Subject: Re: Aldous Huxley
From: Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Date: Wed Apr 19 2000 - 13:41:01 EDT
Hey Scottie!
You've correctly identified the title of the book to which I referred: THE
PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY.... I remember finding it a somewhat surprising
product from the same pen that gave us BRAVE NEW WORLD, THE DEVILS OF
LOUDON, and ANTIC HAY--not to mention the infamous LSD booklet whose name
still escapes me.... Was it THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION?
What you've already admitted (albeit a bit disparagingly) is that all those
Bloomsbury blokes and birds COPULATED--sometimes in somewhat inconventional
combinations. And, having met the younger sister of Aldous' sainted first
wife Maria, I think it's safe to say there MUST have been some passion in
the man. I'm sad to observe that there don't seem to be too many true
"public intellectuals" like Huxley around these days. He may have seemed
"chilly", and was sometimes certainly "ascetic" (listening to his second
wife describe the burning of their Hollywood home, containing her Strad and
his manuscripts, was almost more than this cultural hedonist could bear....)
but we could certainly use a dose of his "hyperintellectualism" now that
we're living in the (so far nondescript) Naughties....
(I've also met Huxley's son, so I know for virtual certain that he wasn't
completely ascetic....)
Cheers,
Paul
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