Point Counter Point

by Aldous Huxley, Nicholas Mosley (Introduction)

Aldous Huxley's lifelong concern with the dichotomy between passion and reason finds its fullest expression both thematically and formally in his masterpiece Point Counter Point. By presenting a vision of life in which diverse aspects of experience are observed simultaneously, Huxley characterizes the symptoms of "the disease of the modern man" in the manner of a composer--themes and characters are repeated, altered slightly, and played off one another in a tone that is at once critical and sympathetic.

First published in 1928, Huxley's satiric view of intellectual life in the '20s is populated with characters based on such celebrities as D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Nancy Cunard, and John Middleton Murry, as well as Huxley himself.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Literature, Philosophy, Novels, British Literature, 20th Century

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1928

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

[Ana Atanasković]

KONTRAPUNKT (KONTRAPUNKT ŽIVOTA) - OLDOS HAKSLI
Ne volim da se namećem ni u jednoj oblasti života, pa ni kada je u pitanju nešto što mi je najvoljenije - čitanje. Duboko verujem u poslovičnost da je savete potrebno davati samo onda kada su traženi.
Stoga retko preporučujem knjige kada sam nepitana. Ali, kada sam pitana...otvori se izrezbarena kutija puna ljubavi. Ima bezbroj knjiga koje volim i koje bih preporučila, ali mi se često iskristališe jedna, za koju smatram da je nepravedno zapostavljena, i to veoma nepravedno, jer je u rangu sa Dostojevskim.
Posebna je tema slojevitosti engleske knjževnosti i kako je toliko obimna da ne stižu sva njena kapitalna dela da dođu "na glas". Posebno mi je žao što se to dešava sa delima Lorensa Sterna, ali on je u neku ruku eksperimentalan (preteča toka svesti), pa ne kažem prvo njega (mada ga spominjem).
Koja mi je knjiga prva na spisku za preporuku? Zašto?
U PITANJU JE KONTRAPUNKT (KONTRAPUNKT ŽIVOTA) OLDOSA HAKSLIJA.
Zato što je duboka, promišljena, istinita, opširna li ne i umarajuća, zato što je pronikla u srž ljudske prirode, zato što je pronicljiva, rečita...Jednom rečju - jedan od najvećih romana ikada napisanih.
A ovde skoro niko ne zna za njega. Tuži me to.
Imam jednu koleginicu, Ivanu, koju često srećem u Gradskoj biblioteci. Ona je pitala za preporuku, smisleno i znala sam da će savet dopreti do nje. Uzela je knjigu i javlja mi pre neki dan: "Počela sam da čitam i već me je oduševila."
O, moje sreće! Sreće! Da sam Kontrapunktu dala novi život, da je moja misija ispunjena, da neko ko zna šta je kvalitet (ozbiljna je čitateljka) prepoznaje...prepoznaje. Kad god se setim njene poruke transformišem se u zrnce praenergije iz koje je nastao čitav svetli svet.

[Milan Jovanovic]

Odavno nisam pročitao dosadniju knjigu :(