Monumental egos and moral emptiness among the privileged classes - Rated 
When I was young the mantra of the resource-poor when talking about those more financially endowed was always `they have more money than sense'. That is certainly the case in Huxley's cynical sneer at the manners and mores of the upper-classes and intellectuals of the 1920s, of which he was one of course. Sacrificing plot for content and detailed character development, Point Counter Point is a complexly woven, satirical take on what was effectively England's `Jazz Age' where monumental egos and moral emptiness reign among the privileged classes. The Tantamount family, rich since the dissolution of the monasteries, throw regular parties for the intellectuals and dilettantes of the day, and indeed the atmosphere is rather like being led around and being invited to listen in to the conversations en route. However, much of the book revolves around an elaborate series of relationships and affairs. Among others, Lady Edward Tantamount is having an affair with the painter and womaniser John Bidlake, and man-eating Lucy Tantamount is pursued by Bidlake's son Walter. Walter is living with pregnant Marjorie Carling, who has left her family to be with him and who realises that she is already `old hat'. In the meantime, his sister Elinor is returning from India with her husband Philip Quarles, locked in a marriage that has lost all passion and meaning. The intellectuals are represented chiefly by Mark Rampion and Maurice Spandrell, men of wildly differing characters. The happily married Rampion is one of the few people in the book with a shred of integrity whereas Spandrell is an odious, pompous debaucher of young women. The pain of each unlikeable character is built upon brick by brick and it is difficult to feel sympathy for any of them, even when tragedy occurs, their self-induced agonies resulting from grasping selfishness and duplicity. Sexual shenanigans aside, Point Counter Point is at heart a book of ideas with the characters acting as mouthpieces for some fierce polemic on politics and religion, art, music and literature, physics and biology, sex and morality. Huxley betrays his own particular concern about the effects of industrialisation and rapid technological progress, overuse of the world's resources, and his fear of creeping Americanisation. Great writing, but a perhaps a little heavy going for much of today's readership.
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