is probably one of my favourite books of all time, It is a dissection and examination of the nonsense of Alice in Wonderland, including the riddle which is the namesake of the title.
I bought it at a used book store when I was in high school and was instantly in love with the koanlike way this book was written.
This
book follows rules of nonsense, such as rule: To save your life, hide it in a portmanteau, Huxley maintains Nonsense to be a logical game but I had trouble understanding the various moves performed, Consequently I went through the book permanently confused, It is a dissection and examination of the nonsense of Alice in Wonderland, including the riddle which is the namesake of the title Would not recommend! Awful! Terrible writing! No! In the earlys the anthropologist Francis Huxley, who has died aged, undertook pioneering fieldwork among the Urubu people of the basin.
The resulting book, Affable Savages, adopted a new, “reflexive” approach to the study of culture in which the authors encounters with the “other” are reflected as much in personal reactions as in objective descriptions.
Francis was a pioneer of this form of anthropological writing a style that much suited his lifelong interest in shamanism and the altered states of consciousness often experienced by religious healers.
While this novelesque way of writing was largely shunned by his contemporaries, eventually it became commonplace, Sign up for Lab Notes the Guardians weekly science u In the earlys the anthropologist Francis Huxley, who has died aged, undertook pioneering fieldwork among the Urubu people of the basin.
The resulting book, Affable Savages, adopted a new, “reflexive” approach to the study of culture in which the authors encounters with the “other” are reflected as much in personal reactions as in objective descriptions.
Francis was a pioneer of this form of anthropological writing a style that much suited his lifelong interest in shamanism and the altered states of consciousness often experienced by religious healers.
While this novelesque way of writing was largely shunned by his contemporaries, eventually it became commonplace, Sign up for Lab Notes the Guardian's weekly science updateRead In the meantime, apart from a period as a lecturer and research fellow at St Catherines College, Oxford, Francis followed his own path outside the academic mainstream.
In The Invisibles: Voodoo Gods in Haiti, he described vividly his encounter with possession, magic and psychic healing and in The Way of the Sacredhe expanded this personal perspective on healing to include the study of myths, religious rites and sacred symbolism.
While Franciss interests were diverse The Raven and the Writing Deskwas a study of the riddles of Lewis Carroll his fascination with sacred healing remained constant.
With his fellow anthropologist, Jeremy Narby, he co edited Shamans Through Time, a collection of five centuries of writing on the subject.
Francis was also an activist for the indigenous peoples he studied and loved, A Sunday Times article by Norman Lewis inhad pointed to the killing of the native peoples of the basin and the taking of their land, prompting Francis, along with several other anthropologists and the explorer Robin Hanbury Tenison, to found Survival International, an NGO devoted to protecting the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide.
Over the years Survival International has provided a platform for exposing genocide, violence, slavery and exploitation, InFrancis was a member of a four person mission, sponsored by the Aborigines Protection Society and aided by the Brazilian government, to investigate the plight of Native South American tribes.
Their report, Tribes of the Basin in Brazil, identified groups threatened by Brazilian economic expansion and described the sad impact on their religious, spiritual and psychological health and wellbeing.
Born in Oxford, Francis was the son of Julian Huxley, the noted biologist and first director general of Unesco, and his Swiss wife, Juliette nee Baillot, a writer and sculptor.
He joined a remarkable dynasty that included Julians brother, the author Aldous Huxley, and half brother, the physiologist and Nobel laureate Andrew Huxley.
Francis was also the great grandson of Charles Darwins friend Thomas Henry Huxley, and as a child knew such luminaries as Bertrand Russell and TE Lawrence.
Educated at Gordonstoun, the school in Moray, Scotland founded inby the educationist Kurt Hahn after he left Germany, Francis joined the Royal Navy inas assistant navigating officer on HMS Ramilles.
Inhe went to Balliol College, Oxford, where he gained a degree in zoology, working under Peter Medawar, who regretted that Francis did not continue in that field.
In, while undertaking an anthropological study of Weyburn hospital, Saskatchewan, Francis participated in Humphrey Osmonds research on the therapeutic value of LSD for alcohol addiction.
Indeed, Francis was the familys true pioneer of the psyche, counting the radical psychoanalyst RD Laing amongst his closest friends, As director of studies at Laings London based Philadelphia Association, Francis acted as teacher, supervisor, therapist, and writer, Inhe returned to Oxford to give a well received lecture on Psychoanalysis and Anthropology, He ret sitelink.