Crome Yellow
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I like Aldous Huxley as a person and a writer, so I bought his first novel, Crome Yellow, on a whim from a Charlottesville bookstore about eight years ago. I felt compelled to pick it up a few weeks ago, and it gently ushered me into spring– not too serious but not the fluffy nonsense that makes you feel like you’re actively losing brain cells.
Crome Yellow is a playfully meandering novel with philosophical musings from a cast of characters staying at Crome, a British estate. The narrator, Denis, is a young poet secretly in love with one of the guests. It’s basically a bunch of well-to-do people without many worries, so they concoct drama in response to their ennui. Almost like a holiday in the Hamptons (lol not me comparing it to Summer House).
Even though I wasn’t a huge fan of Brave New World, I respect Huxley’s intellectually curious nature and his desire to express his big, bold ideas, like in The Doors of Perception. He’s not afraid to throw a thought out there even if it’s not fully fleshed out, and he funnels these thoughts through the characters in Crome Yellow. I also admire the theatrics of his writing, which adds levity to some of his more serious subjects. For example, in Crome Yellow, he says that Denis “reached the house in a state of the profoundest desperation.” It’s all soooo extra– I love it!
Crome Yellow is not a life-changing novel, but it’s pleasant to read. In Huxley fashion, it dips its toes into dystopia and some challenging philosophical concepts like solipsism (the theory that the only thing in life you can be sure exists is your brain). I implicitly trust him to take me on a journey of the mind and it’s lovely to be able to rely on authors like that. Crome Yellow receives 3 out of 5 flames.
