Adonis and the Alphabet

This new book of essays demonstrates afresh the unorthodox, wide-ranging quality of Huxley's mind. He is concerned, throughout, with modern man, in his relation to the past, the technological present, the ominous future. Himself both humanist and mystic, Huxley points the way to a new synthesis. He discusses the 'sins of the intellect', the confusion of knowledge with understanding, the 'difficult art of being charitable' in a world where 'solitude is receding at the rate of four and a half kilometres per annum'. He visits a place, and it starts a lively train of thought: at Paphos, he recalls the beauty of Mallarme's poetry: in Salt Lake city, he ponders on the relation between music and popular taste. These essays deal, then, with a diversity of subjects. ut there runs through them a unity of purpose, and the vision of a man who can view the past without illusions and the future without despair.