Rating: 
Summary: What desire will do!!!
Review: An interesting first book for a renowned author. Crome Yellow is a wonderful introduction to Huxley's story-telling talents. The scenes were so meticulously laid out I felt I was watching a movie in my head. Crome was also a wonderful introduction to Huxley's knack for detailed characters. His writing style pulls you into the characters and the world of the book. Crome was a fabulous exploration of human sexual desire. The yearning, the attempts, the exploits, even the destruction of a man. All who have ever desired another can certainly relate to this one.
Rating:
Summary: What desire will do!!!
Review: An interesting first book for a renowned author. Crome Yellow is a wonderful introduction to Huxley's story-telling talents. The scenes were so meticulously laid out I felt I was watching a movie in my head. Crome was also a wonderful introduction to Huxley's knack for detailed characters. His writing style pulls you into the characters and the world of the book. Crome was a fabulous exploration of human sexual desire. The yearning, the attempts, the exploits, even the destruction of a man. All who have ever desired another can certainly relate to this one.
Rating: 
Summary: I like this novel
Review: Crome Yellow was Adolous Huxley's first novel. It describes the life of leisure of the Wimbushes, an aging aristocratic couple and the relatives and young intellectuals who are staying with them over the Summer in their estate at the village of Crome.
It has often been remarked that this novel is unserious.There was not really much hilarity contrary to my expectation; the bulk of such stuff as there is was in the first part of the novel. The one passage which made me roar with laughter is Mr. Wimbush solemnly reading to his family and guests a particular excerpt from the history he has just finished of their estate which was built back in the 16th century. The founder of the estate was his wife's ancestor, Ferdinando Lapith whom Mr. Wimbush explains devoted his time to figuring out and publishing his ideas on sanitation. He built privies (indoor outhouses) at the top of each tower for he thought that the act of depositing human waste was such a degrading act for noble creatures like humans that they should be far away from the sanitation disposal system in the ground and as close to heaven as possible. He advised that the privy have a big window on which to look out at nature; a bible, Greek and Roman philosophy and other reading material on hand to console oneself in the act. Sir Ferdinando called his book "Certaine Privy Counsels by One of Her Maiesties's Most Honourable Privy Counsels, F.L. Knight." Mr. Wimbush says Sir Ferdinando wrote on the subject "with great learning and elegance" and Mr. Scogan, one of the Wimbush's guests expresses enchantment of such great achievements of English aristocrats.
Other amusing incidents include the conversation between Denis Smith, the hero of the novel and Mr. Barbecue Smith, the spiritualist New Age author whom Mrs. Wimbush's patronizes. Barbecue-Smith claims to be able to produce an amazing amount of his wisdom on paper in a very short time, merely by finding his "inspiration." He claims he is able to find his inspiration to produce profound writing by hypnotizing himself by staring into a electric desk light. While he is thus entranced, his mind produces really profound stuff and he writes it down. Another amusing episode is the phamphlet produced by Mr. Bodiham, the village pastor, during WWI which tried to prove using biblical text that that war presaged Armegeddon. It was a war of righteousness between Protestant nations and Germany which was under the sinister influence of Catholicism according to Mr. Bodiham. Long after the war's end, Mr. Bodiham still is seeing portents that the second coming is at hand.
The novel suprisingly has a pretty serious side which comes to the fore in the second part of the novel. The author shows great skill in portraying the humanity and emotions of Denis and Mary as they confront their own emotional immaturities.The author uses some big words but his narration is very simple, intelligent and charming.. The rest of the characters have less depth to them but they are likeable and the story gets to be fairly interesting and even a little profound at the end.
Sure the lenghty conversations of the characters, particularly Mr. Scogan's discourses and the poetry, sometimes seem to divert the story from its path. However I was never really bored at any point in the book. Too bad Huxley succumbed rather early in life to spiritualism, quackish medical cures and the other world and devoted his writings to them; he could have built on the excellence of this book had he not been so diverted.
Rating:
Summary: Crome Yellow
Review: Crome Yellow was Aldous Huxley's first book. His best books are his early books that he wrote before Brave New World. The young Aldous Huxley was evanescent, fluid, and limitless in his potential. However, as he grew older, especially in his last decades when he lived in California, he became more calcified, his vision narrowed and he became mired by his own mystic obscurisms. And when Huxley 'got' Buddhism, he stopped writing novels and wrote Buddhis tracts, so to speak. Written when he was 27, Crome Yellow centers around a house called Crome hence the title, (like Wuthering Heights centered around a house - Abbey Grange). The house was a gathering place of artists who were vacuous, though in a brilliantly significant way. The main character is Denis Stone, a naive neophyte, much like Huxley must have been at the time. Consequently as Huxley himself grew more sophisticated, so did his characters. Huxley attacks the ennui and malaise existential of life with a kind of righteous indignation that is refreshing. And he uproariously endorses the sentiments of misanthropy that all refined and culture cynics must feel. Huxley spent most of his life playing the expatriate game. In his own words from Crome, Huxley was "one of those distinguished people, who for some reason or other, find it impossible to live in England." Huxley spent most of the 1920's in Italy. It is difficult to believe that Aldous Huxley was just 27 when he wrote this book, for it is written like a 50 yr. old. Crome Yellow is a great introduction to Huxley, as well as a great way to know him better. There could scarcely be a more potent, intense vanguard for the psychedelic revolution, for which Huxley must have been a precursor of.
Rating:
Summary: a rare find
Review: Crome Yellow, a wonderful addition to my collection, found in an old bookstore for one dollar. Huxley's analysis of the characters in this book will, for the most part find you laughing with every turn of the page. With the most delightful setting you can't help but find yourself drawn into the world at crome yellow, especially the mind of the hapless denis and the seemingly stoic anne wimbush. Told with great vison and wit in true huxley style. You will be left wanting so much more.
Rating:
Summary: A delightful read, no other way to describe it
Review: Huxley's talent, especially in his first novel, is to pour out ideas (the subjects and issues covered here are staggeringly diverse for such a short book) without losing the human spark or light touch that keeps you reading. Crome Yellow, the story (I use the word loosely) of fairly lazy aristocrats whiling the weeks away at a luxurious country estate, manages to be at once a dozen (or more) intelligent essays--on all different subjects and from many points of view, a romantic comedy, a character(s) study, a social satire, and a charming short story collection. Aldous Huxley was a young man and when he wrote Crome Yellow in the early twenties (not long out of college) he was more agnostic skeptic and social critic than the psychedelic mystic and dystopian prophet he would become. Yet the themes, and sometimes more, of his later work are all present here. There's a suggestion of mysticism and the "other world," albeit in a more comic manner than The Doors of Perception. Denis, with his anxieties around women and self-loathing, hand-wringing intelligence, is an early version of Bernard in Brave New World. And early in the book (at a pig pen of all places) a character hypothesizes about the future--and describes almost exactly the world Huxley would potray in Brave New World! It's fascinating to see, in this modernist society tale, the seeds of Huxley's future work. But better yet are all the ideas and separate stories Huxley crams into Crome Yellow: the historical tale of a dwarfish aristocrat and his gigantic son, a romantic escapade on the roof between a dashing visitor and the well-read yet thick Mary, the frequent and inept attempts of Denis to woo Anne, and cynical but comparatively content Mr. Scogan, who imagines stories to fill the mock books in the library, and cross-dresses as a fortune teller to scare the villagers at the annual fair. All in all, a great, quick read and a touchstone for all of Huxley's themes in a most unlikely vehicle.
Rating:
Summary: The Foundation of Future Huxley Works
Review: I just finished Crome Yellow, and, like all of Huxley's works, enjoyed it immensely. I was quite surprised to see the seeds of Brave New World and Point Counter Point so clearly laid out. It is an enjoyable read and a fascinating study of character and artistic temperament. Look for Mr. Barbecue-Smith as the predecessor to the Chicken Soup trash that's so pervasive today. It is truly unfortunate that it seems to be out of print.
Rating:
Summary: Essential e-book for your e-library
Review: The fact that this book is a superb read has already been established. Most notably the author and critic, Cyril CONNOLLY, rated this book as one of the 100 key books of the MODERN MOVEMENT. Crome Yellow is perfectly suited to the e-book format. Great for reading on short trips, lunch breaks; in fact anytime you can grab a few minutes while on the go. The chapters are short and each stands alone as a complete and well-constructed scene. Within the first few screens, you'll be captured by the story and wanting more - especially the bizarre instalments on the "History of Crome." Enough said - you'll have to find out for yourself. This is an essential e-book for any well-stocked PDA e-library.
Rating:
Summary: Essential e-book for your e-library
Review: The fact that this book is a superb read has already been established. Most notably the author and critic, Cyril CONNOLLY, rated this book as one of the 100 key books of the MODERN MOVEMENT. Crome Yellow is perfectly suited to the e-book format. Great for reading on short trips, lunch breaks; in fact anytime you can grab a few minutes while on the go. The chapters are short and each stands alone as a complete and well-constructed scene. Within the first few screens, you'll be captured by the story and wanting more - especially the bizarre instalments on the "History of Crome." Enough said - you'll have to find out for yourself. This is an essential e-book for any well-stocked PDA e-library.
Rating:
Summary: If you can't stand the heat stay out of this novel!
Review: The story in this book is secondary to the character analyses. If you don't know yourself well perhaps you had best put the book down or be prepared to have your sense of humor strenuously tested. The first time I read "Crome Yellow", I was 20 and mortified by it. Now it is amusing and I get a sense of relief that after all I was once young too. Excellent reading.
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