Give a brief life-sketch of Aldous Huxley.

Ans.

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894. He was a British writer who later on migrated to America. Huxley was best known for his novels and wide-ranging writing of essays. Besides, he published short stories, poetry and travel writing. It is interesting to know that he was a famous writer of film stories and scripts. In his novels and essays. Huxley functioned as social critic. He promoted ideals. His basic concern was humanism. But, ultimately, he became quite interested in “spiritual” subjects. He worked in para-psychology and philosophical mysticism. He wrote about them with an open mind. Huxley is regarded as a ‘leader of modern thought.”

Birth and Education

Aldous Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in Godalming, Surrey, England. His father was the writer and professional herbalist Leonard Huxley. Aldous was his son by his first wife, Julia Arnold. Aldous was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, who was one of the most reputed naturalists of the 19th Century. He was known as “Darwin’s Bulldog”. Aldous’s brother Julian Huxley was also a noted biologist.

Aldous Huxley’s early education began in his father’s well-equipped botanical laboratory. It continued in a school called Hillside. His mother used to supervise it. Later on she became terminally ill. From the age of nine, Aldous was educated at Eton College.

Setbacks

Aldous Huxley’s mother died in 1908. Aldous was fourteen. Unfortunately his sister Roberta died of an unrelated incident in the same month. Three years later Aldous suffered from a serious illness. It affected his sight and left him practically blind for two to three years. Aldous’s blindness made him disqualified from service in World War I. Once his eyesight recovered sufficiently, he began to read English literature at Balliol College, Oxford.

Earning While Learning

His education at Balliol was very expensive. Huxley was financially indebted to his father. To continue studies, Aldous had to earn a living. For a short while he was employed at many places. But he never desired a career in administration or in business. Huxley decided to earn his living by doing literary work.

It is wonderful that Huxley completed his first unpublished novel at the age of seventeen. The success encouraged him and he began writing seriously in his early twenties. His earlier work includes important novels on the scientific progress. His aim was to high-light its inhuman aspect. His most famous novel on the subject was Brave New World. Huxley was so strongly influenced by F. Matthias Alexander that he included him as a character in Eyeless in Gaza.

Progress: In Life and Literature

It was the period of World War I. Huxley spent much of his time at Garsington Manor, home of Lady Ottoline Morrell. She influenced him so greatly that in Chrome Yellow, he caricatured her and the Garsington life style. Huxley married Maria Nys. He had met her at Garsington. They had one child, Matthew. Huxley. Now he was in search of a new horizon and therefore, in 1937, Huxley moved to Hollywood, California with his wife Maria and friend Gerald Heard. During this period, Huxley wrote Ends and Means; in this novel he stressed the fact that all people in modern civilization want a world of ‘liberty, peace, justice and brotherly love’, but nobody knows how to achieve it.

Blessing of Natural Vision

Huxley’s eyesight was poor. In 1939, Huxley took the Bates Method for Natural Vision Improvement. In 1940, Huxley claimed his sight improved dramatically as a result of using the Bates Method. In an exercise he had utilized the extreme and pure natural lighting of the South Western American desert. He reported that for the first time in over 25 years, he was able to read well. He attempted at driving a car along the dirt road. He wrote a book on the Bates Method. The Art of Seeing. It was published in 1942 in America.

Sense of Self-Respect

In later years, when World War II was over, Huxley applied for United States citizenship. But was denied because he would not say he would take up arms to defend America. Yet he remained in America in 1959, he turned down an offer of a knight Bachelor by the Macmillan government.

Mysticism and Psychology

During the 1950s, Huxley took interest in the field of psychical research also. His later works are strongly influenced by both mysticism and psychology. Indeed Huxley was a pioneer of taking drug in a search for enlightenment. His drug experiences are described in the essays The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell.

Curse of Cancer

In 1955, Huxley’s wife, Maria suffered from breast cancer and died in 1956: He remarried a young writer Laura Archera, who wrote a biography of Huxley. In 1960, Huxley himself was diagnosed with cancer. He wrote the utopian novel Island, and gave lectures on ‘Human Potentialities’.

Death

On his deathbed, unable to speak, Huxley made a written request to his wife for the drug he used to take. She obliged, and he died peacefully the following morning. November 22, 1963. Amongst humanists, Huxley was considered an intellectual. His books were frequently on the required reading lists of English and modern philosophy courses in American colleges and universities. He was one of the twentieth-century thinkers honoured in the Scribners Publishing’s Leaders of Modern Thought series.

Originality of Thought

Huxley impresses with his originality of thought. He is a daring writer in this sense, otherwise, mostly writers seem to support the already established theory. For example everybody seems to approve Wordsworth’s philosophy of Nature. Huxley points out a fact that in civilized countries Nature has mostly been defeated and enslaves. There are wild woods and mountains, marshes and heaths, even in England. But they are more like picnic spots than places of fear. The inhabitants of the tropics have no such comfort. For us, the idea of ‘river’ implies the idea of ‘bridge’ also. For them it is difficulty or a struggle. We, who lived in civilized countries, think of everything with full development of agriculture, towns, good roads, tunnels, and railway. Rivers imply swimming. But those who live in undeveloped area, find that every place is full of fevers, dangers labour and venomous darkness. ‘God made the country’, said Cowper, in New Guinea he would have longed for the man-made town.

Contribution to Literature

Aldous Huxley contributed to various forms of literature. The prominent among them are: novels, short-stories, poetry, travel-writing, essays, philosophy, biography and non fiction. Besides, he wrote for children also.

Novels

Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay, (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), Point Counter Point (1928), Brave New World (1932), Eyeless in Gaza (1936), After Many a Summer (1939), Time Must Have a Stop (1944). Ape and Essence (1948), The Genius and the Goddess (1955). Island (1962).

Essays

On the Margin (1923), Along the Road (1925), Essays New and Old (1926). Proper Studies (1927). Do What You Will (1929). Vulgarity in Literature (1930), Music at Night (1931), Texts and Pretexts (1932), The Olive Tree (1936), Ends and Means (1937), Words and their Meanings (1940). The Art of Seeing (1942). The Perennial Philosophy (1945), Science, Liberty and Peace (1946). Themes and Variations (1950). Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1952).