Two or three graces: four stories,

by Aldous Huxley

Two or Three Graces (1926), Aldous Huxley's fourth collection of short fiction, consists of the following four short pieces:
"Two or Three Graces"
"Half Holiday"
"The Monocle"
"Fairy Godmother"

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Classics

First published January 1, 1926

About the author

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't necessarily love the stories themselves so much plotwise, but I just love the writing itself and find his descriptions of social interactions so amusing. He's also eerily good at creating the sort of inner dialogue generated by the insecure and young.

Possibly my favorite sentence from this book [describing a slap on the back by a gregarious lout at a party:]:

"His body emitted the drumlike thud of a patted retriever."

Anyone who has ever been trapped in the presence of an inveterate talker will appreciate the description of Peddley, at the beginning of the first story (which also contains a bonus gem explaining those people who want to stay friends with their entire elementary school class).

[Andra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The characters ...they are so childish...they are strong characters, meaning they really are quite something. I think Huxley's intention was to create an absurd piece. The characters are ignorant, everyone in his way. It's quite fun to read this. When you think the main character was surrounding itself with people like that it's quite funny how boring and bored he was.

[Una · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Two or three graces' is a writing experiment.
Unbalanced; the author bounces between (character) anatomisation and ignorance or superficial depiction.
Sometimes you 'read' a character vivisection interlaced with poorly described action. It creates the impression of an unfinished painting, where some details are very meticulously drawn, and everything else is utterly blurry.

However, Huxley succeeded to create some pretty literary artifices: behavior anticipation due to character representation; a (super)thorough (psychological, moral, physical) portrait for the main character; emphases on key words or key human traits - helpful for main idea understanding.

Not a re-readable work; though I think it is worth it for the sake of experiment.

(There's a very subtle link between Huxley's Grace(s) and Eliade's story 'Three Graces'. Very very very subtle :))

[Ant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little read. Four small stories, written in Huxley's early style, full of razor sharp cynicism and character dissection. Highly comical and and thoughtful. The major story, the name of the collection, clearly the best of them.

[Tinytim Timea · Rating 3 out of 5]

E o carte ”bunicică” ce lasă loc de multă hermeneutică. Având în vedere că Huxley alege narațiunea la persoana I, că te obligă să te identifici cu povestitorul, de unde avem expunerea asta de ”tablou în tablou” (povestea lui Grace este spusă de Wilkes, așa cum a trăit-o el, din perspectiva observatorului), cred că drept ar fi să presupunem un ”ceva de spus”. Dacă analiza interioară - poate un fel de psihanaliză?!? - a personajelor nu ar fi atât de atentă, dacă nu am vedea aievea toate acele trăsături psihice pe care Huxley le descrie cu atâta răbdare, povestirea ar putea părea un joc al absurdului. Nu cred că e cazul, ci mai degrabă aș bănui o încercare a lui Huxley de a-și face autocritica: intelectualul englez de la începutul secolului 20, cercurile ”înalte” pe care le frecventează, toate ”pseudo-problemele” de care boemii Londrei ”suferă”, totul pentru a ascunde un gol imens, un gol de care suferă însuși povestitorul - cel care, în definitiv, a acordat atât de multă atenție și analiză unor episoade amoroase, la care a luat parte, așa cum el însuși declară, din postura unchiului Pandarus.
E o scriere lejeră, ce nu pretinde mult timp sau efort, o companie plăcută pentru o dupămasă liniștită de duminică!

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cuvântul „pisălog” are o etimologie îndoielnică. Unii oameni, care sunt cunoscători în materie, afirmă că acest cuvânt ar deriva de la verbul care exprimă noţiunea de a zdrobi, de a pătrunde – prin străduinţa loviturilor continue. Un pisălog este individul care încearcă să pătrundă dincolo prin gândurile cuiva, ca prin ceva materializat, cel care-ţi răscoleşte neostenit îndelunga răbdare, căutând să răzbească prin straturile de voită surzenie, lipsă de atenţie şi căutată indiferenţă politicoasă, cu care zadarnic încerci să te aperi, căci el te pisează mereu şi neostenit, până când reuşeşte să pătrundă în intimitatea fiinţei tale. Sunt însă şi alţi cunoscători în materie care afirmă că acest cuvânt derivă de la franţuzescul bourrer, a înfunda, a îndopa, a sătura. Dacă această derivaţie ar fi corectă, atunci pisălogul este cel care te îndoapă cu peroraţiile lui greoaie şi plicticoase, care caută să-ţi bage cu sila pe gât personalitatea lui, ca pe nişte bulgări de seu pe care esofagul refuză să le înghită. Cu alte cuvinte te îndoapă, iar tu – ca să întrebuinţăm o metaforă intrată în domeniul public, „începi să te saturi de el”.

[Lavinia · Rating 1 out of 5]

My poor translated copy contains only one of the 4 stories (Two or three graces), but that's enough because it's got nothing spectacular. There's probably a reason why this is one of Huxley's obscure writings.

[Grace Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

not a long book and overlooked by some of huxley's other classics, BUT a must-read in the realm of character studies, with some truly sharp personality analyses - made wittier by the novel's brevity! everyone - whether introverted or extroverted - would benefit from reading this book.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny montage of landed bigots.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cat de bine ar fi daca muzica destinelor noastre s-ar putea asemana cu aceasta.

[Elisenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un exercici interessant d'aprofundiment en la psicologia humana situat en l'Europa de la primera meitat del segle XX. Sospito que amb una traducció molt fina.
El tercer llibre que llageixo de l'autor on aborda un tema radicalment diferent a Illa o al Món feliç.

[Kaleb Purdy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Huxleys writing. This one falls a little bit on the boring side.