Book: ‘Ape and Essence’ by Aldous Huxley
by Rob Smith, Jr. on Sep.01, 2019, under Books
Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
What a dopey book. Huxley wants to write a play and tucks the play into another story, neither of which make much sense.
I should start by stating I despise science fiction. Especially when it’s a weak dressing for bad philosophizing. I have a great deal of respect for philosophy and science. Huxley should have written this out as a treatise or a study of politics, than this silly bit of fluff.
He presents interesting ideas and retreads his own earlier work and others, like Thorstein Veblen. But the ideas are shackled to the fiction and there’s no supporting data presented to hold up his thoughts. It’s basically one liners encased in dialogue and narration.
He also doesn’t account for what happens if his theories come true. There’s no objective or challenging view points. Huxley writes that all are cowtowed by the setting and he escapes from anything deeper.
The characters are thin to nothing. The settings much the same. The writing is a jumble of OK to badly thought out.
All in all lightweight stuff, much like Vonnegut’s work later.
Bottom line: i don’t recommend this book. 2 out of 10 points.
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