Most helpful customer reviews
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A book that demands--and repays--careful reading., Dec 8 2001
"And then you must remember that most readers don't really read...We all read too much nowadays to be able to read properly. We read with the eyes alone, not with the imagination." Thus speaks Mr. Cardan, a character in Aldous Huxley's "Those Barren Leaves," and all I can say in reply is, "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." Wanting to rush into the plot, I found myself annoyed with Huxley's slow, careful unfolding of the characters--the upper-class English guests at the Tuscan castle of the pretentious, amorous Mrs. Aldwinkle--and their long-winded conversations about Balzac and Diderot. I started to agree with Elizabeth Bowen's comment that Huxley was "the stupid person's idea of the clever person." After I had slowed down, however, and started to really read Huxley's painstaking dialogue and careful descriptions of the Italian countryside, I began to appreciate his brilliant evisceration of the motley crew around the impossible Mrs. Aldwinkle: Mr. Cardan, the Epicurean philosopher; Calamy, the amorist who is beginning to wonder if there is more to life than bedding women; Mary Thriplow, the novelist who never stops writing, even when making love; Chelifer, the disillusioned poet; and the hapless Grace Elver, a sort of female Forrest Gump without Forrest's lucky star. This wickedly funny yet meditative book repays the work of thoughtful readers, it has much to say about what is really important in life, and how expert people are at self-delusion. People who liked "My Dinner with Andre" or Robertson Davies' Cornish Trilogy should like "Those Barren Leaves."
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A brilliant, funny and poignant novel, Aug 26 1998
A hard-to-find book--I came across it as a yellowed old paperback at a rummage sale, and I'm glad I did. Full of characters you're ready to hate, you end up loving nearly every one. Extraordinarily beautiful language, the writing is the cream of the crop. Not much of a plot, to be sure, as it is filled mostly with conversation that asks all of life's profoundest questions. He doesn't answer all the questions--no one can!--but gives you ample food for thought. The book is set in Italy after WWI, and abounds in beautiful scenery. Read it when you're relaxed and have time to chew on it.
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