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Available
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Collection
Publication
Modern Library (1928), Edition: Modern Library, Hardcover, 514 pages
Description
Aldous Huxley's lifelong concern with the dichotomy between passion and reason finds its fullest expression both thematically and formally in his masterpiece Point Counter Point. By presenting a vision of life in which diverse aspects of experience are observed simultaneously, Huxley characterizes the symptoms of "the disease of modern man" in the manner of a composer - themes and characters are repeated, altered slightly, and played off one another in a tone that is at once critical and sympathetic. First published in 1928, Huxley's satiric view of intellectual life in the '20s is populated with characters based on such celebrities of the time as D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Sir Oswald Mosley, Nancy Cunard, and John Middleton Murray, as well as Huxley himself. A major work of the 20th century and a monument of literary modernism, this edition includes an introduction by acclaimed novelist Nicholas Mosley (author of Hopeful Monsters and the son of Sir Oswald Mosley). Along with Brave New World (written a few years later), Point Counter Point is Huxley's most concentrated attack on the scientific attitude and its effect on modern culture.… (more)
Media reviews
Aldous Huxley's "Point Counter Point," published in 1928, is a highly intellectual novel that delves into the complexities of human relationships and societal norms through a rich tapestry of characters and ideas. Unlike traditional narratives, the novel employs a musical counterpoint as a
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structural device, interweaving multiple plot lines and perspectives to explore the contradictions and conflicts inherent in human nature and society.
Set in the post-World War I era, the novel presents a cross-section of British society, featuring a diverse cast of characters including intellectuals, scientists, artists, and aristocrats. Each character embodies different philosophical and moral viewpoints, allowing Huxley to examine a wide range of themes such as the search for meaning in a post-war world, the conflict between intellect and emotion, the nature of relationships, and the pursuit of happiness.
Through the interactions and contrasts between these characters, Huxley critiques the social and cultural mores of his time, particularly the superficiality and moral vacuity of the upper classes. The novel is known for its satirical tone and its intellectual debates on science, religion, politics, and art. "Point Counter Point" is considered one of Huxley's major works, showcasing his ability to blend social commentary with a deep exploration of philosophical and existential questions. It reflects Huxley's preoccupation with the human condition and his skepticism about the capacity of society to foster genuine human fulfillment and ethical development. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member cabegley
I have always been an avid reader, but throughout my teens and early in college I read indiscriminately--Louisa May Alcott and Stephen King, Alex Haley and Piers Anthony, they were all gobbled down. And then, in college, I was assigned Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point, and it changed the way I
I'm pretty sure I read Point Counter Point again soon after college, but at some point it disappeared from my library, and somewhere along the way every last bit of the book leaked out of my consciousness, because 25 years or so along, here I was reading the book again for the first time. Huxley uses the conversations and actions of a group of intellectuals, artists and writers, mostly, to explore passion and reason, the physical life vs. the intellectual life. Some of the characters are based on Huxley and his friends and acquaintances of the time, including D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry. For me, the most brilliant part of the book is the opening quarter, which moves from person to person, primarily at a party, introducing the characters and themes. There is also an orchestra, playing Bach's Suite in B minor, for flute and strings.
"In the opening largo John Sebastian had, with the help of Pongileoni's snout and the air column, made a statement: There are grand things in the world, noble things; there are men born kingly; there are real conquerors, intrinsic lords of the earth. But of an earth that is, oh! complex and multitudinous, he had gone on to reflect in the fugal allegro. You seem to have found the truth; clear, definite, unmistakeable, it is announced by the violins; you have it, you triumphantly hold it. But it slips out of your grasp to present itself in a new aspect among the cellos and yet again in terms of Pongileoni's vibrating air column. The parts live their separate lives; they touch, their paths cross, they combine for a moment to create a seemingly final and perfected harmony, only to break apart again. Each is always alone and separate and individual. 'I am I,' asserts the violin; 'the world revolves round me.' 'Round me,' calls the cello. 'Round me,' the flute insists. And all are equally right and equally wrong; and none of them will listen to the others.
"In the human fugue there are eighteen hundred million parts. The resultant noise means something perhaps to the statistician, nothing to the artist. It is only by considering one or two parts at a time that the artist can understand anything. Here, for example, is one particular part; and John Sebastian puts the case. The Rondeau begins, exquisitely and simply melodious, almost a folk song. It is a young girl singing to herself of love, in solitude, tenderly mournful. A young girl singing among the hills, with the clouds drifting overhead. But solitary as one of the floating clouds, a poet had been listening to her song. The thoughts that it provoked in him are the Sarabande that follows the Rondeau. His is a slow and lovely meditation on the beauty (in spite of squalor and stupidity), the profound goodness (in spite of all the evil), the oneness (in spite of such bewildering diversity) of the world. It is a beauty, a goodness, a unity that no intellectual research can discover, that analysis dispels, but of whose reality the spirit is from time to time suddenly and overwhelmingly convinced. A girl singing to herself under the clouds suffices to create the certitude. Even a fine morning is enough. Is it illusion or the revelation of profoundest truth? Who knows?"
The structure and theme set with this passage, Huxley brings his characters forward, singly and in groups, combining and recombining to examine modern man, and the intellectual life vs. the instinctual life. The reader gets the occasional glimpse into the notebooks of Philip Quarles, an author and intellectual (whose natural tendency towards introversion was heightened by a childhood accident that lamed him), as he plans a novel constructed like a Beethoven composition: "The musicalization of fiction. Not in the symbolist way, by subordinating sense to sound. . . . But on a large scale, in the construction. Meditate on Beethoven. The changes of moods, the abrupt transitions. . . . More interesting still, the modulations, not merely from one key to another, but from mood to mood. A theme is stated, then developed, push out of shape, imperceptibly deformed, until, though still recognizably the same, it has become quite different. In sets of variations the process is carried a step further. . . . Put a novelist in the novel. He justifies aesthetic generalizations, which may be interesting--at least to me. He also justifies experiment. Specimens of his work may illustrate other possible or impossible ways of telling a story. And if you have him telling parts of the same story as you are, you can make a variation on the theme." He plans to use versions of his friends as characters. But, as he cautions, "The great defect of a novel of ideas is that it's a made-up affair. Necessarily; for people who can reel off neatly formulated notions aren't quite real; they're slightly monstrous. Living with monsters becomes rather tiresome in the long run."
While some of his characters are monstrous (particularly Maurice Spandrell, based on Baudelaire, who deliberately lives a life of debauchery and vice, and is consequently bored and unable to feel), and none are particularly likable, the book ends before they become tiresome.
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looked at books forever. For the first time in my life, I think, I really recognized that books could be about more than the plot, and that good writing could make you love a book even if you loathed all the characters.I'm pretty sure I read Point Counter Point again soon after college, but at some point it disappeared from my library, and somewhere along the way every last bit of the book leaked out of my consciousness, because 25 years or so along, here I was reading the book again for the first time. Huxley uses the conversations and actions of a group of intellectuals, artists and writers, mostly, to explore passion and reason, the physical life vs. the intellectual life. Some of the characters are based on Huxley and his friends and acquaintances of the time, including D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry. For me, the most brilliant part of the book is the opening quarter, which moves from person to person, primarily at a party, introducing the characters and themes. There is also an orchestra, playing Bach's Suite in B minor, for flute and strings.
"In the opening largo John Sebastian had, with the help of Pongileoni's snout and the air column, made a statement: There are grand things in the world, noble things; there are men born kingly; there are real conquerors, intrinsic lords of the earth. But of an earth that is, oh! complex and multitudinous, he had gone on to reflect in the fugal allegro. You seem to have found the truth; clear, definite, unmistakeable, it is announced by the violins; you have it, you triumphantly hold it. But it slips out of your grasp to present itself in a new aspect among the cellos and yet again in terms of Pongileoni's vibrating air column. The parts live their separate lives; they touch, their paths cross, they combine for a moment to create a seemingly final and perfected harmony, only to break apart again. Each is always alone and separate and individual. 'I am I,' asserts the violin; 'the world revolves round me.' 'Round me,' calls the cello. 'Round me,' the flute insists. And all are equally right and equally wrong; and none of them will listen to the others.
"In the human fugue there are eighteen hundred million parts. The resultant noise means something perhaps to the statistician, nothing to the artist. It is only by considering one or two parts at a time that the artist can understand anything. Here, for example, is one particular part; and John Sebastian puts the case. The Rondeau begins, exquisitely and simply melodious, almost a folk song. It is a young girl singing to herself of love, in solitude, tenderly mournful. A young girl singing among the hills, with the clouds drifting overhead. But solitary as one of the floating clouds, a poet had been listening to her song. The thoughts that it provoked in him are the Sarabande that follows the Rondeau. His is a slow and lovely meditation on the beauty (in spite of squalor and stupidity), the profound goodness (in spite of all the evil), the oneness (in spite of such bewildering diversity) of the world. It is a beauty, a goodness, a unity that no intellectual research can discover, that analysis dispels, but of whose reality the spirit is from time to time suddenly and overwhelmingly convinced. A girl singing to herself under the clouds suffices to create the certitude. Even a fine morning is enough. Is it illusion or the revelation of profoundest truth? Who knows?"
The structure and theme set with this passage, Huxley brings his characters forward, singly and in groups, combining and recombining to examine modern man, and the intellectual life vs. the instinctual life. The reader gets the occasional glimpse into the notebooks of Philip Quarles, an author and intellectual (whose natural tendency towards introversion was heightened by a childhood accident that lamed him), as he plans a novel constructed like a Beethoven composition: "The musicalization of fiction. Not in the symbolist way, by subordinating sense to sound. . . . But on a large scale, in the construction. Meditate on Beethoven. The changes of moods, the abrupt transitions. . . . More interesting still, the modulations, not merely from one key to another, but from mood to mood. A theme is stated, then developed, push out of shape, imperceptibly deformed, until, though still recognizably the same, it has become quite different. In sets of variations the process is carried a step further. . . . Put a novelist in the novel. He justifies aesthetic generalizations, which may be interesting--at least to me. He also justifies experiment. Specimens of his work may illustrate other possible or impossible ways of telling a story. And if you have him telling parts of the same story as you are, you can make a variation on the theme." He plans to use versions of his friends as characters. But, as he cautions, "The great defect of a novel of ideas is that it's a made-up affair. Necessarily; for people who can reel off neatly formulated notions aren't quite real; they're slightly monstrous. Living with monsters becomes rather tiresome in the long run."
While some of his characters are monstrous (particularly Maurice Spandrell, based on Baudelaire, who deliberately lives a life of debauchery and vice, and is consequently bored and unable to feel), and none are particularly likable, the book ends before they become tiresome.
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LibraryThing member wirkman
This is Aldous Huxley's greatest novel. Oh, yes, "Brave New World" is also a classic, and indispensible. But, qua novel, this is Huxley's best. It is occasionally very funny, intellectually challenging, and a tad depressing. Huxley's cynical wit is conjoined with his love of dialogue and repartee
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and philosophic banter, and then placed in an overarching story that satisfyingly reveals the lives of a handful of fasccinating characters, one of them based on Huxley's friend D.H. Lawrence. Very, very good; and highly under-rated. Show Less
LibraryThing member samuelvictorwood
Found a copy of this book in a hotel in Luang Prabang on my birthday and read it while travelling through Laos, China and the Philippines. Wonderfully written, and one of the few books that I've read that's made me stop in wonder at how the author has articulated a feeling I've had but not known
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how to put in to words. Show Less
LibraryThing member dorotheabaker
This is one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read. I found a copy of it and plunged in with absolutely no knowledge of what it was about or even who the author was. I was gripped from the very first page. The cynical humour and incredibly perceptive analysis of characters that represent
Point Counter Point is absurdly intellectual - almost TOO intellectual for me. It's so complex that I can't even describe the things about it that made me love it. However, as someone who 'thinks too much' and has a naturally analytic mind, there were many places where I felt like I was reading something I could have written myself. It's a very exciting experience when you're reading a book and suddenly discover something like that. As a musician, I particularly appreciated the musical references. But perhaps my favorite moment was where Lord Edward's brother rings him up in great excitement to explain that he's just found mathematical proof of the existence of God....
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almost every facet of the human race reminded me of War and Peace at first (one of my favorite books).Point Counter Point is absurdly intellectual - almost TOO intellectual for me. It's so complex that I can't even describe the things about it that made me love it. However, as someone who 'thinks too much' and has a naturally analytic mind, there were many places where I felt like I was reading something I could have written myself. It's a very exciting experience when you're reading a book and suddenly discover something like that. As a musician, I particularly appreciated the musical references. But perhaps my favorite moment was where Lord Edward's brother rings him up in great excitement to explain that he's just found mathematical proof of the existence of God....
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Bad people doing bad things, but in a very witty way. That is a brief, if incomplete, summary of Aldous Huxley's novel, Point Counter Point.
It is more broadly a "novel of ideas" with a novelist of ideas, Philip Quarles, at its center surrounded by friends and family whose lives are like those of
I particularly enjoyed the wealth of references to literature and philosophy, Huxley's polymathic mind shows through on every page. Among the literary references was the use of Dickens in a way that captures one of his essential character traits, "the appearance of Dickensian young-girlishness" (p. 19). Overall, I found the play of wit and ideas compelling, enough to bear with the bad people and their antics.
It is more broadly a "novel of ideas" with a novelist of ideas, Philip Quarles, at its center surrounded by friends and family whose lives are like those of
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the monsters that Philip writes about in his journal. Just as Philip decides to structure his novel on the contrapuntal techniques of music (think Bach and Beethoven) the novel Huxley has written is structured in the same way. We are presented with an opening overture of more than one-hundred-fifty pages at a dinner party that serves as an introduction to most of the characters. The remainder of the novel intersperses scenes from their lives, letters from lovers and most interesting, the writings of Philip Quarles, who with his wife spends most of the first half of the novel returning from India and who is the closest to a protagonist that we get. While there is a bit of a literary explosion near the end, this is more a novel of the daily lives of London sophisticates in the 1920s. It catalogues their alternately sordid and ludicrous (sometimes both) erotic adventures, which generally end unhappily.I particularly enjoyed the wealth of references to literature and philosophy, Huxley's polymathic mind shows through on every page. Among the literary references was the use of Dickens in a way that captures one of his essential character traits, "the appearance of Dickensian young-girlishness" (p. 19). Overall, I found the play of wit and ideas compelling, enough to bear with the bad people and their antics.
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LibraryThing member TakeItOrLeaveIt
an incredible perspective novel that takes many characters living in the same place and shows how differently they view the world in only a manner Huxley can. issues from lust, succubus, communist clubs, murder, and being too smart for your own good all come up in this absolute classic.
LibraryThing member P_S_Patrick
Set mainly in 1920s London and peripheral environs, Point Counter Point is a literary tragi-comedy detailing the goings-on within a circle of intellectuals, artists, and hapless socialites and political figures.
Much of the plot revolves around the discussions they have, and the implications of
The characters themselves are well developed, and supposedly inspired by actual people, one of whom being Huxley himself.
In places this story is as comic as Huxley's “Antic Hay”, though the characters here are more convincing and have greater depth as individuals, as opposed to the tendency Huxley had to caricature in some of his other works. The emphasis on philosophical discussion, as found in other works of his, such as “Those Barren Leaves”, is also present here, though his philosophical message seems to differ somewhat between books.
This is one of Huxley's finest novels, and despite the fact that most of the characters here are actually not very nice, a very enjoyable read.
Much of the plot revolves around the discussions they have, and the implications of
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their contrasting philosophical and moral systems. The story is largely based on conflict and friendships between the characters, either as a result of their various infidelities, the disagreements between the scientific, artistic, and ordinary mind, differing political viewpoints, and the simple fact that some people are introverts and others extroverts.The characters themselves are well developed, and supposedly inspired by actual people, one of whom being Huxley himself.
In places this story is as comic as Huxley's “Antic Hay”, though the characters here are more convincing and have greater depth as individuals, as opposed to the tendency Huxley had to caricature in some of his other works. The emphasis on philosophical discussion, as found in other works of his, such as “Those Barren Leaves”, is also present here, though his philosophical message seems to differ somewhat between books.
This is one of Huxley's finest novels, and despite the fact that most of the characters here are actually not very nice, a very enjoyable read.
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LibraryThing member Schmerguls
On July 8, 1950, started reading this book and said: It is different from much I've read. It scintillates even in its conventionalistic subject matter, and the story is interlarded with evidences of highbrowity. I like the mode of approach, and am quite refreshed to find such interesting reading in
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such an ordinary subject-matter story. I like it at the start. On July 10 I noted: Point Counter Point continues eminently readable. Most of the characters are drawn bitingly and caustically. On July 12: Finished Point Counter Point today. It was quite a book--so readable and so calmly assumptious of understanding by the reader. What a host of characters! And how well delineated they were. The story hopped from one to the other. There was Marjorie Caroline, who had left her husband to live with Walter Bidlake, who was the son of artist John Bidlake and the brother of Elinor Quarles, the wife of Philip--who was abstractual and cold, but deeply loved by Elinor. Then there was Lucy Tantamount, whom Walter fell in love with, and her father Edward. And Mark Rampion, who spouted talk and was probably Huxley's mouthpiece. Spandrell killed Edward Webley, head of the British Freemen, a Fascist outfit. And so on. All this I record so I'll have a few threads which will possibly help me not to forget the book entirely. I haven't enjoyed a book so completely, and all the way through, as I did this one for a long time. Show Less
LibraryThing member JVioland
I cannot recall too much of this book. Even reading a summary, hasn't brought it back to me. It wasn't that long ago, so I'm assuming it wasn't memorable enough. I may have given it a "B" when I had first finished it, but, if I can't recall it now, I cannot be impressed with it.
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
A novel, handled very competently by Huxley, This is a satiric and often funny novel of London society in the mid to late twenties. I could contrast this with the longer novel by Anthony Powell, “A dance to the music of time.” If you like the English in moments of disorder this is a good read.
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Finished Feb.19, 1971 Show Less
LibraryThing member curious_squid
Character #1 would say I think A. Character #2 would say I disagree I think B.
Character #3 would say I think C. Character #4 would say I disagree I think D.
Point.
Counterpoint.
sigh...
Character #3 would say I think C. Character #4 would say I disagree I think D.
Point.
Counterpoint.
sigh...
LibraryThing member linepainter
Possibly daring for 1928, less so for 2019.
“A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.”
Indeed.
“A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.”
Indeed.
Awards
Language
Original publication date
1928
ISBN
none