This is an enjoyable read. Huxley is strong on his philosophical ideals and he moves (sometimes pushes) the story at hand in a certain direction specifically to go on a 10 page rant regarding those ideals. Its definitly worth reading, especially if find it interesting when authors write books about the future that actual come quite true in the decades ahead. I suggest reading this 3rd if you plan to read several of his books...definitly hit up Brave New World, and move to something wild then to this one.

A lot of the reviews here make valid points: the philosophical asides are brilliant but tedious for people who don't like philosophy. The characters (the entire plot in fact) do sometimes seem like an afterthought, employed to support the 'big' ideas, but that's not to say they're two-dimensional.



However, when reading a book like this it's important not to get too focused on only one of the many interesting ideas that fly like sparks from Huxley's mind. Explorations of mortality, eroticism, class struggle, mysticism, greed, ...etc. are all presented dispassionately enough. As such, they're like colors on Huxley's palette; and it's not rewarding to complain about a particular shade of green.



The thing that struck me was that Huxley is very specific about the character types he chooses to include here. His decision to pit the grasping Stoyte against the impossibly saint-like Propter elaborates an inner-dialogue one can imagine Huxley was having to reconcile his own idealized world-view with the reality he had encountered in America. In doing this Huxley provides justification and outlines a strategy for implementing his utopian vision.



For me; it's this attempt to reconcile the world of ideas with reality that, like with much of Hesse's work, seems to be the focal point of the book. I'm looking forward to reading Huxley's later books to see how he develops this attempted reconciliation.

A lot of the reviews here make valid points: the philosophical asides are brilliant but tedious for people who don't like philosophy. The characters (the entire plot in fact) do sometimes seem like an afterthought, employed to support the 'big' ideas, but that's not to say they're two-dimensional.

However, when reading a book like this it's important not to get too focused on only one of the many interesting ideas that fly like sparks from Huxley's mind. Explorations of mortality, eroticism, class struggle, mysticism, greed, ...etc. are all presented dispassionately enough. As such, they're like colors on Huxley's palette; and it's not rewarding to complain about a particular shade of green.

The thing that struck me was that Huxley is very specific about the character types he chooses to include here. His decision to pit the grasping Stoyte against the impossibly saint-like Propter elaborates an inner-dialogue one can imagine Huxley was having to reconcile his own idealized world-view with the reality he had encountered in America. In doing this Huxley provides justification and outlines a strategy for implementing his utopian vision.

For me; it's this attempt to reconcile the world of ideas with reality that, like with much of Hesse's work, seems to be the focal point of the book. I'm looking forward to reading Huxley's later books to see how he develops this attempted reconciliation.

Huxley tries a bit too hard to preach that we should not desire immortality. The physical kind, that is. Not one of his better works. Brave New World much, much better. But if you care to read that, or this, read it with "The ImmorTalist Manifesto" which is also available on amazon. And which Wired Magazine's biotech writer Brian Alexander has called a "classic." And Life Extension Magazine describes it as "an extraordinary book (which) challenges the belief that we must grow old and die." I was admirer of Huxley and thought he was persuasive. Until I read The ImmorTalist Manifesto! Read for yourself. And see why this book is so controversial and provocative. Not to mention consciousness-transforming.

I first read this book thirty years ago as an adolescent, and it made a big impression on my impressionable, snobbish mind. And it was (is) funny!

Reading it and some other Huxley material this year, I am struck by how singleminded AH is in his ideas. Every essay, every story, at least after the 1930s, is driven by his desire to show how humanity is lost in a maze of materialist illusion. He is a mystic, and if that tickles you, perhaps his extended intellectual diaglogs in this book will interest you. Otherwise, just read the deliciously satirical parts. (His detached prose describing the movements of A nearly naked young starlet's body is a tour de force of clinical eroticism).

His literary skills are enormous, his description of southern california in the 30s rang true in the 70s when I lived there and read it, and still do. His humour, arch, esoteric, but sharp, can be a joy. When he gets serious, that's when he has a problem as he lapses into portentous nonsense about the ground of being, the One, etc. Huxley was a acid head long before he started dabbling with drugs - and his mystical discussions make little sense, unless you are already of that mind. Aesthetically, they are highly repetitive and rather irritating.

Readers who want an introduction to his work would do better, I think, to begin with his best, Brave New World. In that one, he used his considerable gifts to their best advantage, and kept his endless and indulgent maundering to a minimum.

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan is a book set in America in the thirties. Jeremy Pordage, is an English scholard who was hired by millionaire Jo Stoyte to study and decipher the Hauberk papers which Stoyte acquired in England. Jo Stoyte, with his millions, his castle on the hill, his acquisitions, and his mistress, young Virginia, may very well have been Huxley's parody of William Randolph Hearst, who was very much alive when this book was written.
Stoyte had in his employ, a Dr. Obispo who was searching for a modern medical solution to immortality, also had the job of keeping Soyte alive as long as possible perhaps to one day eventually benefit form Obispo's findings. However, it is Jeremy Pordage who uncovers in his readings of the Hauberk papers, the secret to the indefinite extension of life, and that is through the eating of triturated carp entrails, as metal rings put through the tail of some carp in a pond by the great grandfather Hauberk, could be seen by the great grandson Hauberk.
The surprise ending in this book which occurs in the last five pages is nothing short of a Rod Serling, Twilight Zone type of Tour de Force. Money may buy a bed but not comfort, money may buy a house, but not a home, money may buy food, but not an appetite, and money may buy art, and furniture, but not taste, and this book shows that maybe too much money and too much time to live may not be the best thing after all.

This is a suberbly-crafted novel with a gripping plot. Set in Beverly Hills in the l930s, the plot revolves around a lonely, aging millionaire, Jo Stoyte, and his obsession with putting off death. Stoyte surrounds himself with art, beauty, literature, historic works and the company of intellectuals -- all of which fail to satisfy or even interest him. He retains a British man of letters, Jeremy Pordage, to review and catalog 27 crates of papers and memoirs which Stoyte has purchased from the last of the Hauberks, a British titled family. Stoyte also keeps a cynical doctor, Sigmund Obispo, as his personal physician, provides Obispo with a laboratory and bankrolls his research into longevity.

Obispo believes that the longevity of a species of carp is due to the carp's unique intestinal bacteria. In his research, Obispo is trying to i) find a method of introducing the bacteria into the digestive tracts of research mice in such a way that the effect of the bacteria isn't neutralized and ii) determine whether successful introduction of the bacteria into mammalian digestive tracts will lengthen the life of the host mammal.

In reviewing the Hauberk papers, Jeremy discovers that a member of the Hauberk family, the 5th Earl of Gonister, was himself obsessed with retaining vitality and youth. Jeremy further discovers that the 5th Earl conducted his own research into the rejuvenating properties of carp intestines some two hundred years previous. Jeremy reveals these facts to Obispo. Obispo then heads for the Hauberk estate with Stoyte and his young mistress in tow.

Through the characters of Mr. Propter, a humanities professor who lives adjacent to the Stoyte estate, Pete Boone, Obispo's idealistic, young assistant and Jeremy Pordage, Aldous Huxley provides several chapters' worth of deep philosophical dialog. The topics of these discussions range from linguistics and ethics to the impending doom of mankind. These chapters are surprisingly fascinating and should not be skipped over.

This novel's theme is that the collective mindset (which gave rise to the industrial revolution and its ensuing technological advances) will result in the annihilation of mankind. In that sense, 'progress' is a moral regression where "men pay divine homage to ideals which are mere projections of their own personalities". Huxley blames war, pograms, persecution and famine on this collective mindset. He states that "evolution is arrested devlopment". Development run amok results in degeneration and decay. He masterfully drives home his message via the book's startling conclusion.

This is worthwhile reading!