1958: ALDOUS HUXLEY Interview | Monitor | Writers and Wordsmiths | BBC Archive

"I would certainly like to have written a very good novel. I don't think I ever have." - Aldous Huxley
John Lehmann, the poet and editor of London Magazine, interviews Aldous Huxley about his illustrious and varied writing career. Is Huxley an educator or an entertainer? Is he a novelist or an essayist? Is his post-war focus on non-fiction evidence that he has lost faith in the novel as an art form? Does it surprise him that so many of the forecasts he made in Brave New World have already come to pass in reality?
Originally broadcast 12 October, 1958.
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[@TheHarrip]

What an unbelievable conversion. In 2022 nobody does interviews of such quality

[@silversurfermusicco5263]

Totally agree. Its rare film

[@johnsrabe]

You’re exactly right. Nobody does interviews like this anymore.

[@elroyr1]

Purely open and intellectual dialog, quite rare indeed.

[@thebiggingerjock]

I absolutely love these interviews/conversations. Nobody pauses and thinks how their answer will be interpreted or what may be inferred. Just relevant questioning and probing, respecting the interviewee, affording an unguarded response. Wonderful.

[@goldwhitedragon]

remember, the best Whites died during WW2 so today a lower average IQ plus higher mutational load is correlated to a decrease in the ability to articulate and think.

[@RetrofIex]

Huxley is so humble

[@bcactus3510]

A great mind, the doors of perception was spot on

[@Iceni007]

A brilliant mind - so modest too. Brave New World, Eyeless in Gaza, Point Counterpoint - all classic novels. And his early works so very witty and entertaining - Crome Yellow, Antic Hay. The Doors of Perception should be mandatory reading in secondary schools and for anyone with an open and enquiring mind. Huxley - prophet, visionary, philosopher, all-round polymath genius. Peerless.

[@sebp400]

The Art of Seeing.. ah ah..

[@garryleeks4848]

Remember talking hours about these sort of subjects at eton and Cambridge, very fascinating and interesting , now back to my day job watching paint dry in Essex 😮

[@garryleeks4848]

@@Philrc it’s fascinating watching paint dry , sometimes you think it’s dry but it’s not, then end up with a fingerprint, come on we have all done that 🙄🙄🙄

[@nwsanagnwsths]

Today 60 years from the death of Aldous Huxley are completed!!! It was 22/11/1963

[@Ridersonthestorm8899]

Interviewed by John Lehmann, brother of the novelist Rosamund and the wonderfully creepy actress Beatrix. Great stuff.

[@thecaveofthedead]

Well, he was right about novels in audio form becoming important - although he couldn't see how there could be long novels affordably recorded like that. He was also right that the dangers to civil liberties that weren't acute then in the liberal democracies have become acute. And he did manage to successfully blend his satirical phase and his mystic phase in Eyeless In Gaza.

[@graemeyetts3465]

He was an analogue guy, not a digital dude.😅

[@libanmuse-bj2kp]

Nice to hang out with you

[@alancawfield6549]

Brave New World is a great novel,, really makes you think.

[@BadgerBotherer1]

Along with "1984", it's been used as the blueprint for our modern world.

[@marcelkuiper5474]

Made me sick, I was born in 1984, I have been expecting thus gradual descent into slavery/spiritual death for quite some time, I think we are nearly there and past the point of no return

[@Johnlikeme]

Fantastic interview! The book "Island" that they are talking about at the end is his best book I think.

[@yaosteen]

I have to agree, it’s an amazing and deeply underrated novel. It’s interesting to hear how he thinks about it as he was just starting to write it. I think it ended up a little more cynical about human nature then a traditional utopia novel does.

[@Arareemote]

It's truly a shame he never finished his final novel. Laura includes a chapter of it in her Personal Memoir of Aldous called "This Timeless Moment" It would've been something remarkable.

[@user-cx3jy3of9w]

The novels he's talking about in 3:10 are probably The genius and the goddess, published in 1955, and The island, his latest work.

[@alancawfield6549]

"Population pressure, pressing upon resources" he speaks about it in the interview, and yet 60 years later it is still not being taken seriously. It is by far the biggest problem the world faces and yet world wide it never seems to be a viewed by politicians,economists and scientists as something worth pushing to the forefront of public discourse.

[@andydixon2980]

I think the attitude of British(possibly the U.S also etc) governence now is MORE people, MORE TAX PAID. They don't care about the wider problems of over-population.

[@carefulconsumer8682]

Also the "menace to individual liberty." Thinking of the "cancel culture" and widespread censorship the past few years.

[@agamemnom]

not very often you see someone 60 years ahead of their time, he was right about the spoken novel rising except its in online audiobook form rather than the gramophone 🤣

[@bradleymilton9372]

Fantastic

[@QED_]

Huxley's career and life is one of the better examples of an intellectual who realized the limits of intellect and made sustained personal efforts to balance it with emotive and somatic perspectives (drugs, bodywork, etc). It's worthwhile to read about his life from that angle . . .

[@robertalenrichter]

It would be nice if you put the more intellectual clips on a playlist, as you have, for example, the movie stars. The interesting bits are only to be found by scrolling and scrolling, scattershot and cheek by jowl.

[@Orf]

“I would certainly like to have written a very good novel. I don’t think I ever have.” -Aldous Huxley (1958)

[@graemeyetts3465]

Most of the truly great ideas come from a good, or at least benign place, and then too often go bandy Here's my imaginary modern-day and brief conversation with this humble,prophetic gentleman. Me: "Mr Huxley;Imagine a world where not only can your latest novel be transmitted across the globe electronically in a mere moment, but this can be done with or without human intervention and in any language and across your entire catalogue!!" (Kindly allow the license poetique.) A.H. : He reponds with an avuncular but quizical smile. "That would be interesting "

[@joeydennis7834]

Dude was brilliant af ong frfr

[@piehunter2962]

Near the end of the video Huxley talks about a fantasy, a "reverse Brave New World." Does he ever publish this?

[@castelodeossos3947]

'...there are no rules, except to do it well' (3:37). Echoes of Oscar Wilde. Those were the days. Now, sensitivity readers and others in the employ of publishers arbitrarily lay down rules that must be followed, on pain of cancellation. '...menaces to individual liberty... grave threats... although they may not be acute, particularly in the democratic countries, are potentially very grave indeed... some of them were foreseen [in 'Brave New World'], and I think, some of them I didn't have sufficient imagination to foresee' (8:30). 'Menaces' is indeed the right word.

[@marcelkuiper5474]

The idea is, we as a society should have had listened to those who can peek over the edge without falling in the abyss, we used to listen to our shamans, to our sages and wise men.

[@DSAK55]

and now we have KZbin influencers

[@SaneSociety1]

My new crush.

[@edwardmulholland7912]

Island and Eyeless in Gaza are great books. Not to sure about his political views. Huxley was into eugenics.

[@davidreid8075]

A more interesting world...

[@dragosnc4624]

many people say he was a visionary but actually, he was in touch with those who planned the future. Maybe he was one of those men actually. Many people don't realize that the future was planned way before with decades from the present moment. Even now are presented to us many things from the future and many still don't believe these things could happen. But the Bible presented us things from 2000 years from now and the majority still don't believe it is true.

[@pj1481]

This guy was British intelligence, Orwell also. The global elite have been measuring the masses' response for very long time. Both books reveal the two ways they had or have in mind for total control of the masses. If a book, or a movie gets over whelming attention and media time, decade after decade, then they are force feeding it, and keeping you mindful. Millions of books written and these two get referred to and we continue to get reminded about them. Seems strange to me. Reminds me of Manson, Son of Sam, Gary, Bundy, BTK, you would think they were the only serial killers that ever existed or mattered. Big Bro is behind more studies and experiments then most people realize. They are very devious, don't under estimate.

[@FrankBass-tf8qe]

Humility is overrated, and will only get you so far.

[@hilaryepstein6013]

Recommending LSD to open up the mind. Is this where the 50s/60s drug culture started I wonder.

[@garryleeks4848]

It started right here after there conversation, hippies and flower power , my god wish I was there 😮

[@Charles-zd9mj]

Absolutely it is!

[@Charles-zd9mj]

If the doors of perception are cleansed, then everything would appear as it truly is...Infinite.

[@BOZ_11]

It started thousands of years ago. Ancient cultures used psychedelics

[@Volker_GR]

History has to be rewritten. Sorry Timothy Leary 🙂

[@robertanderson3905]

WELL ONE UNDERSTANDS WHO PUT MAGEE THROUGH

[@jimferry6539]

If he was alive today he’d just be a guest on the joe rogan 😅

[@tentringer4065]

I can just imagine that dunce Rogan's furrowed brow.

[@stocktonjoans]

"I don't think you could have a very long [spoken] novel [...]" The audio novel i'm currently listening to is nearly 17 hours long

[@flaggerify]

I think he meant fiction for audio only, not print. So a fiction podcast?

[@jiggerinokobalis609]

The BBC wasn't always hot garbage.