Point Counter Point

Point Counter Point is Aldous Huxley’s fourth novel. More complex and serious than his previous work, it weaves together several stories to amusingly satirize English intellectual life and comment on fundamental human issues. Through these connected stories and characters Huxley strives to find meaning in the rapidly changing society of the late 1920s. Points are presented with their counterpoint: love and sex, life and death, religion and science, society and individualism. Many of the same themes are treated again in a very different way in Huxley’s next novel, Brave New World. Point Counter Point is a roman à clef, with many of the characters based on real life figures. In addition to Huxley himself, other characters are based on people Huxley knew personally, such as the author D. H. Lawrence, the political activist Nancy Cunard, and the painter Augustus John.