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Aldous Huxley
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Eyeless in Gaza: A Novel Paperback – October 20, 2009

by Aldous Huxley (Author)
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One of Brave New World author Aldous Huxley’s finest and most personal novels, now back in print in a Harper Perennial Modern Classics edition, Eyeless in Gaza is the story of one man’s quest to find a meaningful life, which leads him from blind hedonism to political revolution to spiritual enlightenment.

“A genius . . . a writer who spent his lifetime decrying the onward march of the Machine.” — The New Yorker

First published in 1936--and hailed as his best work--EYELESS IN GAZA is Aldous Huxley's loosely autobiographical novel of one man’s search for an alternative to the moral disillusionment of the modern world. Anthony Beavis, a cynical libertine Oxford graduate, comes of age in the vacuum left by World War I. His life, loves, and foreign adventures leave him unfulfilled, until he meets a charismatic doctor who inspires Anthony to become a Marxist and join the Mexican revolution—a disastrous embrace of violence that leaves the doctor with one leg. Shattered by the experience, Anthony forges a new, quasi-Buddhist philosophy that embraces pacifism. EYELESS IN GAZA remains one of Huxley’s most enduring novels, a testament to the challenges and rewards of bold, vigorous thinking.

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  1. Print length
    512 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    October 20, 2009
  4. Dimensions
    5.31 x 1.15 x 8 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0061724890
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0061724893
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“An important book . . . Without parallel in our contemporary literature.” — New York Times Book Review

“We are, it is safe to say, on the eve of a Huxley revival.” — Los Angeles Times

“His best work.” — The Economist

“Of Huxley’s 11 novels only Eyeless in Gaza (1936) is a complete artistic success. — Washington Post Book World

“Huxley’s finest novel.” — New Statesman

“A genius . . . a writer who spent his lifetime decrying the onward march of the Machine.” — The New Yorker

From the Inside Flap

Eyeless in Gaza offers a counterpoint to the biting cynicism of Huxley's earlier satirical novels, and is considered by many to be his definitive work of fiction.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper Perennial Modern Classics; Reprint edition (October 20, 2009)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 512 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0061724890
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061724893
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.31 x 1.15 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:

About the author

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Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

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

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
311 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the story well-crafted, disturbing, and engrossing. They say the book is worth finding and has good value. Readers praise the writing quality as brilliant, thoughtful, and involved. They also mention the book is profound and touching.

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Story qualityValue for moneyWriting qualityThought provoking
10 customers mention "Story quality"10 positive0 negative

Customers find the story well-crafted, brilliant, and absorbing. They also say it's disturbing, scandalous, and engrossing. Readers appreciate the quality writing and high-level plotting.

"...The story is disturbing, scandalous, and engrossing.I'll stop there...." Read more

"...It is also an absorbing story, and included chacters drawn with unequaled insight to psychology and the human condition...." Read more

"Great novel by a modern master. I am so inspired by Huxley. Both his fiction and nonfiction are just lovely works to read...." Read more

"...This is very high quality writing and some high level plotting. Evan so I am not a fan...." Read more

7 customers mention "Value for money"7 positive0 negative

Customers find the book great and worth finding.

"...I'll stop there. This book is great - please read it, and enjoy!" Read more

"...(it predates Brave New World) though hard to come by is definitely worth the find...." Read more

"...a Prime Member with free shipping and the books he requested are at decent price." Read more

"Book was as described. Good value. Good service." Read more

7 customers mention "Writing quality"5 positive2 negative

Customers find the writing quality brilliant, adept, and thoughtful. They also say the book is an involved read.

"...Conrad, among others, and, yes, Shakespeare, he is able to craft language so adeptly to show his characters' beautiful and profoundly complex..." Read more

"...There are some wonderfully deep thoughtful quotations and scholarly essays. These are 'heavy' thoughts on the human condition...." Read more

"The structure is chronologically shuffled which makes the narrative hard to follow but in the end it seems the author has been trying to make sense..." Read more

"...However, this book is written very eloquently. Lots of words that I did not know and had to look up in the dictionary...." Read more

4 customers mention "Thought provoking"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book profound, absorbing, and interesting. They say it includes characters drawn with unequaled insight into psychology and the human condition. Readers also describe the book as deeply touching, sad, funny, and sensitive.

"...for something Philosophical, a novel of ideas that is endlessly thought-provoking and undeniably profound, there are very few books that can..." Read more

"This is Huxley’s most sensitive book. It is deeply touching, sad, funny and a harsh social satire of the idle rich in between the first and Second..." Read more

"...An interesting study of people." Read more

"...Books from his time have some of the best context." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

Bill Sikes
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant writing, brutal satire.
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2014
Verified Purchase
Since there are already so many excellent reviews of this book, I will just add my two cents.
First, Huxley's writing is exquisite. Like James, Conrad, among others, and, yes, Shakespeare, he is able to craft language so adeptly to show his characters' beautiful and profoundly complex internal worlds and those separate worlds' couplings and collisions, and, in this case, setting those characters within an enthralling story. I can't give specifics, but many times as I read this book I thought to myself how I will need to reread it fully appreciate Huxley's better passages, of which there are many, many, many.
Second, Huxley's satire is brutal, reminding me a lot of Zola. All the characters are flawed to loathsome in their own special ways, and the main good, noble character, of course, dies. And, of course, he is flawed too. (Okay, Anthony's father and step-mother are cute in their late in life love.) This book also reminds me of a film like "La Notte," in which bored wealthy people lead empty, pointless lives and try in vain to fill that emptiness with art, philosophy, politics, making more money, adultery, substance abuse, etc. (I'm afraid that is a paltry synopsis.) The story is disturbing, scandalous, and engrossing.
I'll stop there. This book is great - please read it, and enjoy!
30 people found this helpful
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T. Moran
4.0 out of 5 stars Difficult to navigate but rewarding
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2024
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The structure is chronologically shuffled which makes the narrative hard to follow but in the end it seems the author has been trying to make sense out of life and made peace with his fate.
3 people found this helpful
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J. L. Turiano
5.0 out of 5 stars A Statement On the Meaning of Life
Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2008
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In his later years, Aldous Huxley aimed to take on the big questions. He was applauded when he did this in a cynical way, as in Brave New World, but a number of critics did not like it in the least when he made real, positive statements on what he had come to see life as being about.

Eyeless in Gaza is genuinely spiritual novel, a quest to understand goodness in a world that often seems insane. Huxley wrote it when he was a the height of his powers as a novelist, and his unequaled eloquence makes this book truly inspiring as a vision of how to grow and find meaning in the modern world. It is also an absorbing story, and included chacters drawn with unequaled insight to psychology and the human condition.

Few people write like Huxley did anymore, and his prose style feels like heavy lifting at first, almost like Shakespeare. But, for anyone really searching for something Philosophical, a novel of ideas that is endlessly thought-provoking and undeniably profound, there are very few books that can approach this one. I once read a number of passages from it to a study group that I was a member of, and the entire room was not only touched, but moved.
20 people found this helpful
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Adam C. Dave
5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful read
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2015
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Great novel by a modern master. I am so inspired by Huxley. Both his fiction and nonfiction are just lovely works to read. And this earlier novel (it predates Brave New World) though hard to come by is definitely worth the find. The plot is not exactly of the "page turner" variety which is fine: it's not so much about what happens as it is about those characters things happen to. Huxley lays bare the inner workings of his creations' minds like Dostoevsky at his finest. Highly recommend!
3 people found this helpful
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Phred
3.0 out of 5 stars Time is out of joint for a scholar seeking meaning in his life.
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2016
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Eyeless in Gaza has me frustrated. This is very high quality writing and some high level plotting. Evan so I am not a fan. Our central character, Anthony Beavis, is a scholar attuned to fining meaning in obscure scholarship. He is sufficiently well off that he can peruse a comfortable and self-centered life style. He and most of the people around him are more or less self-centered and un happy. There are several discontinuous time periods ranging from before WWI and some vague point past the European version of America’s depression. Time jumps are artfully used to give us a deep understanding of Anthony, how he came to be who he is and why he has reason to be dissatisfied. We are given many chapters to come to dislike this person and then asked to care about his recognition that he does not like himself either. Having laid out a complex and unhappy persona, the resolution is too pat and for me unsatisfying. The added irony is that the book ends and was written just before World War II which could mock its resolution. Mine Is not the general opinion. I admire the writing but was not convinced by the plotting.

It has been decades since I last attempted an Aldus Huxley book. I remember being very happy with Brave New World, and Brave New World Revisited. After Many a Summer (Dies the Swan) was a warning that I probably missed much in all of 3 these books and should re-read them. I take up Eyeless in Gaza as a more mature and better read person. I do not believe I missed anything important, but I know I will not be re-reading this one.

Anthony Bevis is not a nice person. As a youth he was something of a victim to his father’s scholarly but boring and aesthetic preferamces. The mother to his future best and closest friend will provide for him holidays where the two boys can experience some of the good life but with constant urgings to lead spiritual lives. The friend, Brian Foxworthy becomes extreme about being exactly the perfect person his mother most wants and in so doing becomes the victim of Anthony’s casual disinterestedness and preference for compromise and accommodation.

By seeing Anthony in time slices assembled in thematic rather than temporal sequence Huxley maneuvers the reader from some level of sympathy to a full agreement with Anthony’s dissatisfaction with himself. This is the central conflict of the plot and upon its resolution hangs the pleasure in; or disappointment in the book.

There are some wonderfully deep thoughtful quotations and scholarly essays. These are 'heavy' thoughts on the human condition. For me these tended to be too long and to contribute to the heavy handed preachiness of this novel. The writer has an assumption that his reader is also well read and a deep thinker. Too much so. A lighter hand might have made this book more accessible and less like an extended sermon. I appreciate that this kind of writing is respectful towards the reader. I like being treated like an intelligent person, but this goes beyond that.

Having built the book on the assumption that we are thoughtful and well read, the resolution did not work for me. It approached the trivial and was almost predictable. We are asked to read a long pages in preparation for Anthony to squarely face himself only to be dropped into his life after an incomplete melodrama that is the climax of the book.

The question that Huxley may not have appreciated as he finished this book in 1936 was: Is the resolved Anthony Bevis ready for what is about to happen two years later?
9 people found this helpful
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David Kade
5.0 out of 5 stars Eyeless in Gaza Review
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2019
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This is Huxley’s most sensitive book. It is deeply touching, sad, funny and a harsh social satire of the idle rich in between the first and Second World War. Huxley’s unparalleled vocabulary will leave even the most avid reader keeping a dictionary near by. However, he reminds me of Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Aimes or Somerset Maugham here in his beautiful ruminations of life, love, friendship and the passage of time. I also thought Eyeless in Gaza was more hopeful and the story was well crafted, something Huxley hasn’t always been the best at. Huxley will remain the preeminent 20th century intellectual for me. I’d love to hear him read this.

DTK
18 people found this helpful
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Meaning, Love and Spirituality
4.0 out of 5 stars Not Huxleys greatest
Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2023
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Compared to the average novel it is good, but just average compared to his others. How people end up with the beliefs they do.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Rita Gago da Câmara
5.0 out of 5 stars Maravilhoso
Reviewed in Spain on November 8, 2023
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❤️🖤🤍💚
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AnthonyParis
5.0 out of 5 stars Pure Huxley
Reviewed in France on September 19, 2022
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As is usual with this author, intelligence and perception. Not a particularly easy read but well worth the effort required.
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Ian Bonnell
5.0 out of 5 stars Great as always
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 20, 2018
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After rereading this again, it is as great as when I read it at 21.
Highly recommended as are all of Huxley’s novels
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Stephen J Ethier
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read.
Reviewed in Canada on June 30, 2015
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Good read.
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Dr. DNA
3.0 out of 5 stars non-linear, dated, but with strokes of genius
Reviewed in Canada on March 11, 2024
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Great insight, lousy novel. Vision first, story second. Last major writer to use the semi-colon.
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