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Point Counter Point

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Point Counter Point

By: Aldous Huxley
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
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“Everybody strains after happiness, and the result is that nobody’s happy.”

In music, counterpoint is the art of writing melodies that play in conjunction with one another, according to a strict set of rules, in order to emphasize the melody by contrast. In debate, point/counterpoint is a means of persuasion in which the speaker begins by conceding to their opponent’s argument before refuting it wholeheartedly. Aldous Huxley follows these traditions in his masterpiece Point Counter Point.

The polarity between passion and reason in the intellectual life of the 1920s is demonstrated both in form and in theme in Huxley’s ambitious satire: This complex novel darts around points of view to portray the convoluted nature of perception versus reality, and it boasts a large cast of characters that come together, almost as an orchestra, performing separate melodies that coalesce in one great symphony.

Not only do these characters serve such a musical purpose in the plot but they also represent real life writers who were popular at the time, such as D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, John Middleton Murry, and even Huxley himself, in the form of Phillip Quarles, the “novelist” within the novel.

(P)2024 Blackstone Publishing Classics Literature & Fiction Satire
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Critics' reviews

“A splendid narration by Golden Voice Stefan Rudnicki. His exceptionally clear enunciation and steady pace help listeners take in what is arguably Huxley’s most complex work…Rudnicki’s resonant timbre and intelligent tone bring forth the author’s astute observations on class, wealth inequity, music, religion, family, love, and childhood illness.”

(AudioFile)

“Out of colossal disillusion Huxley has made Point Counter Point the most scintillating, the most bitter, and the most serious of his novels. It is a notable piece of work.”

(Outlook)

“The aim of this book is not idle amusement for the sophisticated but a grasping of the intellectual Zeitgeist and a biting criticism of it.”

(New York Times)
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One gets carried away by Brave New World and the ease at which that book can be read. and re-read. Antic Hay and Point Counter Point left me disappointed. The latter was for me a modernist version of Eliot's Middlemarch - much talking and linguistic bravado but like any book, or movie for that matter, you need a plotline! Something to grab your attention and move the story forward. The very end of the book almost accomplishes this but by then it is all well and done. Joyce did the same thing in Ulysses but that book has a structure and complexity that one approaches it in a different manner.
The narrator does a good job for the most part, his German is not that good but that was more funny than bad, so thumbs up.

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