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Title: Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley ISBN: 0-929587-78-2 Publisher: Ivan R Dee, Inc. Pub. Date: September, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.2 (20 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Monkey in the Middle
Comment: I remember the first time I tried to read this book and couldn't shake the "Planet of the Apes" image that danced around my head. So I set the book aside, let the images fade. After almost a year I pick up the book never to set it down until the end, and still scenes haunt me. Huxley creates a distopia that equally disturbes and intrigues, frightens and consoles, a world where god is feared and suffering is happiness. "Ape and Essence" is the shadow of "Brave new World," where one's brightest spot is the other's darkest. Truly a novel of ideas.
Rating: 5
Summary: Ape and Essence
Comment: It really is too bad that I cannot give this book eight stars out of five. Firstly, Ape and Essence is a topical satire of Hollywood that remains true today. The story starts with one Hollywood writer who has been turned down for a raise, walking with his friend in a Hollywood lot when out of a truck falls a script, one of thousands of such scripts; written on it, is " Rejection Slip sent, 11-6-47, for the Incinerator. 'Twice Underlined".
It is a hilarious story, ribaldly funny in its imagery and implications with a hilarity that is unmatched. The audacity for a writer to send in such a script, some of the images the reader is treated with, are a stout housewifely baboon, frying eggs, Michal Faraday on a leash held captive by a female ape, two Albert Einsteins, each on a leash held by apes. The Einsteins are placated with sugar cubes while the apes gorge on rum and bologna. A Chief wearing clothes freshly plucked from a corpse. A religious high patriarch expectorating as Poole, just finishes making love to two women."After all, Belilal day come once a year", the scenes are hilarious and end with eggshells from a boiled egg falling on to a grave. A very Pink Flamingos and Eraserhead type ending.
Now can you imagine an audience in the late 1940s watching such a movie. Half of the audience would walk out and those that did not would have their minds totally blown!!!
I wonder if I will ever read a novel as thoroughly funny and entertaining as Ape and Essence?
Rating: 3
Summary: creative athough a bit dated
Comment: this book was pretty good, although since it was published in 1948 in reaction to WWII huxley's points are rather less revelatory now than they probably were then. occasionally huxley gets a little bogged down in essay-like pontificating, but in general he keeps things moving along. there are three main sections. the first serves as a set up and isn't that memorable. the second is poetic, metaphorical, and satirical and has some striking images, such as two albert einsteins on leashes with apes as masters. the third section makes up the bulk of the book and is an apocalyptic account of the world after world war iii, ravaged by nuclear bombing. there are some interesting ideas (his argument that the world becomes satan-worshipping is surprisingly convincing) and the occasional thought-provoking statement, but more well-known books like fast food nation, etc. have covered similar territory in greater depth. also, the plot involving the main character, dr. poole, is a bit predictable and overly familiar. still, the book as a whole serves as a good reminder and warning of the dangers of our "modern" society, although it's extremely disheartening that even now, 50 years later, so many governments and societies continue to turn the same blind eye to its own self-destructive behaviours. if only our world leaders would read books like this and learn from them.
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Title: Island by Aldous Huxley ISBN: 0060085495 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley ISBN: 1566630185 Publisher: Ivan R Dee, Inc. Pub. Date: March, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley ISBN: 0060900075 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 16 February, 1963 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley ISBN: 0060929871 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: Perennial Philosophy, The by Aldous Huxley ISBN: 0060901918 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 18 July, 1990 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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