Nonsense, the Other, and Applied Science in Two or Three Graces

This chapter explores Two or Three Graces (1926), Huxley’s fourth book of short fiction. It provides the analyses of the following stories: “Half-Holiday,” “The Monocle,” and “Fairy Godmother.” As in the previous collections, the stories from Two or Three Graces build on Huxley’s well-known topics but also introduce new concepts such as the other in response to which characters fail to achieve their own subjectivity. This chapter also points to Huxley’s criticism of applied science and group-imposed identities. Finally, the interpretations of these stories show that Huxley paid attention to not only rational but also irrational components of language, which brings him closer to Russian futurists and other modernists who mastered the acoustic dimensions of literature.