B.B.C. Version Of Huxley Novel Bought By N.Z.B.C.

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32303, 22 May 1970, Page 3

B.B.C. Version Of Huxley Novel Bought By N.Z.B.C.

Aldous Huxley was an outstanding member of a talented family. After Oxford, he was a journalist and dramatic critic before concentrating on his creative writing. His name, it has been said, became a password for his generation; even to mention it was to show that one was brilliant, witty and “with it.” Now the 8.8. C. has made a five-part programme on his famous novel, “Point Counter Point,” and it has been bought by the N.Z.B.C.

The dramatist of Huxley's novel is Simon Raven. He is very well known to television viewers as an original playwright, and his works include ■ “A Pyre for Private James.” “A Soiree at Bossom's Hotel” and “The Scapegoat.” He is probably even more widely known as a novelist. At present he is working on ia series of 10 novels entitled “Arms for Oblivion." His intention is to cover the upper middle-class scene since the war. The first four books have already been published. These are "The Rich ; Pay Late." "Friends in Low’ Places." "The Sabre Squad,” :and “Fielding Gray." I “Point Counter Point" is not only the title of the novel, but also indicates the form Huxley intended the J novel to take. Similar to con- ‘ trapuntal music, he presents ’ the many facets of the society he was writing about in a * manner which lends itself to 0 television dramatisation. (To n quote Jocelyn Brooke . . . “in ’• which the diverse aspects of experience can be observed i- simultaneously.”) The story ■- moves from one set of chari, acters to another, balancing d each life against its counteri, point. ;t “The musicalisation of ficr tion. Not in the symbolist way. f by subordinating sense to sound . . . But on a large

scale, in the construction. Meditate on Beethoven. The changes of moods, the abrupt transitions. (Majesty alternating with a joke, for example, in the first movement of the B flat major quartet ...)... A theme is stated, then developed, pushed out of shape, imperceptibly deformed. until, though still recognisably the same, it has become different ... All you need is a sufficiency of characters and parallel contrapuntal plots. While Jones is murdering a wife, Smith is wheeling the perambulator in the park . . .”

The story is a savagely satirical exposure of the views and behaviour of different kinds of people in the unsettled twenties. Often outrageously funny at the expense of the foibles and sins of these characters, who are paralysed by sophistication and a desire for new experiences, it is never far from the edge of tragedy. It is believed that the character of Quarles is based on Huxley himself, Rampion based on D. H. Lawrence and Bidlake on Augustus John.