ABSTRACT
Mr. Huxley showed his unusual powers of invention in his earlier Limbo, a collection of sketches; but in Crome Yellow his satirical abilities have developed remarkably. With his punning title and his style, con fessedly imitative of Peacock, he sets the note of preciosity; but the human quality of his characters, all of whom are a trifle mad, gives a far wider appeal to his story than you are led to expect. These strange house-party guests so over-conscious of sexoddity (the word seems to me a good one) are so pungently drawn that I suspect them of being caricatures. Denis, the hero, is a strange bird, as mad as a hatter, as ineffectual as a Dodo, and yet with a definite appeal. The women are less real. The high spot in the book seems to me to be the story of two midgets destroyed by their children, who revert to type and by their normality break the hearts of their parents. This is fine satirical writing. Crome Yellow is determinedly eccentric and unflaggingly delightful.
