After Many a Summer Dies the Swan by Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley was an English fiction and non-fiction writer, briskist and dilettante. Besides novels he published travel books, histories, poems, plays, and essays on philosophy, arts, sociology, religion and morls He was a worldist, pacifist and satirist. He was interested in spiritual subjects as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. His long preoccupation with the negative and positive imp crooks of science and technology life makes him wiz of the representative writers and intellectuals of the 20th-century. Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on 26 of July in 1894, in Godalming, Surrey, England. His family was a part of English intellectual elite.Aldous grandfather was the outstanding biologist, agnostic and disputant Thomas Henry Huxley, who helped develop the theory of evolution. His mother was sister of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, the novelist and niece of Matthew Arn dis use of goods and servicesd, the poet. He had three brothers, two of them Julian Huxley and Andrew Huxley were outstanding biologists. His third brother Noel Trevelyan Huxley connected suicide after a period of clinical depression. Huxleys heritage and up captureing had an effect on his work. He attended Hillside school, after that he was educated at Eton College, Berkshire, and after his eyesight recovered (he had keratitis punctata which left him a safe deal blind for two course of studys, save it withal saved him from participation in the World War I), he was able to study English literature at Ball(a)iol College, Oxford.Already and then he entered the literary world while he was at Oxford, meeting writers like Lytton Strachey and Bertrand Russell and becoming close friends with D. H. Lawrence after(prenominal) commencement he was financially indebted to his father, thats why he became a French teacher, just now he couldnt keep discipline. He worked withal at Air Ministry and Brunner and Mond chemical plant in Billingham. In 1920-21 he worked as a drama critic for Westmi nster Gazette and an abetter _or_ abettor at the Chelsea Book Club and the Cond Nast Publications. He married Maria Nys in 1919.Their that child, Matthew Huxley, was born in 1920. The family divided their time between Lon enter and Europe, for the close to part Italy and France, in the 1920s, and traveled around the world in 1925 and 1926, seeing India and reservation a first visit to the United States. He moved in 1937 with the guru-figure Gerald Heard to the UnitedStates, believing that the Californian climate would help his eyesight, which caused him problems all the time. A year later he with his family moved to Hollywood, where he became a screenwriter (among his films were also adaptations of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice).In the 1950s Huxley became famous for his interest in psychedelic or mind-expanding drugs like mescaline and LSD, which he plainly took a dozen times over ten years. In 1955died his wife Maria Huxley, and a year later hemarried Laura Archera. He died November 22, 1963, the same daylight that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in his pargonnts grave in England. In 1961 he suffered a severe loss when his house and his text file were totally destroyed in a bush-fire. On his deathbed, unable to speak, Huxley make a written request to his wife Laura for LSD, 100 g, intramuscular. Huxley died antique 69, on 22 of November, in 1963.Media coverage of Huxleys passing was overshadowed by the black lotion of President John F. Kennedy and the death of the British write C. S. Lewis, alln on the same day. Huxleys ashes were interred in the family grave at the Watts Cemetery, home of the Watts Mortuary chapel service in Compton, England. Aldous Huxley produced 47 books in his long cargoner as a writer. His most famous novels atomic number 18 Brand New World, Eyeless in Gaza, Ape and Essence, Island and After M any(prenominal) a Summer dies the Swan.The English critic Anthony Burg ess has said that he equipped the novel with a brain. other critics objected that he was a better essayist than novelist precisely because he c atomic number 18d frequently more or less(predicate) his ideas than intimately plot or characters, and his novels ideas often buy the farm in the way of the story.Novel After Many a Smmer Dies the Swan was written in 1939. Aldous had braved and worked in California for a year, so this satirical novel caricatures what he had seen as a strange life on that point. The novel won Huxley that years throng Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. In 1959 the Ameri go off Academy of humanistic discipline and Letters gave him the Award of Merit for the Novel, a prize attached e very(prenominal)(prenominal) five years rather recipients had been Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Mann, and Theodore Dreiser. I quest to confess, that I had never heard of this author and his novel before. In search of it, I decided that I want to read a work in origina l languageband because it is also a language course, I wanted to kick downstairs something in English, that I expectnt heard somewhat, that I get intot induce an opinion about. Something that can challenge me.In spite that this authors most famous novel is Brand NewWorld, I chosed After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, because this human action intrigued me. I essential say, that I wear outt feel disappointed after interpret this novel and I found very much quotations which made me to cipher more about THINGS. The action in this novel revolves around characters which are brought together by a Hollywood millionaire Jo Stoyte, who is in his sixities, after strokes and apprised of his mortality. In order to keep an eye on him and cure him, he has hired Dr. Sigmund Obispo, which is interested in researching the secrets of longlivity and no idications of obsolescence in animals, and his assistant beak Boone.Mr. Stoyte is supporting Dr. Obispos research. Mr. Jeremy Pordage is an E nglish archivist and literature expert, who is brought by Mr. Stoyte from England in order to memorial a rare collection of books. Mr. Pordages presence highlights Mr. Stoytes shallow attitude towards the infrequent works of art, that he can afford himself. Virginia Mounciple is Mr. Stoytes twenty-two year old mistress, who gives plea sure as shooting to the old man, secretly likes Dr. Obispo, and whos young assistant Peter is in love with. Mr. Propter is Jo Stoytes neighbour, who is nevertheless one of the characters who achieves supremacy and happiness, without upsetting anyone ar creating evil. All these characters have different life philosophies.Dr. Obispo places great faith in science and medicine as saviours of humankind. He sees everyone as a stepping stone to science, the greater good. According to Propters philosophy, he is trapped in ego-based human behaviour that pr notwithstandingts him from reaching enlightenment. Dr. Obispo seduces Virginia in a characteristically egotistic way. She is unable to resist him despite her loyalty to Mr. Stoyte. When she is found out by Stoyte, he wants to obliterate Dr. Obispo, but accidentally kills Peter instead. Dr. Obispo covers up the act for money and continued research support. This takes him, along with Virginia and Stoyte, to Europe, where they find an immortal human, the fifth Earl of Gonister, who is 200 years old and still a kick the bucket, but who now resembles an ape.Mr. Stoyte can non grasp that transcendence or goodness should be ones last goal, rather than prevention of death, and expresses his wish to undergo treatment so that he too willing experience forever. The story works scientific hunch forwardledge into a more traditional form of narrative. The evolutionary principle of neoteny has been invoked to inform the origin of human characteristics from ape ancestors. The storyline suggests that, if we stomachdlonger, we would continue to develop along the path of an ape and eventual ly be acquire ape-like.The story has been interpreted as the British Huxleys contemptuous nod to the Hearstian reality of the United States in the first part of the twentieth century Jo Stoyte is an allegory for William Randolph Hearst by his acquisitions of art and upkeep in an opulent estate similar to Hearst Castle with Virginia, who can be taken as a parody of Marion Davies. This novel has been adapted in theatre, cinema and radio. NBC University Theater radio made adaptation on 12 of December in 1948, starring Paul Henry and Alan Hale, Sr., with intermission commentary by Norman Cousins. In 1967 UK released 45- minute T movie After Many a Summer, directed by Douglas Camfield.Its story tells about an American millionaire who is searching for a magic potion, that will grant him without end life. In early 2000 the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation commissioned a 35-minute jump for the White Oak Dance Project called After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. The book is mentioned in the novella and film A undivided Man (2009), when George Falconer (Colin Firth) who is an English professor, one year after the abrupt death of his boyfriend, who is unable to cope with his typical days in sixties Los Angeles, takes an empty pistol and some notes alongside with this book in his briefcase.I moldiness say, that reading this novel was difficult, because of authors use of words, that are not acquainted in these days and special scholastic terminology, and because of that, I have feeling that I havent truly understood everything, but I suppose that it is normal, because I am wholly stu anxious(p) and I applyt have responsibility to know everything. In novel, there were a lot of philosophical and psychic feelings and ideas, so I chosed the most interesting and inspiring quotes for me, which all not reveals central plot of novel or main characters perception of life, but speaks about faith and philosophy, about life and death, about good and evil, about men personality and also biology. So now I will start to pull my favored quotes out of the story.Potential evil is in time potential good isnt. The longer you live, the more evil you automatically beat into contact with. naught comes automatically into contact with good. Men dont find more good by merely existing longer. Men have always wanted to live longer then they are supposed to, but it mostly isnt because they want to fulfil their life with compassion and generosity to others, to those, who need help, or to gain more knowledge. All they mostly want to achieve is barely their own, well, maybe sometimes also their families, goodness and wealthiness. Most of men only thinks of self-interest, but are they in truth inteded just for it.There must be something more for them (and us) in this life. All our life we are busy to make our plans and dreams to come true, and when our time has almost come to an end, we want to life longer to do something good. But why now, why we havent thought of it ea rlier? Because we didnt have time. But I must say, it is so public square argument. Time was all around us, but we didnt spend it concerning about and doing things that really matters. So, if you can extend your time, it doesnt mean that you will know how to spend it and find good. Time is evil, because it is slowly and consistently killing us.why do we fall when we jump out of a tenth-story window? Because the nature of things happens to be such that we do fall. I really liked this quote. It is so simple and obvious fact, but I have never thought of it, because it just happens so. This first sentence really sounds to me like wordplay. Why do we fall when we jump? Some will say it is because of gravity, and there is nix we can do about it. It is science. But maybe we are not created to do and desire whatever we want. Jumping or reaching for something we want, but dont need to get, achieve or gain is falling or maybe even salvation from it.Our misfortune is that we dont always sto p after fall, but instead we get back on that windowsill, despite our scars and bruises,and start looking down, searching for psyche to catch us or something we can land on. This, in my opinion, is human nature. We dont want to give up (ofcourse there are a loto f people who do give up, but that is already another story), we are stubborn, we know nature of things, but we are sure of that we can experiment and try to change it. Why should some animals live much longer than human beings and yet show no signs of old age.Somehow, somewhere we had made a biological mistake. This thought sound very interesting. We are cold the crown of nature, of all beings, but why is then do we live shorter lives than those, who are supposed to be below us . We are smarter, wiser, simply better than animals. Why dont we live longer, for instance, why could not we day at age of 200? And once again time is evil.It will last longer, but it will kill us anyway. And if we really, even obligatory, must li fe that long and become ape-likes, do we really want that? Would we like to become as Jo Stoyte, who doesnt care about anything at all? I wont. I think I would rather commit suicide, than become an animal. But question is what went wrong in our development? Who made the mistake? I cant rationalise why it is so, but I believe that it must be this way. We come into the world, we live and we die, and there is nothing wrong with it. It is nature of life. We are humans, we dont need interminable life. We are smart and capable, buti f we could have more time, I think we wont have any normal idea what to do with it. I believe that our world is prisonbreak apart, there are too much bad things, catastrophes, cold-blooded people, who are willing to do everything to make moore good for themselves.I would not like to live too long to witness all that what is going to happen and what we dont know a thing about. If youre always panicky of dying, youll for sure die. Fears a envenom and not such a slow poison either. This spoke to me too and it is connected with previous quotes and my thoughts. I dont really know statistics, but I think there are nearly equal amount of people who are scared of dying and who are not. I can include me in this not scared part. Why should I be scared? I know, I will die, sooner or later. I dont believe in any predictions, but once I filled test with title When you will die?. If it is true, it will happen on 16 of January, in 2016.So, it seems that I will be able to finish my studies and maybe even work for and half a year, and then Thats it I am gone, and how? In a car accident. But thank goodness, I dont have a drivers licence. I think it is obvious, that I am making fun of this. I dont believe I will day at age of 26. But if I will, I am not scared of it. I almost like my life, it isnt bad, but it always could be better, and if it becomes better untill 2016, then death bring it on I dont have self-destructive inclination. I am living here and now and I am suggesting others to do the same. Dont do stupid things and play with your destiny, but use our days, make them worth it. Thinking of dying will kill much faster.Dont be afraid of death, if it smells your idolize, it will track you down and kill you more painfully. There were a lot of nice quotations, but because of the pageboy limit (and if there wont be any, I would need much more to write everything I would like), I will only write some of them down without discussing. The real conditions at anygiven moment are the subjective conditions of the people then alive. On the human level. men live in ignorance, craving and fear. Ignorance, craving and fear result in some temporary pleasures, in many indestructible miseries, in final frustration. What is man? A nothingness surrounded by God, indigent and capable of God, filled with God, if he so desires.In finish I can say, that I was interested in these philosophical and eternal thoughts, proposed by the author . They are meaningful, they make me think and I consider that the greatest credit of studying.