Mortal Coils

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Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley in 1922.

Mortal coils is an archaic term, meaning the activities and troubles of life. The stories themselves concern themselves with some sort of trouble, normally of an amorous nature, and often ending with disappointment.

[edit] The stories

  • The first story, The Gioconda Smile, involves a short murder story.
  • Next is Permutations Among the Nightingales, a play concerning the amorous problems various patrons of a certain establishment encounter.
  • The Tillotson Banquet tells of an old artist who was thought to be dead, and is "rediscovered", and an honorary dinner is organised for him.
  • Green Tunnels is about the boredom of a young girl on holiday with her family. She develops a romantic fantasy, and is ulitimately disillusioned.
  • Nuns at Luncheon is a second hand story being told of a nun falling in love. The story mocks the writer's process, a concept Huxley used in his Crome Yellow.