Around the World in 80 Books discussion

Start discussion here for Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley.


About the Book (from the Literary Encyclopedia)

Crome Yellow (1921) is Aldous Huxley's first novel. Crome is the name of the country house in which it is set. The title puns on the pigment chrome yellow, and evokes the novel's bright pastoral mood as well as the sun that shines for the duration of the narrative, which unfolds over a period of three weeks from July to August 1921.

Huxley's protagonist is the 23-year-old author Denis Stone, who has recently published a “slim volume” of poetry. Denis has fallen in love with Anne, the glamorous, man-baiting niece of Henry and Priscilla Wimbush, the aristocratic owners of Crome. While Denis longs to be a dashing man of action, he is instead an introspective intellectual who, like so many of Huxley's subsequent heroes,…

Brave New World is the only thing by Huxley I have read so I really didn't know what to expect from this book but it was quite different than what I would have thought but I am quite enjoying it.

It is interesting to see some of Huxley's same philosophies that he portrayed in Brave New World also presented in a very different way within this book.

I find it quite entertaining and humorous. I enjoy the satire and I think the characters are intriguing.

I really liked the characters in this one, too, but the ending...I just can't take the ending. There is no resolution, and call me spoiled but I am used to resolution in books. I do enjoy the various philosophies injected into the characters' stories though, but a lack of resolution at the end just killed me.

There is an interesting Huxley interview in Huston Smith's: And Live Rejoicing;Chapters from a Charmed Life:Personal encounters with Spiritual Mavericks, Remarkable Seekers, and the World's Greatest Religious Leaders. Huston Smith interviews Aldous Huxley in his later years, after he changed his "1984" atheistic beliefs.