Ape and Essence
Encyclopedia
Ape and Essence is a novel by Aldous Huxley
, published by Chatto & Windus in the UK and Harper & Brothers
in the US. It is set in a dystopia
, similar to that in Brave New World
, Huxley's more famous work. It is largely a satire of the rise of large-scale warfare and warmongering in the 20th century, and presents a pessimistic view of the politics of mutually assured destruction. The book makes extensive use of surrealist imagery, depicting humans as apes who, as a whole, will inevitably commit suicide.
titled Ape and Essence which Tallis had submitted to the studio (it was rejected on 1947 November 26, a fortnight before his death, but not returned to him).
—who, on the day of Gandhi's murder (30 January 1948), rescue Ape and Essence from the trash. Intrigued, they make the drive two days later to Los Angeles County's high desert to find its author, William Tallis. En route they discuss a range of ideas cultural and topical, from Gandhi to Goya.
They arrive at a remote and isolated old ranch, a solitary homestead in a surreal setting. (Huxley's evocative prose is actually an exact description of his own desert home, where he sits, writing.) They interact with the home's inhabitants, learning that Tallis died suddenly just six weeks before. As these characters serve mainly to establish the narrative frame or context, we do not see them again, except insofar as Tallis has written himself into the script's final scene, foreknowing his death (but misimagining his grave to lie at the desert farm he rents, rather than in a proper cemetery 30 miles away in Lancaster
).
describing the destruction of the world by nuclear
and chemical warfare
at the hands of intelligent baboons - a critique of the human race (see more about these vignettes below). The two warring sides each have an Einstein
on a leash which they force to press the button, releasing clouds of disease-causing gases toward each other.
The story then advances to a time 100 years after the catastrophic events of World War III
, which characters in the book refer to as "the thing", when nuclear and chemical weapons eventually destroyed most of human civilization
. In the script's timeframe, radiation has subsided to safer levels and the New Zealand
rediscovery scientists (New Zealand being spared from the bombings because it was "of no strategic importance") are sailing to California
.
Unfortunately, a strange society has emerged from the radiation and two of its men capture one of the scientists (Dr. Poole). Dr. Poole is introduced to an illiterate society which survives by "mining" graves for clothes, burning library books as fuel, and killing off newborns deformed by radiation (that is, newborns with over 3 pairs of nipples and more than 7 toes/fingers per hand) to preserve genetic purity. The society has also taken to worshipping Satan
, whom they refer to as Belial
, and limiting reproduction to an annual two-week orgy
which begins on "Belial's Day Eve" after the deformed babies are "purified by blood."
The story climaxes during the purification ceremonies of Belial's Day Eve with an intellectual confrontation between Dr. Poole and the Arch Vicar, the head of the Church of Belial (much like the confrontation John the Savage has with Mustapha Mond in Brave New World
). During the conversation the Arch Vicar reveals that there is a minority of "hots" who do not express an interest in the post-World War III style of reproduction, but they are severely punished to keep them in line. In exchange for his life, Dr. Poole agrees to do what he can as a botanist to help increase their crops yields, but about a year later he escapes with Loola in search of the community of "hots" that is rumored to exist North of the desert.
The script—and the novel—end with Dr. Poole and Loola in the desert north of Los Angeles, breaking their trek by a tombstone which bears the author's name of Tallis, the dates 1882-1948, and three lines from the antepenultimate verse of Percy Bysshe Shelley
's elegy on the death of John Keats
. Lest Loola find it sad, Dr. Poole, happily possessed of a duodecimo Shelley, reads her the poem's penultimate verse:
Several of the vignettes portray a female baboon singing sensually to an all-baboon audience "Give me, give me, give me detumescence..." Other vignettes involve apes performing various human activities, ape armies assembling, and other more surreal imagery.
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
, published by Chatto & Windus in the UK and Harper & Brothers
Harper & Brothers
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...
in the US. It is set in a dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
, similar to that in Brave New World
Brave New World
Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...
, Huxley's more famous work. It is largely a satire of the rise of large-scale warfare and warmongering in the 20th century, and presents a pessimistic view of the politics of mutually assured destruction. The book makes extensive use of surrealist imagery, depicting humans as apes who, as a whole, will inevitably commit suicide.
Structure
The novel is divided into two sections, Tallis—the name of the novel's character most like Huxley himself—and the Script—the screenplayScreenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
titled Ape and Essence which Tallis had submitted to the studio (it was rejected on 1947 November 26, a fortnight before his death, but not returned to him).
Frame
Tallis gives us two movie industry intellectuals—the narrator and screenwriter Bob BriggsRobert Briggs (character)
Robert "Bob" Briggs is a fictional screenwriter living in 1940s Hollywood. His one appearance to date is in Aldous Huxley's dystopian satire Ape and Essence.Briggs is famous for his fascinating smile.-Hollywood career:...
—who, on the day of Gandhi's murder (30 January 1948), rescue Ape and Essence from the trash. Intrigued, they make the drive two days later to Los Angeles County's high desert to find its author, William Tallis. En route they discuss a range of ideas cultural and topical, from Gandhi to Goya.
They arrive at a remote and isolated old ranch, a solitary homestead in a surreal setting. (Huxley's evocative prose is actually an exact description of his own desert home, where he sits, writing.) They interact with the home's inhabitants, learning that Tallis died suddenly just six weeks before. As these characters serve mainly to establish the narrative frame or context, we do not see them again, except insofar as Tallis has written himself into the script's final scene, foreknowing his death (but misimagining his grave to lie at the desert farm he rents, rather than in a proper cemetery 30 miles away in Lancaster
Lancaster, California
Lancaster is a charter city in northern Los Angeles County, in the high desert, near the Kern County line. Lancaster currently ranks as the 30th largest city in California, and the 148th largest city in the United States. Lancaster is the principal city within the Antelope Valley...
).
Story
Ape and Essence is presented in its entirety, without remark by interruption, footnote or afterword. It begins with a vignetteVignette (literature)
In theatrical script writing, sketch stories, and poetry, a vignette is a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting and sometimes an object...
describing the destruction of the world by nuclear
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
and chemical warfare
Chemical warfare
Chemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons. This type of warfare is distinct from Nuclear warfare and Biological warfare, which together make up NBC, the military acronym for Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical...
at the hands of intelligent baboons - a critique of the human race (see more about these vignettes below). The two warring sides each have an Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
on a leash which they force to press the button, releasing clouds of disease-causing gases toward each other.
The story then advances to a time 100 years after the catastrophic events of World War III
World War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
, which characters in the book refer to as "the thing", when nuclear and chemical weapons eventually destroyed most of human civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
. In the script's timeframe, radiation has subsided to safer levels and the New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
rediscovery scientists (New Zealand being spared from the bombings because it was "of no strategic importance") are sailing to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
.
Unfortunately, a strange society has emerged from the radiation and two of its men capture one of the scientists (Dr. Poole). Dr. Poole is introduced to an illiterate society which survives by "mining" graves for clothes, burning library books as fuel, and killing off newborns deformed by radiation (that is, newborns with over 3 pairs of nipples and more than 7 toes/fingers per hand) to preserve genetic purity. The society has also taken to worshipping Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, whom they refer to as Belial
Belial
Belial is one of the four crown princes of Hell and a demon in the Bible, Jewish apocrypha and Christian apocrypha...
, and limiting reproduction to an annual two-week orgy
Orgy
In modern usage, an orgy is a sex party where guests engage in promiscuous or multifarious sexual activity or group sex. An orgy is similar to debauchery, which refers to excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures....
which begins on "Belial's Day Eve" after the deformed babies are "purified by blood."
The story climaxes during the purification ceremonies of Belial's Day Eve with an intellectual confrontation between Dr. Poole and the Arch Vicar, the head of the Church of Belial (much like the confrontation John the Savage has with Mustapha Mond in Brave New World
Brave New World
Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...
). During the conversation the Arch Vicar reveals that there is a minority of "hots" who do not express an interest in the post-World War III style of reproduction, but they are severely punished to keep them in line. In exchange for his life, Dr. Poole agrees to do what he can as a botanist to help increase their crops yields, but about a year later he escapes with Loola in search of the community of "hots" that is rumored to exist North of the desert.
The script—and the novel—end with Dr. Poole and Loola in the desert north of Los Angeles, breaking their trek by a tombstone which bears the author's name of Tallis, the dates 1882-1948, and three lines from the antepenultimate verse of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
's elegy on the death of John Keats
Adonais
Adonaïs: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc. , also spelled Adonaies, is a pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats in 1821, and widely regarded as one of Shelley's best and most well-known works...
. Lest Loola find it sad, Dr. Poole, happily possessed of a duodecimo Shelley, reads her the poem's penultimate verse:
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe
That Beauty in which all things work and move
That Benediction, which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love,
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
Vignettes
The story in the script is punctuated by a series of vignettes centering on a society which is much like 20th century human society, but with baboons substituted for men. These brief scenes serve to further satirize human society and depict it as brutal, warlike, and stupid. The opening scene shows two Einsteins, tied to leashes held by baboons on either side of a pair of baboon armies, facing each other and preparing for battle. They are then directed to operate machines which release "improved" disease-causing clouds at the opposition. This scene expresses the belief that society's most intelligent figures are exploited by ignorant warmongers, and the hopelessness of a society in which every party seeks to annihilate all others.Several of the vignettes portray a female baboon singing sensually to an all-baboon audience "Give me, give me, give me detumescence..." Other vignettes involve apes performing various human activities, ape armies assembling, and other more surreal imagery.