Reviews for Complete Essays: 1936-1938, Vol. 4

The average rating for Complete Essays: 1936-1938, Vol. 4 based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-07-30 00:00:00 Oddgeir Eysteinsson Aldous Huxley is one of my favorite authors. He captured my imagination with Brave New World in high school, and took me on a trip through The Doors of Perception in college. These essays, one of my favorite forms, are still relevant today. Many of them come from Ends and Means. In fact, you will find the last three chapters of Ends and Means, 1937, on pg. 338 - 406. Here in these essays, Religious Practices, Beliefs, and Ethics, he does a marvelous job of reconciling science and mysticism. This is the Aldous that I know and love.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-04-20 00:00:00 John Manchester After having read the first three volumes of Huxley's essays, I think there is a degree of diminishing returns. World War II is imminent during the course of the book, and much of Huxley's writing in this volume revolves around ways that human society can organize that would decrease the likelihood of devastating conflicts in the future. However, he is also getting closer to his fascination with a vague and unsatisfactory mysticism. It is, frankly, difficult to concentrate long enough to finish many of these pieces. Huxley's fiction is often fantastic; these essays are a much harder sell.