Comic Suffering

Crome Yellow 

by Aldous Huxley

“When one individual comes into intimate contact with another, she—or he, of course, as the case may be—must almost inevitably receive or inflict suffering.” ― Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow

Crome Yellow, Aldous Huxley's first novel, is a clever, plotless satire of high society in Britain after World War I. This "comedy of ideas" chronicles a summer house party at Crome, an estate populated by pretentious intellectuals, artists, and eccentrics. It provides an intriguing, pessimistic glimpse of the "Bright Young Things" negotiating the early 1920s disillusionment. Denis Stone, a naive and angsty young poet who comes to Crome House for a summer vacation, is the protagonist of the book. Denis is incredibly in love with Anne Wimbush, the hosts' niece, but he keeps stumbling because of his extreme self-consciousness and numerous romantic competitors. The book weaves together lengthy terrace walks, informal trysts, and in-depth philosophical debates among the guests rather than presenting a conventional narrative arc.
Among these visitors is the host, Henry Wimbush, who writes an enigmatic history of his own estate while ignoring his living guests. Mr. Scogan is a hyperrational, cynical philosopher who makes unsettling, pre-dystopian predictions. He is based on Bertrand Russell. In addition, Mr. Barbecue-Smith is a well-known hack writer who says he uses his "subconscious" to produce thousands of profitable, meaningless words every hour. These characters, especially Barbecue-Smith, were delightfully funny to me. This book is brief, to the point, and does not go overboard.

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