After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: A Novel

Aldous Huxley

Jan 1993 · Ivan R. Dee

About this ebook

A Hollywood millionaire with a terror of death, whose personal physician happens to be working on a theory of longevity-these are the elements of Aldous Huxley's caustic and entertaining satire on man's desire to live indefinitely. With his customary wit and intellectual sophistication, Huxley pursues his characters in their quest for the eternal, finishing on a note of horror. "This is Mr. Huxley's Hollywood novel, and you might expect it to be fantastic, extravagant, crazy and preposterous. It is all that, and heaven and hell too....It is the kind of novel that he is particularly the master of, where the most extraordinary and fortuitous events are followed by contemplative little essays on the meaning of life....The story is outrageously good."—New York Times. "A highly sensational plot that will keep astonishing you to practically the final sentence."—The New Yorker. "Mr. Huxley's elegant mockery, his cruel aptness of phrase, the revelations and the ingenious surprises he springs on the reader are those of a master craftsman; Mr. Huxley is at the top of his form." —London Times Literary Supplement.

Ratings and reviews

This book is a dark satire of the search to live forever and an attack on other ideals of man(material, political, religious, patriotic) that have failed repeatedly without any resulting enlightenment.I felt that the long winded philosophizing by Propter slowed the story down a great deal and could've been trimmed considerably.Huxley provides plenty of laughs though, and his mockery of man's selfishness at the expense of spiritual awakening remains relevant.

About the author

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), one of the most important English novelists of the twentieth century, is best known for A Brave New World and other novels and short stories, including Ape and Essence and Collected Short Stories, both published by Ivan R. Dee.