1925; 329 pages. New Author? : No. Genres: Classic Literature; High-Brow Literature;
Satire; Humorous Fiction. Overall Rating: 7½*/10.
Hey, everybody, let’s head on over to Mrs.
Aldwinkle’s place for dinner tonight. She owns a lovely old villa located in picturesque Vezza, Italy. Knowing Mrs. Aldwinkle, the food will be
sumptuous.
Be sure to dress for the
occasion. Formal wear is de rigueur. All the other guests will be similarly
attired. After supper, Mrs. Aldwinkle will
offer to take you on a tour of the villa.
Do not refuse her! Think of it as
the price you’re paying for the meal.
And for goodness sake, put on
some hoity-toity airs! In your walk, in
your talk, and above all, in your interactions with the other guests. We’re dining with the upper crust of
society. The guest list includes Miss
Thriplow, Mr. Calamy, Mr. Cardan, Mr. Falx, Lord Hovendon, and Mrs. Aldwinkle’s
niece, Irene.
A guy named Francis Chelifer
will also be there. He’s new to the group, and a writer. I don’t know how he got invited to
dinner. Rumor has it Mrs. Aldwinkle
fished him out of the ocean.
What’s To Like...
Those Barren
Leaves is an early novel by Aldous Huxley, his third to be exact. It is set in some unspecified time between the
two World Wars and is Huxley’s biting satire about the pretensions sported by the upper echelons of British society: the intellectuals, the cultured, the rich, the famous. They will try to overwhelm you with their opinions on
lofty things like art, music, religion, and politics. In the end, however, they are revealed to be no
happier than us commoners.
There is no single protagonist. We follow most of the
entourage mentioned above as they experience, and occasionally contemplate, their sad lives. Some are desperate for love, at least one is
desperate for money, all are desperate for admiration be their peers.
The book is written in
“British English”, not American, so us Yanks are treated to strange spellings such as grammes, pretence, mediaeval,
loth, and Tchekov. Aldous Huxley also weaves some Italian,
French, German, and even Latin vocabulary into the story. In that last tongue, I learned the phrase “hinc illae lacrimae”, which translates
literally into “hence those tears”, and more freely into “that’s what
tears are for”.
But Huxley’s mastery of the native tongue is what really shines through here – dozens upon dozens of
rare, archaic, or even obsolete words that somehow fit flawlessly into the
text. A couple are listed below, here are just a few of the rest: capripede,
Wordsworthian, Casanovesque, ogival, congeries, cachinnating, wamblingly,
Sphingine, niffy, and one of my favorites, amphisbaena.
I liked the literary nod to Sinclair
Lewis’s Babbitt, which was published just
three years earlier, as well as the discussion of the authorship of The Iliad. Morris
dancers and a popular board game called Halma were new to me, and I had no idea
who Bossuet and Gene Stratton-Porter were.
The book is divided into 5
parts, with a total of 42 chapters comprising 329 pages, which means the average length of a
chapter is about 8 pages. Most of it is
written in the 3rd-person point-of-view, but Part 2 and one chapter
of Part 4 are in the 1st-person, being excerpts from Francis
Chelifer’s autobiography. Cussing was almost nonexistent, just two
cases of “damned” in the first
50%. Great writers don’t need cusswords.
Kewlest New Word ...
Capripede (n.): one who has feet like that of a
goat.
Others: Omphalokepsis (n.); and a
zillion more.
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.1/5
based on 34 ratings and 9 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.57/5 based on 710
ratings and 63 reviews
Excerpts...
“Alas, it is true that I’ve never really
been a successful parasite. I could have
been a pretty effective flatterer, but unfortunately I happen to live in an age
when flattery doesn’t work. I might have
made a tolerably good buffoon, if I were a little stupider and a little more
high-spirited. But even if I could have
been a buffoon, I should certainly have thought twice before taking up that
branch of parasitism. You may please for
a time; but in the end you either bore of offend your patrons." (loc. 463)
Chelifer shook his head modestly. “I am afraid,” he answered, I’m singularly
stoical about other people’s sufferings.”
“Why do you always speak against yourself?”
asked Mrs. Aldwinkle earnestly. “Why do
you malign your own character? You know
you’re not what you pretend to be. You
pretend to be so much harder and dryer than you really are. Why do you?”
Chelifer smiled. “Perhaps,” he said, “it’s to reestablish the
universal average.” (loc.
2822)
Kindle Details…
Those
Barren Leaves costs $2.99 at Amazon right now. Several dozen other Aldous Huxley e-tomes are available, ranging in price from $2.99 to $13.49. His most famous work, Brave New World, goes for $11.99, while my
favorite, Ape and Essence, sells for $10.49.
We are all apt to
value unduly those things which happen to belong to us. (loc. 266)
I read and reviewed Aldous
Huxley’s debut novel, Crome Yellow, a couple years ago. It was published in 1921; the review is here. The two books
are similar in content, style, and weaknesses.
The writing style in both is
superlative, but both suffer from PWP Syndrome, “Plot, What Plot?” The nice way of describing that is that Those Barren Leaves is character-driven. The blunt way is to say that nothing happens.
That also means there’s very
little in the way of an ending. None of
our characters finds happiness. A couple of them are contemplating
marriage, but it is a near certainty that those relationships won’t last. One has turned to meditation to attain enlightenment, but thus far has achieved nothing.
Hinc illae lacrimae.
In the hands of a lesser
writer, this would’ve been a complete waste of my reading time. But thanks to Huxley’s writing skills, I still
found this a witty and incisive read. No,
it’s not on the same level as Brave New World,
which is where I suggest anyone new to this author should start, but fans of
Aldous Huxley – and I am one of those – will still enjoy Those Barren Leaves.
7½ Stars. I try to read at least one highbrow novel each year. That's a lofty goal, and some years I fail to reach it. But I think Those Barren Leaves qualifies in this category, and I am going to check that goal off my 2022 bucket list.
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