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Ape and Essence

3.74 of 5 stars 3.74 · rating details · 1,717 ratings · 102 reviews

In this savage novel Huxley transports us to Los Angeles in the year 2018, where we learn to our dismay about the 21st-century way of life.

Paperback, 213 pages

Published August 1st 1992 by Ivan R. Dee Publisher (first published 1948)

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Feb 23, 2013 Arielle rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia-and-post-apocalypse, fantasy-unusual, favourites, speculative-fiction, vintage, want-to-make-into-film

Though I adored Brave New World, I had quite honestly never even heard of Ape and Essence. Never again will I make the mistake of relegating an author to the "one-book-wonder" list. This little 150 page book is so strange, eerie, beautiful and perfect it has gone straight into my all-time favourites list.

It is clear from Brave New World that Huxley had a huge problem with the egotistical nationalism of modern society. Ape and Essence takes this view to an extreme, and though I agreed with many...more Though I adored Brave New World, I had quite honestly never even heard of Ape and Essence. Never again will I make the mistake of relegating an author to the "one-book-wonder" list. This little 150 page book is so strange, eerie, beautiful and perfect it has gone straight into my all-time favourites list.

It is clear from Brave New World that Huxley had a huge problem with the egotistical nationalism of modern society. Ape and Essence takes this view to an extreme, and though I agreed with many of his points, it was the unusual and eloquent way of getting them across that really made me fall in love.

The story is told in two sections. The first, only 25 pages long, is from the point of view of a screen writer who finds a rejected screenplay entitled "Of Ape and Essence" and goes on a journey to meet the author. The second, much longer part is the transcription of this screenplay. It details how the world has been destroyed through atomic warfare, and human-kind worship the devil, "Beliel", as they cannot face the idea that they are in fact to blame for their own destruction. Such an inherently human trait, the fear of guilt, the need to feel blameless. I suppose this is where the term "scapegoat" comes in handy.

The prose is strange and quite beautiful, with a narrator who speaks in poetry, and details that come from the "screenplay" nature of the work. Potential soundtracks are mentioned, or details such as "close-up on..." or "wide shot of...", "Voices fade out as Narrator speaks again".

The themes are all politically charged, a warning against selfish hedonism and, equally, deprivation and self harm caused by religion and patriotism. Lines include "Church and State, Greed and Hate:- Two baboon-persons In one Supreme Gorilla." and "The longer you study modern history, the more evidence you find of Beliel's Guiding Hand."

It is really hard to write a short review of this book, as it would be so easy to write an essay-like discussion of the ideas about religion, war, politics etc, but I think to do so would in fact be detrimental to the book itself. I will leave the in depth analysis to a possible future thesis, but by not going in depth there is little more to say here other than this is a book that begs for many more readings, and I will do so very happily.(less)

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Apr 11, 2013 Alex Akesson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: re-reading

Re-reading my precious 1st edition

page 51 "Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains in the bum or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, that there aren’t any windows. And now the thing bears down on him. He feels a hand on his sleeve, smells a stinking breath, as the executioner’s assistant leans almost amorously toward him. “Your...more

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Jan 29, 2008 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: DEVO fans, 1930's musical fans, sci-fi Hollywood types

Shelves: 20th-century-blues

While I was reading this book I laughed and realized this is where DEVO got all their shit from. Huxley, back in the 1930's said (in this brilliant novel) that while we technologically advance we will behave more and more like crazed apes..."The Truth Behind De-Evolution". I'm sure the Mothersbaugh and Casale Brothers read this book more than a few times when they attended Kent State in Ohio.

Huxley switches time span gears like crazy, veering from a Darwinian 1930's Busby Berkeley musical to a...more

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Apr 02, 2013 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Another great take on where's society is headed, Huxley presents this in two very lopsided chapters; the former dealing with the finding of a rejected screenplay and the quest to find the writer, and the actual screenplay itself. Another of his dystopian works, it takes place in a post-nuclear Los Angeles, where society has crumbled into a superstitious, misogynistic, and quite evil society after only 2 generations. Without going into the plot too deeply, the basic moral is that the razor-thin v...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Boris Limpopo rated it 2 of 5 stars

Aldous Huxley (1949). Ape and Essence. London: Vintage. 2005. ISBN 9781409079668. Pagine 176. 6,01 €

Aldous Huxley è un autore che mi piace molto: Brave New World è e resta la mia distopia preferita, ho molto amato Chrome Yellow (se non l’avete letto, attualmente è gratis su Kindle) ma soprattutto Point Counter Point è stato il libro per eccellenza di un periodo (burrascoso) della mia vita. Naturale, quindi, che potessi essere tentato da un libro di Huxley, pur sapendo che correvo qualche rischio...more Aldous Huxley (1949). Ape and Essence. London: Vintage. 2005. ISBN 9781409079668. Pagine 176. 6,01 €

Aldous Huxley è un autore che mi piace molto: Brave New World è e resta la mia distopia preferita, ho molto amato Chrome Yellow (se non l’avete letto, attualmente è gratis su Kindle) ma soprattutto Point Counter Point è stato il libro per eccellenza di un periodo (burrascoso) della mia vita. Naturale, quindi, che potessi essere tentato da un libro di Huxley, pur sapendo che correvo qualche rischio (Huxley è un autore discontinuo, che ha scritto anche delle solenni porcate), soprattutto dopo averne sentito parlare 2 volte a poche settimane di distanza.

La prima volta mi ero imbattuto in quest’opera minore di Huxley a partire dalla scoperta della lettera inviata da Huxley a Orwell nell’ottobre del 1949 (trovata su Letters of Note e da me riportata nel già citato post sulla distopia). La seconda nel libro di George Dyson Turing’s Cathedral, che non ho ancora terminato di leggere, e che fa iniziare così (un po’ a sproposito per la verità):

“THE CAMERA MOVES across the sky, and now the black serrated shape of a rocky island breaks the line of the horizon. Sailing past the island is a large, four-masted schooner. We approach, we see that the ship flies the flag of New Zealand and is named the Canterbury. Her captain and a group of passengers are at the rail, staring intently toward the east. We look through their binoculars and discover a line of barren coast.”
Thus begins Ape and Essence, Aldous Huxley’s lesser-known masterpiece, set in the Los Angeles of 2108, after a nuclear war (in the year 2008) has devastated humanity’s ability to reproduce high-fidelity copies of itself. On the twentieth of February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition North America arrives among the Channel Islands off the California coast. The story is presented, in keeping with the Hollywood location, in the form of a film script. “New Zealand survived and even modestly flourished in an isolation which, because of the dangerously radioactive condition of the rest of the world, remained for more than a century almost absolute. Now that the danger is over, here come its first explorers, rediscovering America from the West.” [6369-6429]

Lesser-known masterpiece! Non direi proprio, dopo averlo letto, ingannato dal giudizio di George Dyson. A dirla tutta, adesso, ho il sospetto che Dyson il libro di Huxley non l’abbia neppure letto per intero.

Anche se il libro nel complesso è mal riuscito e indisponente, Huxley è pur sempre un autore intelliugente e raffinato, e qualche perla ce la dispensa:

Tragedy is the farce that involves our sympathies; farce, the tragedy that happens to outsiders. [1080]

[…] Copulation resulted in population—with a vengeance!’ [2004]

[…] Fouling the rivers, killing off the wild animals, destroying the forests, washing the topsoil into the sea, burning up an ocean of petroleum, squandering the minerals it had taken the whole of geological time to deposit. An orgy of criminal imbecility. And they called it Progress. Progress,’ he repeats, ‘Progress!
[…]
Progress — the theory that you can get something for nothing; the theory that you can gain in one field without paying for your gain in another; the theory that you alone understand the meaning of history; the theory that you know what’s going to happen fifty years from now; the theory that, in the teeth of all experience, you can foresee all the consequences of your present actions; the theory that Utopia lies just ahead and that, since ideal ends justify the most abominable means, it is your privilege and duty to rob, swindle, torture, enslave and murder all those who, in your opinion (which is, by definition, infallible), obstruct the onward march to the earthly paradise. Remember that phrase of Karl Marx’s: “Force is the midwife of Progress”? He might have added—but, of course, Belial didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag at that early stage of the proceedings — that Progress is the midwife of Force. [2031-2039]

For a moment Dr. Poole hesitates between the inhibitory recollection of his Mother, the fidelity to Loola prescribed by all the poets and novelists, and the warm, elastic Facts of Life. After about four seconds of moral conflict, he chooses, as we might expect, the Facts of Life. [2368](less)

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Nov 20, 2011 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Well if Hux were around to day perhaps he'd be amazed how close we're coming to this (less well-known than BNW) negative Utopia. In a world where crotchless thongs are marketed to 9-year- olds, college coaches (as well as priests) sodomize boys-not-yet-men, women advertise themselves via the internet promising no more than a cooling effluvia of ejaculata, and countless millions of might-have-been love stories are food for salt, blood, and tears; it might not be such a far stretch to conclude hi...more Well if Hux were around to day perhaps he'd be amazed how close we're coming to this (less well-known than BNW) negative Utopia. In a world where crotchless thongs are marketed to 9-year- olds, college coaches (as well as priests) sodomize boys-not-yet-men, women advertise themselves via the internet promising no more than a cooling effluvia of ejaculata, and countless millions of might-have-been love stories are food for salt, blood, and tears; it might not be such a far stretch to conclude his vision of a world corrupted to the celebration of pain rather than joy is now yet well nigh.
It's a world a hundred years hence (2108) where the third- generational survivors of a nuclear & biological holocaust live in a latter-day Los Angeles devoted to the worship of -the Devil-. No need for high tech suction machines here, the infant young are dispatched before the eyes of their cowed and degraded mothers with an easy low-tech solution- the knife. Work is all the de-sexualized drones know, but for two weeks of the year- when the infants resulting from the 9-months-prior orgies which don't conform to standards (seven toes, three sets of breasts, & that's OK- but more than that & off to the axe-man) are dispatched, and subsequently the entire community take part in compulsory loveless sex which will, in another nine months, lead to yet another harvest for the priests of Belial. Because they have not the technology to do anything but else, they clothe themselves by digging up the dead of the previous century and wear their clothing. The protagonist, who came west from untouched New Zealand, where such quaint things as railroads, Christian churches, and regular crops still exist, is eventually (but not completely) convinced by the logic of a high-priest that it's best he make his own peace with Belial- or else... & no I won't spoil the ending.
If this is freaky enough for you, perhaps you'll read it yourself and draw your own conclusions. I would certainly not recommend it to the squeamish.
Huxley was not really aiming at shocking people for shock's sake, through his work, but to make them aware of the possibilities and consequences of a world where blind faith in science took precedence over values, a nuclear war might have only been inevitable when human ideals were being sacrificed to militarism, and the threat of annihilation only grew worse between 1945 and the year Huxley died (1963). While people often cast him as a cynic, actually he happened to have a great deal of hope in humanity, being one of the century's premier humanists. It's a brooding book that will keep you reading and thinking it over for a good whiles.(less)

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Jul 27, 2011 Harrison rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Says the Arch-Vicar in Huxley's post-apocalyptic America: "I tell you, my dear sir, an undevout historian is mad. The longer you study modern history, the more evidence you find of Belial's Guiding Hand. . . . And then there was Nationalism - the theory that the state you happen to be subject to is the only true god, and that all other states are false gods; that all these gods, true as well as false, have the mentality of juvenile delinquents; and that every conflict over prestige, power or mon...more

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Aug 30, 2009 Tony Gleeson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Aldous Huxley is somewhat of an acquired literary taste-- I never cared for "Brave new World" as much as many of my compatriots. But I felt I finally owed myself to read this after promising to do so for decades. "Ape and Essence" has been called Huxley's re-thinking of "Brave New World" in the light of Hiroshima. It's a dystopian fantasy of America post-nuclear holocaust, presented in the charming form of a screenplay. The prelude to the actual story is a sardonic scene involving two Hollywood...more

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Aug 14, 2009 Esther rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent! The premise is that two film makers in a futuristic L.A. find a film manuscript titled Ape and Essence and go to the address listed looking for the author. Alas, the author has passed away so we move on to reading the manuscript. It is LA in 2108 in a post nuclear holocaust world. A group of scientist from New Zeleand land on the shores of southern California and encounter a fallout society that is cruel and violently patriarchical. This society follows a demonic cult and has yearly c...more

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Apr 02, 2009 Nam rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: weirdos

Ape and Essence (Harper and Row, NYC, 1948)

I didn't even know that Aldous Huxley had written this. Found it on a 25 cent cart at the hospital while at work. As per Huxley it deals with utopian or not, approaches to futuristic concepts. Not really Sci-Fi but take a Brave New World, for instance. I personally have always loved Doors of Perception, however this book is short, inspiring and challenging in its picture of human (de)volution. One idea that I had never thought of, within a survivalist c...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Gerald rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

I didn't always appreciate (have enough knowledge to understand) Aldous's vague learned references like, "A modern day Lord Chesire would have defined this absurdist pre-modern zietgeist as crudely as true Aristotelian Ethics demanded. One proverbial foot would be dangling into the pseudo-Homerian Garden of Lost Souls while another floated through Brunsweiller's third symphonic gesture, allegory and all, with Lord Byronesque apathetic aspiration. As I looked upon the Arigulan Romantic with the c...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Smcleish rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here.

When I came across Ape and Essence in the local library, I was surprised. I like Huxley, and I have read a lot of science fiction, but here was a science fiction novel by Huxley I'd never heard of before, let alone read.

On reading it, the reason that Ape and Essence is comparatively obscure is pretty clear. It is, firstly, not a conventional novel. It purports to be a short description of the discovery of a film script in a Hollywood studio's reject file, fol...more Originally published on my blog here.

When I came across Ape and Essence in the local library, I was surprised. I like Huxley, and I have read a lot of science fiction, but here was a science fiction novel by Huxley I'd never heard of before, let alone read.

On reading it, the reason that Ape and Essence is comparatively obscure is pretty clear. It is, firstly, not a conventional novel. It purports to be a short description of the discovery of a film script in a Hollywood studio's reject file, followed by the script in question. Huxley himself worked in Hollywood as a script writer, unsuccessfully: the story, retold in David Bradshaw's short biography printed as the introduction to this edition, is that Walt Disney rejected a synopsis of Alice in Wonderland, explaining that he "could only understand every third word". The pairing of Disney and Huxley is incongruous in itself, without wondering what the eventual author of The Doors of Perception might have made of Lewis Carroll - and what the children who watched a Disney cartoon using the script would have thought of the result. On the basis of the screenplay incorporated in this book, it would not have been one of the studio's greatest successes.

Ape and Essence, the screenplay, is a post-apocalyptic story, set in a devastated Los Angeles in 2108, decades after a nuclear war, on the occasion of the landing there of an exploratory mission from New Zealand, which was isolated enough to escape destruction. The savages who now inhabit the ruined city interpret the war as the time when Satan took control of the earth, and they are first encountered looting the graves in an exclusive cemetery. Their purpose in the story is almost too clearly satirical: there is no real subtlety here. The theology of the savages, who are portrayed at one point performing a ritual in praise of Satan, is something which would probably provoke protests even today if a film were ever made of this script.

Controversial material is not the only problem with Ape and Essence. The script has a large role for an off-screen narrator, who is very pretentious, almost to the point of parody, drawing conclusions about how the real events of 1948 lead into the world depicted as its future. The voice is similar to the best-skipped introductory essays which George Bernard Shaw added to many of his plays, especially that in Back to Methuselah, which also depicts the future of humanity. The narrator is irritating even in the script; in a cinema I think it would be unbearable, and makes me wonder whether Huxley had been to any films since sound came in. There's also a kind of masque forming the first section of the screenplay, a symbolic drama featuring baboons and multiple Albert Einsteins which is very dated, and might well have seemed so in 1948, even though its subject matter is firmly post-Hiroshima.

The title is picked up in the body of the script, most clearly on p. 55: "Only in the knowledge of his own Essence has any man ceased to be many monkeys." Huxley's point in Ape and Essence is to discuss the relationship between the bestial and civilised parts of human nature, and what he wants the reader to pick up is that it is only by understanding that he or she has a bestial side that it is possible to have any hope of overcoming it. It is a potentially pessimistic point of view, and motivates a thoroughly pessimistic tale. There are some good lines in the story, but generally, anything of interest in Ape and Essence has already been said better in Brave New World.(less)

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Jan 17, 2013 Michael Warren rated it 5 of 5 stars

Huxley is sadly only regularly associated with two works. Either the disutopic Brave New World or the psychedelic cult classic, Doors of Perception. In my opinion, his abilities as a writer cannot be realized with only those two titles.
Ape and Essence is a dis-utopia that is seemingly a direct response to the use of atomic weapons by the United States. The book is short and concise but creates vivid imagery as it is written as a screen play that had been discarded by some Hollywood executive.
Wh...more

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Mar 10, 2011 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Two motion picture executives stumble across a screenplay in the lot. The majority of the book is the text of that document. It is about a future era, post World War III, when the residents of Southern California worship the devil and sex is outlawed except for two weeks once per year. The resulting infants are increasingly more deformed due to radiation fallout. The action of the 'film' seems to be mostly an excuse to espouse the philosophy that human kind, following the Second World War were i...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Jordan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Huxley starts this novel with two Hollywood types discovering a screenplay by William Tallis. They track him down only to find out that he has passed on, and the rest of the novel is his screenplay. Taking place in the year 2108 we come to find that there has been a Third World War and North America and other parts of the world have been nuked. The danger of the radiation has subsided and people are beginning to explore these parts of the world. The main character Dr. Alfred Poole happens to be...more

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May 24, 2007 Travis rated it 5 of 5 stars

a departure for Huxley- detractors need understand the desires/needs of a mind of his caliber to stave stagnation and venture from time to time. pleasingly idiosyncratic, weighted with texture and gravity of subject.

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May 14, 2012 Shreya Sridharan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I can't really determined what to think about this book.
What I love about Huxley is the fact that he can think about the future, the human society in ways nobody else can. But this book was...almost predictable. I couldn't find any reason why women were considered evil incarnate in this book. In a way, it really seemed like Huxley decided to revisit the times of geographical discovery- the first time white men discovered America or even Africa.
Maybe this is how he saw it. It is a big deal that...more

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Apr 26, 2009 Christina rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of 1984, Faranheit 451, rabblerousers...

I loved this book! So many reasons why, but the most obvious reason being the fact that it took place in a post-apocalyptic world where people were supressed and controlled by those in charge. I cannot even tell you how many times I have read books with the same theme and I am still enthralled every single time. Huxely puts a good small irony at the ending which makes it worth the quick read. And the having the story within the story is an excellent difference too. I can see the similarities bet...more

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Apr 19, 2010 Dennis rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, 1940s

Not sure what to say about this one. A weird little post-apocalyptic romance of sorts. A sci-fi reaction to Hiroshima. Dark, surreal, and at times funny, though I'm not entirely sure elements of the structure--particularly the screenplay's bizarre narrator, the Camera pans--always work. There's something about it where the characters feel flat in relation to Huxley's ideas or message, but at the same time I appreciate the absurdity of it all. Slightly reminiscent of early Vonnegut, which obvious...more

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Sep 09, 2010 Frank Jude rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Frank Jude by: Jeff Sewall

Shelves: fiction-novels

Another dystopian tale from Aldous Huxley, Ape And Essence offers a terrifying vision of humanity's possible future. While the vision may seem a bit over-the-top in some particulars, the explanation of just how 'mankind' could end up in such a debased state sounds all too possible! There are folk 'out there' that had they their druthers, their actions would get us to such a state!

That said, as a novel, the screenplay technique doesn't really cut it, so I took off one star for failed form!

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Nov 24, 2011 Jillian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, ots-challenge, post-apoc, dystopian

After witnessing the horrors of World War II, Huxley adapted his fears and predictions about the future of humanity. Instead of the advanced technology and drugged ignorance of Brave New World (pub 1932), the fictitious movie script that takes up most of Ape and Essence (pub 1948) focuses on a small tribe of deformed nuclear war survivors who, after watching society destroy itself and its environment, have given into their bestial and Belial natures.

As expected, Huxley delivers insightful and t...more

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Dec 28, 2010 BGP rated it 2 of 5 stars

Ape and Essence is a brief, bizarre, and ludicrously overwritten work of dystopian fiction. The book follows the discovery and full recital of a mysterious play; a play which was almost certainly written by Huxley while under the influence of a particularly foul hallucinogenic substance. Serious fans of Huxley and the dystopian sub-genre of science fiction may find the book worth pursuing, but I cannot honestly say that I would recommend it to any man, woman or child...

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Feb 08, 2012 Robyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian, hard-going-in-places, surreal, reviewed, religion-and-spirituality

I'm honestly not sure what to feel about this book. The first thing to note is that it's not nearly as accessible as Brave New World. It's much less straight forward, more surreal, and sometimes I felt that a thesaurus vomited on a few pages of it. It's not an easy book to follow, and there were some parts I really didn't understand until I started reading about it online.

However, once you get into the swing, and you figure out who's doing what (I had to go back and reread a few times to sort s...more

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Nov 13, 2011 James MacIntyre rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

a great surrealist, satirical mini-dystopia.

Huxley's time as a screen writer in Hollywood was clearly influential, with the majority of the text taking the form of a script from a fictional character.

the script itself is similar to BNW insofar as it envisions a much changed earth; this time because of nuclear war. This time, the ideologies of religion are more the focus, as well as mankind's self-destructive nature

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Mar 14, 2011 Joe Stamber rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2000s

I bought this after reading and enjoying the better known Brave New World. It's presented in an unusual way, based on someone finding a script which then forms the basis of the book. As with BNW, it has a futuristic setting, about some scientists travelling to a post nuclear city and what they find. For me, it didn't have the charm of BNW. It's quite short, and I think I may have enjoyed more had AH fleshed it out a bit more.

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Jan 31, 2011 Stephen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Story wise this book was pretty interesting, but that's pretty much all it had. It just wasn't par with other Huxley novels I've read (Brave New World, The Devil's of Loudun). I loved the setting (I'm a huge fan of anything dystopian/post-apocalyptic) but I felt short changed; that deep intellectual element that I find in most Huxley novels just wasn't there.

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Aug 09, 2011 Boti rated it 3 of 5 stars

A small group of scientists from New Zealand re-explore the coasts of California after the WW3. One of them is captured by the savage descendants of the survivors. He gets to learn their barbaric society, Satanist religion, and eugenic way of reproduction. Although Huxley didn't really utilize the potential of the story, it's still worth reading.

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Nov 07, 2012 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Having never read anything by Huxley besides "Brave New World," I was not sure what to expect. I'm pleasantly surprised. Huxley manages to build a whole different type future with this book and tells its story in an interesting way. While it can get a little heavy-handed at times, the bulk of this reads like watching a movie and still manages to integrate poetry, dialogue, and straight narration into the flow of things. I need to dig more into some Huxley deep cuts if the rest of his work is any...more

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Dec 13, 2008 michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

my mom had this book hanging around the house along with some Dostoevsky novels, some other existential garbage, and Doobie Brothers records, all presumably leftovers from college. never made it through the latter (except the Doobs), but i liked this one. started my fascination with LA dystopia.

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Mar 12, 2009 Andrew rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have little to say about this book, Except that I loved the narration style (it is actually a book about a screenplay). In that, it captures the spirit of hollywood dreaming. I have reread this book a couple times because it is so good, and a one night read.

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About Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. Through his novels and es...more

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“Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains in the bum or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, that there aren’t any windows. And now the thing bears down on him. He feels a hand on his sleeve, smells a stinking breath, as the executioner’s assistant leans almost amorously toward him. “Your turn next, brother. Kindly step this way.” And in an instant his quiet terror is transmuted into a frenzy as violent as it is futile. There is no longer a man among his fellow men, no longer a rational being speaking articulately to other rational beings; there is only a lacerated animal, screaming and struggling in the trap. For in the end fear casts out even a man’s humanity. And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life. Fear of the much touted technology which, while it raises out standard of living, increases the probability of our violently dying. Fear of the science which takes away the one hand even more than what it so profusely gives with the other. Fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for while, in our suicidal loyalty, we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the Great Men whom we have raised, and by popular acclaim, to a power which they use, inevitably, to murder and enslave us. Fear of the war we don’t want yet do everything we can to bring about.” — 60 people liked it

“The leech's kiss, the squid's embrace,
The prurient ape's defiling touch:
And do you like the human race?
No, not much.” — 26 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30561.Ape_and_Essence?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348743676l/30561.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30561.Ape_and_Essence?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Ape and Essence by Aldous Huxley[/url]

Ape and Essence

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