Book review: Chrome Yellow

For those of us whose sense of humour is a bit drier and somewhat pointed, Aldous Huxley’s ChromeYellow is an amusing little read.

It is a story in which not much happens.  Eight main characters, and a few more occasional visitors, sit around, in post-First-World-War English countryside comfort, eloquently expressing their feelings and thoughts about life, the universe and everything.

The story follows things from the perspective of Denis, an existentially angst-ridden 23-year-old poet, as he arrives from London at a countryside manor for the summer, stays for a time, expresses his unrequited love for a fellow guest, and then departs back to London and his future.

But by chapter three we know that even this innocent, gentle little English genre isn’t going to come out the other side unscathed:

For some time past Mary's grave blue eyes had been fixed upon him [Denis]. "What have you been writing lately?" she asked. It would be nice to have a little literary conversation.

 "Oh, verse and prose," said Denis—"just verse and prose."

 "Prose?" Mr. Scogan pounced alarmingly on the word. "You've been writing prose?"

 "Yes."

 "Not a novel?"

 "Yes."

 "My poor Denis!" exclaimed Mr. Scogan. "What about?"

 Denis felt rather uncomfortable. "Oh, about the usual things, you know."

 "Of course," Mr. Scogan groaned. "I'll describe the plot for you. Little Percy, the hero, was never good at games, but he was always clever. He passes through the usual public school and the usual university and comes to London, where he lives among the artists. He is bowed down with melancholy thought; he carries the whole weight of the universe upon his shoulders. He writes a novel of dazzling brilliance; he dabbles delicately in Amour and disappears, at the end of the book, into the luminous Future."

 Denis blushed scarlet. Mr. Scogan had described the plan of his novel with an accuracy that was appalling. He made an effort to laugh. "You're entirely wrong," he said. "My novel is not in the least like that." It was a heroic lie. Luckily, he reflected, only two chapters were written. He would tear them up that very evening when he unpacked.

 Mr. Scogan paid no attention to his denial, but went on: "Why will you young men continue to write about things that are so entirely uninteresting as the mentality of adolescents and artists? Professional anthropologists might find it interesting to turn sometimes from the beliefs of the Blackfellow to the philosophical preoccupations of the undergraduate. But you can't expect an ordinary adult man, like myself, to be much moved by the story of his spiritual troubles. And after all, even in England, even in Germany and Russia, there are more adults than adolescents. As for the artist, he is preoccupied with problems that are so utterly unlike those of the ordinary adult man—problems of pure aesthetics which don't so much as present themselves to people like myself—that a description of his mental processes is as boring to the ordinary reader as a piece of pure mathematics. A serious book about artists regarded as artists is unreadable; and a book about artists regarded as lovers, husbands, dipsomaniacs, heroes, and the like is really not worth writing again. Jean-Christophe is the stock artist of literature, just as Professor Radium of 'Comic Cuts' is its stock man of science."

Each chapter is similarly packed with delicious little digs at ideas, social conventions and personal idiosyncrasies.  The absurdities of life are satirically held up, showing us how ridiculous we are, how seriously we take ourselves, but how unable we are to change, even when we cringingly see them in ourselves.

Chapter 24, showing Denis’ reaction after opening Jenny’s private diary, exemplifies one recurring theme in the story.  After seeing Jenny’s private thoughts on display, Denis finally realises the rather obvious, but all-too-often forgotten, fact that other people are as fully conscious and deep as we are ourselves.  And yet, even while articulating it, and priding himself on his discovery of this fact, Denis still fails to practically act according to this obvious truth.  His conversation with Mary, where he expresses this fact, but fails to apply it, is especially amusing.

And Chapter 20 is a laugh-out-loud moment.  It helps if you don’t know the meaning of the word “carminative”, and so, at the end of the chapter, have to look it up in a dictionary.

Chrome yellow is not a book for children.  I wouldn’t bother suggesting it to Mulan or Miya until they are at university.  But I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys literature and can appreciate, and laugh at, the absurdities of life (and can laugh at themselves).