Let us say that this was a very intellectual book, but upon finishing it, I fail to see the point. The novel consists of 54 chapters, narrating the life of Anthony Beavis, a cynical socialite. He isn't the most endearing person: in fact, all of the characters in the book more or less are deplorable and despicable individuals that a reader would be hard-pressed to sympathise with. As the reader progresses through the book, the reader realises that Anthony Beavis just thinks that everyone else around him are below him. Later on, however, his friend commits suicide and life loses its meaning, so he first tries to be a Communist in Mexico, but later on turns to pacifism. And that is where the book ends.
The problem is that the narrative is non-linear. Each chapter is dated, and the dates jump back and forth between the 1890s to the mid-1930s. And this is where I think it was overly intellectual. Sure, it has a very modern and atypical narrative structure, but was there a point why that was the case? In order to understand the novel, I had to consult several literary resources to explain to me what the book was about. If I had not done that, and simply relied on the book, it would be a way worse experience for me. I ask myself why did Huxley choose to structure this novel in a non-linear way, but I fail to find an answer aside from assuming that he did so just because he could, period. No added effect intended. It's almost as if he wrote the novel linearly, then cut it up into 54 chapters, shuffled them, and presented them in random order. Almost random, I should say, because the final chapters lean towards the climactic episodes of the sub-sections of the main character's life. The suicide of Brian Foxe for example was presented near the end of the book while it actually happened in 1914, right in the middle of the narrative time of the book.
As a reader, this is a struggling read. I would not recommend reading this book unless you're a hardcore Huxley fan. It is definitely not accessible for beginners. Even for me, who has read three of his other books in the past, this was a tough one to tackle. And while the structure of the book is definitely pointing to it being a book of a particular gravitas, I do not see why it was made that way, as it seems the book is simply unnecessarily made complicated for reasons opaque to the reader. I give it 2 out of 5 stars.
See my other book reviews here.
