Crome Yellow

By Aldous Huxley

On vacation from school, Denis goes to stay at Crome, an English country house inhabited by several of Huxley's most outlandish characters. Denis's stay proves to be a disaster amid his weak attempts to attract the girl of his dreams and the ridicule he endures regarding his plan to write a novel about love and art. Lambasting the post-Victorian standards of morality, Crome Yellow is a witty masterpiece that, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's words, "is too ironic to be called satire and too scornful to be called irony."

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780735253803

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) is the author of the classic novels Brave New World, Island, Eyeless in Gaza, and The Genius and the Goddess, as well as such critically acclaimed nonfiction works as The Perennial Philosophy and The Doors of Perception. Born in Surrey, England, and educated at Oxford, he died in Los Angeles, California.

Reviews for Crome Yellow

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This example of a country week end novel is the first published work (1921) by Aldous Huxley. In some ways this may have been a novel for the episode structure of "A Dance to the Music of Time". The characters show up, do a number of character revealing acts, chat about their lives, and very little happens in front of the readers. But Huxley is a good character drawing writer and I had a good time.

[grunin_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

[This started out a little slow; then I went to the audiobook, and the characters came to life. After a couple of chapters, I then went back and forth, audio when commuting, book when sitting still.]There are several passages here that show the kernel of "Brave New World" (1932) to have been fully formed in 1921, at the latest. I recommend it to those who are curious about this, and also to anyone much familiar with the culture of postwar England. Others may find the satire opaque or pointless.

[isabelx_21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Young poet Dennis Stone attends a country house party at Crome. There are lots of philosophical conversations about artistic matters, the host tells interesting stories about his ancestors and Dennis suffers the pangs of unrequited love. I don't get the title; Crome is the name of the house and village, but why Yellow? The house is built of rosy brick, not of golden Cotswold stone so it's not that.

[912greens · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There is a passage in which a minister tries to beat his sermon against the "rubber souls" of the congregation. I thought that this might have been an inspiration for the Beatles? But have since heard other theories on the origins of their Rubber Soul.

[mlbelize · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It wasn't bad - it just wasn't for me.

[cshoughton · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I feel a little guilty that I so enjoyed Crome Yellow, as if I'd been sitting for hours in a high school cafeteria making fun of nearly everyone else, especially my own friends.

[daveskinner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this so many years ago that I cannot recall the details, but I have kept the paperback for 40 years because the parts that are "Henry Wimbush's engaging accounts of his eccentric ancestors," have haunted me for all those years. It is probably the greatest thing I have ever read.

[steadfastreader · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Huxley's first novel. It lacks the organization and amazing storytelling of Brave New World but you can see that he is toying with the ideas that he will later use in Brave New World. This is a decent read, but I'd only recommend it for people who really enjoy Huxley.