a mysterious and beautiful young American admirer of his work. He discovers she shares a name, in addition to conspicuous personality traits, with a character from his most celebrated book. Both are irresistibly drawn into a dangerous affair set against the backdrop of the Italian capital. "Uncle Spencer" is the story of an aging World War I veteran’s quest for his lost love he met in a prison during the war, and "Two or Three Graces" is the tale of a passionate and destructive writer’s abusive relationship with an impressionable, bourgeois housewife. This extraordinary story collection reveals Huxley at the height of his literary powers. This book part of a special series from Harper Perennial called Olive Editions—exclusive small-format editions of some of our bestselling and celebrated titles, featuring beautiful and unique hand-drawn cover illustrations. All Olive Editions are available for a limited time only 

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Short Stories, Novella, Novels

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1933

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

[Adrian Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

One for the Huxley completists: three novellas not published seperately, but as part of the short story collections published in his lifetime, Mortal Coils, Two Or Three Graces: Four Stories, and Brief Candles. This volume is a companion volume to Collected Short Stories, but I realise now that 'Farcial History of Richard Greenow' published in Limbo: Six Stories and a Play has also been excluded from the Collected Short Stories, so I still haven't completed reading his fiction.

'After the Fireworks', published last is the first novella: a comedic romance between an aging writer, and his much younger fan. It reminded me of The Genius And The Goddess in that it is quite fast paced and sexually comic.

'Two or Three Graces' is definitely not fast paced: I got the joke with the second Grace, and the third Grace was only required so that Huxley could send up more of his friends.

'Uncle Spencer' was the stand out for me: it took Huxley places I never expected him to be (occupied Belgium during the First World War) and made me realise that his pacifism may not have been entirely theoretical, but based on his first wife's actual experience. In the middle of it comes this:

"Some day, it may be, the successful novellist will write about man's relation to God, to nature, to his own thoughts and the obscure reality on which they work, not about man's relation to woman. Meanwhile, however...", p 342

This very much looks like the idea behind Eyeless in Gaza published twelve years later. This was the transformative book of my teenage years, and it was stimulating to rethink its genesis.

For me, Huxley is more of an intellectual traveller than a novelist, though his novels are the most significant milestones on that journey. In that respect I found this volume stimulating and it added to my appreciation of his work.

[Jasmin.M ياسمين منصور · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 this is my first time reading Aldous Huxley, I only like the first two stories but my favorite was Two or Three Graces. I've developed a reader emotional attachment to the character Grace. The character undergone a development of emotions where it questions the nature and reality of love. As Grace changes by being being with two different men the core of her real self exists, but how she's presenting herself depends on who she's with.

[Guy · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the Fireworks is comprised of three novellas: After the Fireworks, Two or Three Graces and Uncle Spencer. The first two stories explore the nature and reality of love through inappropriate love affairs. In After the Fireworks, a famous author (British but on holiday in Italy) is used to being stalked by female fans, but this time, the fan, Pamela Tarn, is young, beautiful and persistent....

In Two or Three Graces, a character study, the narrator, another author, meets a young married woman named Grace whose husband is quite possibly the most boring man on the planet. He introduces her to a self-focused painter, a mistake as it turns out as Grace begins an affair which transforms her. The plot questions, subtly, exactly what Grace was/is since she is transformed into what appears to be completely different people during two destructive affairs. Is she a wild bohemian or a vicious vampire, or just poor simple little Grace?

The third story, and the weakest in the bunch IMO, is Uncle Spencer, which is reminiscences of, as the title suggests, an uncle who lives in Belgium. The story is composed of the author's memories and experiences of those holidays which are extinguished by WWI, and the uncle's imprisonment by the Germans.

Two out of three ain't bad.

[odina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very introspective stories. In his strange, sometimes pedantic, way of storytelling, he masterfully captures the personalities of his characters in a manner that I have rarely (if at all) encountered at this particular level.

[Adam Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of three novellas by Aldous Huxley. The core theme of all three stories is the fictional lives we all build for ourselves through the identities we create. We believe we should be certain types of people and live certain types of lives and so we become those people and shape our lives to fit them even if it is against our natures to do so, and this is something we can and do observe in those around us but always believe ourselves to be genuine despite evidence to the contrary and sometimes it works and often it doesn’t. I enjoyed them, and Two Or Three Graces is the most humorous of the stories and also the most heartfelt.

[Dominique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Across the vast genres Huxley tackles, only he could make romance philosophically existential. I get him.

This book taught me why George Lucas named Padme her name, pointed me to more profound writers and their works (as he always does)& new ideas. You can never go wrong with Mr. Huxley.

“Who knows?”

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful introduction to a different side of Huxley. Impressive in the sense that he seems to know how to illustrate the virtues and vices of human relationships quite appropriately.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should read more Aldous Huxley. The three novellas in "After the Fireworks" are interesting, well-written pieces on relationships between older men and younger women. Though the topic gets a bit tired by the third story, each one can be appreciated on its own.

[Nicholas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The short stories got progressively better, but on the whole not great

[SeaShore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading the story about Uncle Spencer. Huxley took me though a wonderfully winding tunnel filled with loops of learning, allowing me a glimpse of life during this period. The characters were loveble in unique ways and how they interacted with one another through the eyes of a young boy now in his thirties. I enjoyed it.

[Heath Baron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very different from a brave new world or the island. Uncle Spencer was my favorite tale in the book.

[Nicholas R. Russo · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was rambling, pretentious, and hard to finish. Occasionally it had some interesting insights but not enough to make it enjoyable.

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unlike a number of readers on this site, I enjoyed the 3 titles in this collection equally, and actually found it a plus that they are connected by a common theme: how lack of self-awareness and bad faith lead us to make disastrous mistakes in love. In the title story, Pamela, a young American beauty, imagines herself to be in love with a famous novelist she admires, Miles Fanning, and pursues him so relentlessly that, against his better judgment, he starts an affair with her. Rapidly, the difference in age and interests leads to disappointment on Pamela's part, while Miles becomes a prisoner of his sexual infatuation with Pamela's youthful body. In "Two or Three Graces", the narrator is a music critic who makes the fatal mistake of introducing his new friend Grace into artistic circles. First the bored and naive housewife starts to ape his jargon and reinvent herself in her own mind as a discerning music aficionado. Then she flings herself into an affair with a shallow but successful society painter and poses as a liberated woman. When ditched by the painter, Grace falls in love with a writer from a modest background who has a chip on his shoulder and loves making scenes more than he loves love itself. Desperate as she is to mold herself into whatever Kingham might want her to be, Grace is bound to fail because Kingham despises happiness and thrives on strife and upheavals. When Kingham ditches her, Grace threatens suicide, and the narrator briefly worries about her, before realizing that for Grace too, this has all been playacting, and her life will carry on much as before. In "Uncle Spencer" the narrator reminisces fondly about a benign and benighted relative who played a formative role in his childhood. Most of the story takes place during WWI when Uncle Spencer, who owned a sugar mill in a sleepy Belgian village, was interned by the invading German forces as an enemy alien. During his detention, Uncle Spencer fell desperately in love with fellow detainee Emmy Wendle, a young music hall artist. On the basis of a prophecy uttered by a dying fellow prisoner of Indian origin, Spencer imagined his destiny was linked to Emmy's and spent years after the war trying to locate her in vain. All 3 stories share a wry and bittersweet tone which I found highly enjoyable.

[Hail Slayton · Rating 3 out of 5]

"If people write, it means they exist; and all I ask for is to be able to pretend that the world doesn't exist."

Huxley's writing is so fluid and gorgeous and easy to absorb but his themes are deceptively challenging to decipher. While these three novellas were mostly entertaining and intriguing, they were also a bit meandering and Huxley occasionally gets in his own way with long-winded and unnecessary passages that dampen the reading experience a bit. However, his ability to flesh out incredibly rich, complex, neurotic, and narcissistic characters is unmatched and I found myself entranced by the way these characters were observed and judged by the story's respective narrators and, ultimately, by us. 3.5 Stars.

[Noah Alvarez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a solid 4 starts after I read the first two stories. Despite the lack of concrete action and the hyper focus on the sentiment of the characters and the philosophy encompassing their lives as well as the constant allusions to other arts and artists, a habit which would typically turn me away from a book, Huxley’s prose is so smooth and captivating that I still enjoyed those stories nonetheless. And then ‘Uncle Spencer’ comes along and ruins it. Just a boring, eventless story that lacks even the psychological aspects of the first two stories. I’d like to give the book 2.5 stars but since we can’t do that on GR I’ll settle on 3 out of respect for a legend.

[Lycan Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Uncle Spencer keeps this rating from being a one star. The first two stories, of this three story collection, were quite boring. As stated in the first line of Two or Three Graces, "the word bore is of doubtful etymology". Actually, to this I disagree. The word bore is applicable to 2/3 of this book. Nothing really happened. I was bored. Quite so. Uncle Spencer, the third story, was actually engaging. The prison moments were a little bit of a slow down. But overall, the third story was good. I wish I could say so with the first two. A bummer since I very much enjoyed Brave New World by Huxley. Good to read once. Not a collection to explore again.

[Daniel Bastardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the Fireworks is a compilation of three novels by Aldous Huxley—three beautiful letters to love, each exploring love from different angles, with thought-provoking passages and ideas intertwined in their stories. I often got lost in the narrative—and I admit I didn’t understand much of the stories per se—but I thoroughly enjoyed Huxley’s exploration of love and desire through his writing.

[Ethan Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Huxley excels at displaying certain scenarios that uniquely define the human condition. However, in this pursuit (especially within these three novellas) Huxley can be long winded with unnecessary world building. Regardless, his clear perspective still permeates today.

[César · Rating 3 out of 5]

Son tres novelas cortas en un libro. Están puestas en orden descendente de cuanto me gustaron. Todas son sobre gente pretenciosa con dinero. Siempre se hacen grandes observaciones, muy íntimas, de los personajes, lo cual es interesante la mayoría del tiempo.

[Athend · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought Two or Three Graces was magnificently written!

[Ray Schram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was insightful but sometimes grossly self-indulgent. Also, interesting to see all the people of the main novels tied together in the character of the narrator.

[Des · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories only get good the last few pages tbh the rest is so boring

[Teegan Lannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

shit mid

[Ro Bertolt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very hard reading. Two or three Graces was the most fluid and entertaining.

[isa ✿]

dnf at page 47 maybe I’ll pick this up when I’m 30 and pretentious

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

These seem to like the spirit of some of his better works and is harder to read

[Alexa LoSchiavo · Rating 4 out of 5]

such interesting insights on life

[RINCO · Rating 1 out of 5]

too much rambling

[Gabi Meinke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t like this until I realized that i’m not supposed to like the protagonists and then I found the irony in narration quite amusing :)

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aldous Huxley is of course best known for his heart-chilling vision of a hellish dystopian future in Brave New World. I can’t say I really loved that novel, though I recognise its societal importance “so much the more as we see the day approaching,” so to speak. However, this selection of novellas by Huxley are slightly less terrifying in that they don’t deal with grand themes of morally questionable governmental oversight as much as they deal with the more small-scale tyranny of ordinary human relationships. Huxley has a gift for depth of character and the volatility of human psychology in any given situation that makes these stories compelling and entertaining.

The first novella contributes its title to this collection, "After the Fireworks." In it, a philandering writer meets with an impressionable young fan and they proceed on an intense and long-lasting affair that leaves them both physically wrecked and disillusioned. The beginning is rom-com-esque in its lightness and charm, with its mismatch of world-weary experience and fresh innocence colliding to spark the affair, complete with a knowing friend predicting outcomes and passing judgement on the whole thing. The characters are very vivid and engaging, with smart dialogue and keen insights providing a window to their minds. Unfortunately, Huxley appears to have a somewhat pessimistic view on the tendency of human nature toward bitterness and degradation, and that is exactly what happens in this story; everything bright and light fizzles out, after the fireworks.

The second novella is perhaps my favourite, "Two or Three Graces," with its hilariously quirky insight into certain types of people, and the fascinating anomaly that is someone who is unreadable and appears to have no individual personality. The story is told from the perspective of a looker-on, who observes the seemingly amorphous character of a woman named Grace who takes on separate personalities depending upon her situation. When she is introduced to a friend of his, who is also of a changeable nature but in a completely different way, heartbreak and transformation are the only possible outcomes of their short-lived affair. Although not a particularly happy story, this one tends to be more optimistic, acknowledging the incredible human capacity to adapt and change even in adverse circumstances.

"Uncle Spencer" is a very different beast altogether. It begins in a prison… or with someone telling a story of being in a prison… or something. Honestly, I was a little confused about the structure and point of this tale generally. However, I can appreciate parts of it independently without being enthralled with the story overall. The characters accompanying Uncle Spencer in the prison, his trials and education about those he was forced into close company with, are little vignettes told with Huxley’s attention to the bizarre and unique, yet somehow universal and constant, in human nature. And if that seeming incongruity doesn’t turn you off, perhaps you’ll be able to find something compelling in this somewhat disjointed and meandering story.