Ape and Essence
First US edition
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| Author | Aldous Huxley |
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| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction, satire |
| Publisher | Harper & Brothers |
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Publication date
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August 1948 |
| Media type | Print () |
| Pages | 152 |
Ape and Essence (1948) is a novel by Aldous Huxley, published by Chatto & Windus in the UK and Harper & Brothers in the US. It is set in a dystopia, similar to that in Brave New World, Huxley's more famous work. It is largely a satire of the rise of large-scale warfare and warmongering in the 20th century, and presents a pessimistic view of the politics of mutually assured destruction. The book makes extensive use of surreal imagery, depicting humans as apes who, as a whole, will inevitably kill themselves.
The novel is divided into two sections, Tallis—the name of the novel's character most like Huxley himself—and the Script—the screenplay titled Ape and Essence which Tallis had submitted to the studio (it was rejected on 26 November 1947, a fortnight before his death, but not returned to him).
Tallis gives us two movie industry intellectuals—the narrator and screenwriter Bob Briggs—who, on the day of Gandhi's murder (30 January 1948), rescue Ape and Essence from the trash. Intrigued, they make the drive two days later to Los Angeles County's high desert to find its author, William Tallis. En route they discuss a range of ideas cultural and topical, from Gandhi to Goya.
They arrive at a remote and isolated old ranch, a solitary homestead in a surreal setting. (Huxley's evocative prose is actually an exact description of his own desert home, where he sits, writing.) They interact with the home's inhabitants, learning that Tallis died suddenly just six weeks before. As these characters serve mainly to establish the narrative frame or context, we do not see them again, except insofar as Tallis has written himself into the script's final scene, foreknowing his death (but misimagining his grave to lie at the desert farm he rents, rather than in a proper cemetery 30 miles (50 km) away in Lancaster).
Ape and Essence is presented in its entirety, without remark by interruption, footnote or afterword. It begins with a vignette describing the destruction of the world by nuclear and chemical warfare at the hands of intelligent baboons – a critique of the human race (see more about these vignettes below). The two warring sides each have an Einstein on a leash which they force to press the button, releasing clouds of disease-causing gases toward each other.
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Wikipedia