Critical Analysis Essay of Novel

A large amount of culture in the sixties “counter-culture” movement period was derived from the piece of literature “The Doors to Perception” written by Aldus Huxley. His book recounts his experiences with the chemical substance of mescaline. His recordings influenced the culture of the sixties in the sense that along with many other authors of the time period he supported and described the use of psychedelic drugs. This book was bound to make a serious impact on the readers when it was first published considering the radicalized culture.

“He feels that previous investigators of mescaline have stopped at a point 'well this side of idolatry'. Whether he himself has, is open to question. It is not enough” was a written review of the Huxley essay posted on the web posted by H.E.W. Hardenberg. This comment if read by the readers of the birth generation of the essay could easily relate to the idea of opening one’s mind to alternative answers for meaning to everyday activities. This type of mindset to controlled substances is not as negative as government may consider it to be. The idea of opening ones mind to alternative ways of life with or without the use of mescaline or any drug. Unfortunately this book was promoting this mindset with the use of drugs, one of the reasons it was not highly accepted among main stream authors and literature critics.

This book in some ways was a predecessor to the style of literature that developed in the sixties called “gonzo” journalism. This was mainly made famous by Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe. This style incorporates authors first person perspectives on their life experiences and the affect they have on the environment around them. It is very much a first person based perspective of writing that was a highly effective for users of drugs such as Huxley, Thompson, and Wolfe. The style of “gonzo” was not deemed a style until Thompson was suggested nick naming his style of writing. Despite this later actually development of a style Huxley had written in this style almost twelve years before Thompson’s books began to be published. In a sense Huxley was a predecessor to the birth of “gonzo.” This shows his impact on the culture by experimenting with literature styles that became popular at his time of being highly noted as an author.

Huxley’s ideas and writings about the use of mind altering substances were not without a reason. “Huxley sometimes publicly claimed that LSD, for some people, is a drug that can bring out the creativity in people.” This quote is derived from a biography of Huxley posted by an anonymous entity on the internet. He was just not a hippie burn out product of the era, he was merely a novelist in this certain time period with the opportunity to study life from a new perspective. He felt as though the use of mescaline and lysergic acid could actually open a person’s mind to more of a creative instinct that was naturally there and just waiting to be untapped. He was of the opinion that a person would not have a change or burst of creativity while under the influence of the substance but instead after the effects have dwelled away and a new sense of perception is laid onto the world viewed by an individual. These feelings of creativity were probably a very easily related to topic by the love generation who were seeking to open doors to new ways of life.