The Genius and the goddess

I have never really read much of Huxley's fiction and always had the sense of him as a quiet thin, and light writer. He is generally considered more a 'novelist of ideas' than one capable of creating powerful characters. My expectations were pleasantly upset by this work which is much better than I thought it would be. This book has a frame- story in which two old friends , suitors of the same woman meet again. The woman has since died, and her husband tells of an earlier involvement. This involvement is the main story of the work. The son of a deceased Lutheran Minister and an over- possessive mother John Rivers is invited as a young scientist to be the assistant of the 'genius of the story, Henry Marteens. Marteens is married to Kathy, the goddess of the story, who is described as the most beautiful woman the narrator has ever seen. The senior scientist is a kind of crazy genius who lives in his own inner world and is sustained by the loving care of his wife. They have two children a teenage girl and a younger son. The narrator Rivers becomes a member of the household. The teenage girl falls in love with him but he refuses her advances. The beautiful Kathy 's mother becomes ill and she travels to see and care for her. During the vigil Marteens who cannot live without the help of his wife also becomes critically sick. He has done this before as a way of blackmailing his wife to come back to him. He has wild imaginings when she is away about her sexual infidelities. When he is at the point of death finally, his wife leaves her dying mother to come back to him. He does not immediately respond. In the meantime the virgin very Christian conscienced Rivers is fallen upon by Kathy, who emotionally lonely desperate, and empty needs to have her soul restored though passionate love. Rivers succumbs and it is his sexual awakening on April 23, the day of Shakespeare's birthday. The two conduct briefly a clandestine affair which is sensed by the jealous rejected daughter who all along has resented her mother. The lovers decide that for the good of all they must part. On the day of his departure on the way to the station the mother and daughter in the same car quarrel and while the mother is distracted they are in a fatal accident, which only injures the young brother who later dies a more horrible death in the war at Okinawa. Rivers goes on a short time later to meet Helen, who will his wife and was also loved by the writer he is telling the story to. Marteens will marry in a short time his wife's quite unattractive sister, and after she dies marry yet again. Another carer who will nurse him out of the world when he is in his late eighties. The book in the opening contrasts the writer's ethic of living by the muse of memory, as opposed to the narrator's ethic of being wholly absorbed and living in the 'Now'. One senses this latter view corresponds more to that of Huxley if his late- life parapsychological and drug experiments are indicative. The work is ca

The genius is an invalid, fussy professor with asthma and a host of hypochondriac ailments; his wife is a Nordic goddess, buxom, blonde and a symbol of fecund femininity. When a guest comes to stay, he falls deeply in love with the Goddess. How can tragedy not be the result?This is an odd little novel, yet the interactions of the characters is fascinating and the end horrifying.