Eyeless in Gaza

By: Aldous Huxley

Narrated by: Jamie Parker

Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Though somewhat overshadowed by Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, Huxley's modernist novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) is often regarded as his finest work. The writer and historian Simon Heffer dubbed it, unequivocally, ‘his only great novel.'

The plot centers on Anthony Beavis, a dilettante social theorist, a man inclined to recoil from life. The pleasures of the physical world disgust him and the universe of ideas is but a poor refuge. Having long lost the art of intimacy, he betrays friendships and toys with the affections of women. But as Beavis approaches middle age, his world of perfect detachment begins to lose its appeal. Finally realizing that his withdrawal from life has been motivated not by intellectual honesty but by moral cowardice, Beavis, devastated and at crisis point, meets the remarkable and redoubtable Dr Miller.

The novel's style and setting create a unique atmosphere. Placed mainly in the inter-war years of the 20th century, the story is told in short, dated sections without following strict chronology: we encounter characters and events through fractured time, forward and backward, resulting in an unusual perspective. Eyeless in Gaza – a quotation from Milton's Samson Agonistes – will come as an exciting, enriching surprise to many who know only the more popular Huxley. Especially in this persuasive recording by Jamie Parker.

©1936 Aldous Huxley (P)2024 W.F. Howes Ltd

His best?

Fascinating, multifaceted, very rewarding. An interesting midpoint between Huxley’s early social skewerings and his later philosophical polemics.

Wonderful book

This is an asynchronous story written by aldous Huxley that traverses broad range of intellectual and cultural material. It is written at time that was central for 20th century history. The writing is exquisite, the language, challenging, and refined, and the story engaging. Faring at times to the dramatic, to the comic, to the didactic, Huxley weaves a fine novel, probably more novelistic in quality than some of his later works. Narration is capable and seems to accurately capture Anthony Beavis temperament. Catching the character, Brian Fox, speech, with its stuttering, may have been a difficult task for the narrator. Helen Ledgewood seems slightly misspoken here with a voice that seems crass where the actual character is vulnerable. Ssome years back I asked this book made into an audiobook and possibly they heeded me in any case it is probably one of Huxley's best book or his best, Damon LaBarbera