Crome Yellow is in the tradition of the English country house novel, as practised by Thomas Love Peacock, in which a diverse group of characters descend upon an estate to leech off the host. They spend most of their time eating, drinking, and holding forth on their personal intellectual conceits. There is little plot development.
The book satirically describes a number of 'types' of the period. The house party is viewed largely through the eyes of the naïve young poet Denis Stone. Denis is enamored of Anne Wimbush, who seems more interested in the artist Gombauld. The quiet and hard-of-hearing Jenny often hides behind her red journal. Mary, decisive and yet naïve, decides to embark on an amorous adventure. Mr. Wimbush, the owner of Crome, has been writing a history of the house and its family, of which excerpts are given. His wife is obsessed with spiritualism. Other characters include the pompous literary hack Mr. Barbecue-Smith, the cynical Mr. Scogan (who has elements of Bertrand Russell and of Norman Douglas), the libertine Ivor Lombard, and the ascetic and melancholy Vicar and his wife.
The novel contains an unflattering portrait of the ageing H. H. Asquith, former prime minister and still leader of the opposition at the time, thinly disguised as Mr. Callamay, "a ci-devant Prime Minister feebly toddling across the lawn after any pretty girl". The novel mentions his “Roman profile”, and also that young women were reluctant to go on car journeys alone with him.
By : Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963)
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