Antic Hay

My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,Shall with their goat feet dance the antic hayEdward II by Christopher Marlowe This is Brenda Salkeld dancing the antic hay Orwell had recommended Antic Hay to her in the 1930s, but alas she wouldn t dance with him.Huxley wanted to dance with Nancy Cunard but she likened his advances to being crawled over by slugs.Nancy Cunard slugSo he crawled away and he wrote this zany and very smart satire The characters Myra Viveash and Theodore Gumbril Jr are based [...]

I m finding out that just reading Brave New World in high school doesn t really give you any sense of what sort of an author Aldous Huxley was Antic Hay is a novel about, essentially, the Lost Generation and their feelings of disaffection and uncertainty in the wake of World War I A satire, it is at times just poking a bit of fun, at times jabbing viciously The themes are pretty timeless disillusionment, the experience of feeling adrift in the world, wondering if what you ve wanted for yourself [...]

One senses that Huxley was aiming for a little mordant social satire when he wrote this book, to capture the Zeitgeist while landing a few deft jabs at British society in the aftermath of World War I But Antic Hay is a clunky, sorry mess, whose primary virtue is its brevity Heavyhanded and confused, it never gels to anything even remotely memorable.Not too hard to figure out why There is no discernible plot instead, various stock characters are dragged in and out of the action, essentially carom [...]

A mad world exists for those who dare to have mad dreams And they dance through their lives trying to invent, to love, to find happiness and their dance is called Antic Hay Most lovers picture to themselves, in their mistresses, a secret reality, beyond and different from what they see every day They are in love with somebody else their own invention And sometimes there is a secret reality and sometimes reality and appearance are the same The discovery, in either case, is likely to cause a shock [...]

There were a lot of interesting passages in this book and plenty of funny wordplay It really gave the sense of the post WW1 period, when nothing seemed to have much meaning Gumbril has a real chance at love but allows it to pass, choosing to spend time with Mrs Viveash instead His big scheme for inflatable trousers doesn t quite succeed either Myra Viveash is trapped in the past, Lypiatt is the victim of his own enthusiastic mediocrity, Rosie mistakes temporary amusement for meaningful relations [...]

I feel a little ambivalent about this novel some parts were really quite amusing but others were merely tedious and I found that the boring bits seemed to outweigh the interesting passages on average It also suffers from that common pitfall of society novels when portraying restless, bored and ultimately unfilled characters you might wind up with a restless, boring and ultimately unfulfilling story Antic Hay was very restless, it flitted around characters and social scenes but did retain some te [...]

My Vintage Classics edition of Antic Hay describes it as wickedly funny and perhaps, to those reading it around 1923, when it was first published, this social satire seemed the height of hilarity Then again, perhaps not The plot, such as it is, is merely a device for Aldous Huxley to convey different viewpoints The lack of any real story is, for a work of fiction, a serious limitation, and one I struggled with Additionally, a classical education, and some familiarity with French and Latin, is ad [...]

Well, I haven t the foggiest idea what all that was, but it s over now.

Huxley was the first author I picked up when I ventured out of the YA section at 11 or so I m not sure if this is why I enjoy his writing so much This book may initially fool you into thinking it s a journey from start to finish, but about 3 4 way through, it becomes apparent that it s about building a situation and developing character especially the latter As with other Huxley the conversations are carefully crafted and intelligent than those of us 21st century folk, with lots of foreign phr [...]

If Antic Hay escapes uncastigated and unpilloried the effect upon English fiction will be disastrousWe shall have herds of literary rats exploring every sewerThe cloacre of vice will be dredged for fresh infamiesThe novel will creep and crawl with the vermin of diseased imaginations Review in The Sunday Express, 25 Nov 1923 The Sunday Express may not have been fulsome in its praise, but Antic Hay is a fine novel, with a wonderful mixture of classical erudition and lost generation lowlife Can the [...]

Huxley is in that category of writers I don t really find very satisfactory for the most part, but who possess some quality I enjoy His novels are very readable, often intellectually scintillating, contain superb satire, and eventually come to a point where the wry, sardonic tone is abandoned for serious empathy with the plight of at least one character.This is an early effort with all of the above qualities, but in fairly small quantities kind of a Brave New World lite It is, by the way, mentio [...]

I read this book because Lois Gordon s excellent biography of Nancy Cunard cites it Huxley apparently had a brief liason with Cunard and then made her a character in this book I wish I could recognize the other players, all of whom were given absurd and suggestive names in Antic Hay Cunard is Mrs Viveash It s largely satirical, and in equal measure bilious and hilarious The writing is sharp and vivid, but the overall tone suggests the depth of disillusion that resulted from the disaster of the f [...]

The first great novel of Huxley dealing with the disenchantment of affluent Britain with all kinds of belief systems leading to utter wastefulness and decadence Huxley carefully dissects the idle pursuits that consume the rich and the famous, their boredom with everything, the lack of any meaning in their lives and the concomitant chaos that ensues.

I enjoyed Antic Hay, but found its second half better than its first The novel starts slowly, and when the protagonist, Gumbril, meets his intellectual and arty friends in London and thus introduces us to them, I almost despaired Certainly, Huxley was a bright and intelligent young thing, and his friends certainly would also have been intelligent and intellectual and arty However, when somebody tries to capture the essence of such situations they inevitably fall flat what is charming, witty, int [...]

Once I had finished reading Antic Hay I wasn t really sure what it had all been about The title Antic Hay is from a quote from Edward II by Christopher Marlowe and refers to a playful dance I thought it would be the name of a character and was waiting all the time for him to turn up The writing was very good, but I guess you would really need to have moved in the circles described to fully appreciate what he was getting at The book was controversial when first published due to its sexual referen [...]

I usually reference Huxley for philosophy, but I gained of social economy and cultural commentary from this novel It s tiny and compact and sweet Huxley uses the anti hero canon in the form of Gumbril Junior as a perfect foil to the waning, dissolute gilt of post WWI Britain I fell for Emily hard, even if no one else did Give her a kiss from me, Aldous.

I was really disappointed with this I loved Brave New World so I was looking forward to it Having come to the end, I still don t really know what it was about, there was no real resolution and I didn t like any of the characters enough to care It seemed a bit of an excuse to write about womanising in the Twenties but with no real point.

Poms Behaving BadlyThe post World War I blahs manifest themselves in a group of young Londoners in 1922 Most are gainfully unemployed, drinking, dancing, and dining with the help of allowances, alimony, or inheritances Some manage on borrowed lucre The Scientist of the group does kidney research measuring his sweat output as he bicycles all the way to France figuratively anyway Almost all strive to be fashionable, poetic, witty, or artistic Some also strive to be somebody else maybe the Complete [...]

This is the first disappointing work I ve read from Huxley While I m sure it was considered razor sharp satire in its day, I found the elite British public school humor to be grating either too dry obscure for my American sensibilities or else overly silly in a way that over compensates for the rest of the novel s snootiness I must admit a bias here there is a certain type of early 20th century British comedy of manners that I ve never been able to enjoy Think Evelyn Waugh, Ronald Firbank, Max B [...]

Nu stiam de cartea asta, a fost o surpriza placuta E mult mai neinchegata si mai slaba decat Orb prin Gaza si Punct contrapunct carti pe care le mentionez fiindca mi se pare ca multe din ideile din Dans grotesc sunt dezvoltate ulterior in astea doua Cred ca mi a placut fiindca mi a amintit de astealalte, ceea ce face sa ma intreb cine ar trebui sa o citeasca probabil nu cineva nefamiliarizat cu alte carti de Huxley Ce mi se pare vag deranjant la asta e ca toate personajele masculine par a fi cum [...]

Took a while to read so it seemed to drag a bit This was amusing and a bit similar to Crome Yellow in it s making fun of conventions of social niceties which are often rooted in ridiculous efforts of older folk trying to keep youth from enjoying themselves It is interesting to see that such silliness of ego and romantic fantasy and foibles existed in the early part of the last century as they did in my youth of the 1980 s Fun book but dated in parts I imagine it would be enjoyable if I knew Fre [...]

Quite a quriky novel Antic Hay seems as odd a book as the realities of each character Huxley creates in it.Why not as upfront in its message about life as Brave New World, Antic Hay does an excellent job of depicting youthful idealism and the tragedy of trying to live up to those ideals.Filled with a cast of 1920s oddballs, this book is one that slaps you with the underlying foolishness of the intellectualism that parades around your mind with pompous words.Antic Hay was fun, thought provoking, [...]

Despite its lack of plot, Antic Hay is beautifully written and sometimes that is all that matters.

Even though I can read and understand French, this just rubbed me the wrong way.

Not my favorite Huxley it seemed almost generic Or maybe dated Huxley writes about the lost generation in a way that I ve seen before Their cynicism, their grossness wasn t new to me and it wasn t interesting The satire was too biting It bit me off of the book.Of course, I am rating this book in comparison to the others I ve read I am harsh because I know Huxley can do better and he does Crome Yellow, Huxley s first novel, has a lightness about it that makes up for the missing core Then came Ant [...]

The antic hay is a dance with humorous and bacchanalian connotations, mentioned in the play Edward II by Christopher Marlowe Antic Hay is a satirical social comedy about a group of bright no longer young things who meet, have affairs, circle round each other, part and form new configurations Like the dance, the characters actions and interactions never really lead to anything.The main character is Gumbril, who gives up his teaching post when he has an idea for an invention while sitting on the h [...]

After five chapters Coleman is not a success He might have been some blasphemous rakes are Lypiatt, the would be Artist, has interesting possibilities, though.After finishing The novel is a jumble The five men from the dinner club Chapter 4 , recipients of particular description, nearly disappear The protagonist Gumbril s invention, hinted in the first pages, appears to start driving the plot, but then it peters out The remaining chapters turn on Gumbril s various romantic adventures, driven var [...]

Antic Hay Aldous Huxley Having read Brave New World I approached this book expecting to find the same sort of genius and compelling story telling only to be sadly let down.Antic Hay is firmly set in its time frame and location of post war London and while it is a social commentary there is no dystopian world to rail against or a decent character to support.The characters are largely from the artistic set and know each other by association rather than friendship, the men are vain, self obsessed a [...]

O supremo negativismo da poca que sucedeu a Primeira Guerra Mundial retratado neste livro, com a agudeza que caracteriza o alto esp rito do seu autor N o foi um livro que gostasse particularmente Achei o cansativo e por isso, n o o terminei Vou agarrar nele mais tarde.Este livro era do meu irm o Encontrei o perido no arm rio e comecei a l lo, pelo que percebi, tamb m ele n o o terminou encontrei o separador na p gina 119 N o avancei muito mais do que isso fiquei pelo cap tulo XI.A hist ria tem l [...]

Year is 1922, place is in England The book itself was first published in 1923 Humorous and satirical Principal character is Theodore Gumbril, a quiet, withdrawn teacher who, like an apocalypse or a divine inspiration thought of creating and going to business with his Gumbril s Patent Small Clothes which, as I imagined it to be, is like a baggy pants with lots of air so that when you sit, you sit on air and not on whatever hard object you are sitting on Aping a friend, he also thought of buying a [...]