Point Counter point

Aldous Huxley's lifelong concern with the dichotomy between passion and reason finds its fullest expression both thematically and formally in his masterpiece Point Counter Point. By presenting a vision of life in which diverse aspects of experience are observed simultaneously, Huxley characterizes the symptoms of "the disease of modern man" in the manner of a composer. Themes and characters are repeated, altered slightly, and played off one another in a tone that is at once critical and sympathetic. Huxley's satiric view of intellectual life in the '20s is populated with characters based on such celebrities of the time as D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Sir Oswald Mosley, Nancy Cunard, and John Middleton Murray, as well as Huxley himself. It is Huxley's most concentrated attack on the scientific attitude and its effect on modern culture.