A mordant satirist and impresario of uncomfortable ideas, Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) remains best known for Brave New World, an early 1930s look into a grim future. Murray, biographer of (among others) Huxley's great-uncle Matthew Arnold, evokes the writer rather than the writings. Restless in body as well as in mind, Huxley never lived in one place very long, and could not make do with one woman, although his uncomplaining wife, Maria, was totally devoted all her life. Huxley was never easy to live with. His fastidious distaste for people not on his level of high culture was unconcealed. He experimented with extreme diets, psychedelic drugs and an undogmatic mysticism. An eye infection early on cost him much of his sight; still, he read omnivorously, often with a large magnifying glass, and was read to by Maria. Murray is best on the bleakly visionary Huxley who exploited his creative gifts as a quirky public intellectual. Although this biography does not replace Sybille Bedford's more thorough two-volume life, the passage of time has enabled Murray to deal with issues too sensitive for earlier publication, and to access diaries and other documents not available earlier. Readers may find Huxley sufficiently provocative here to look up his caustic Crome Yellow, Antic Hay, Point Counter Point
and—the biographer's choice—After Many a Summer. 16 pages of b&w photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)
