In Ape and Essence, Aldous Huxley delivers a dystopian vision of the future in which humanity has been ravaged by nuclear war and fallen into a primitive, brutal existence. Set in the post-apocalyptic year of 2108, the novel explores a world where humans are reduced to savagery, ruled by bizarre religious rituals, and nature itself has become corrupted. Told through a film script discovered by screenwriters in Hollywood, this dark satire exposes the dangers of blind technological progress, fanaticism, and the fragility of civilization. Huxley's work is an unsettling yet thought-provoking commentary on human nature and the trajectory of modern society.
Editorial Reviews
"Alduous Huxley transports us, in dire and dreadful fancy, to the year 2108. The setting is Los Angeles, a century or so after the Third World War. Atomic and bacterial warfare have left it, and nearly all the world, in blighted ruins. From spared New Zealand a 'Rediscovery Expedition to North America' has been dispatched, and it is from the experiences of Chief Botanist Alfred Poole that we learn about the 22nd-century way of life....A beautifully modulated, lucid and incisive prose style....It confirms again his sensitive, barometric relationship to his time, and to its changing 'climates of opinion.'" —Theodore Kalem, Christian Science Monitor
"It was inevitable that Mr. Huxley should have written this book: one could almost have foreseen it since Hiroshima is the necessary sequel to Brave New World; without it, his collected works and his experience of America would not be complete." —Alfred Kazin
"The book has a certain awesome impressiveness, its sheer, intractable bitterness cannot but affect the reader as Huxley chants his litanies over modern civilization." —Time
About the Author
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. Through his novels and essays Huxley functioned as an examiner and sometimes critic of social mores, norms and ideals. Huxley was a humanist but was also interested towards the end of his life in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time.
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