Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley, published in 1921. The book consists of three short stories, a novelette and a play.
The title uses a phrase from Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1:
To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause
The stories all concern themselves with some sort of trouble, normally of an amorous nature, and often ending with disappointment.
Content
- "The Gioconda Smile", novelette:
- is a mixture of social satire and murder story, which Huxley later adapted into a film called A Woman's Vengeance (1948).
- "Permutations Among the Nightingales", play:
- is a play concerning the amorous problems encountered by various patrons of a hotel.
- "The Tillotson Banquet":
- tells of an old artist who was thought to be dead, and is "rediscovered"; a not entirely successful 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 ultimately disillusioned.
- "Nuns at Luncheon":
- is a second-hand story told of a nun falling in love. The story mocks the writer's process, a concept Huxley used in his novel Crome Yellow.
Adaptations
Based on novelette "The Gioconda Smile":
- A Woman's Vengeance (1948), film directed by Zoltan Korda
- Mortal Coils: Play (1948), play by Aldous Huxley
- Das Lächeln der Gioconda (1958), TV movie directed by Michael Kehlmann
- The Gioconda Smile (1963), TV movie directed by Patrick Barton
- Das Lächeln der Gioconda (1966), TV movie directed by Ilo von Jankó
- Mona Lisan hymy (1966), TV movie directed by Jukka Sipilä
- Úsmev Mony Lízy (1968), TV movie directed by Bedřich Kramosil
Based on play Mortal Coils: Play:
- Das Lächeln der Gioconda (1953), TV movie directed by Werner Völger
- Il sorriso della Gioconda (1969), TV movie directed by Enrico Colosimo
References
- "Books: Antic Antiques". Time. 21 April 1958. Archived from the original on January 31, 2011. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
- "A Woman's Vengeance – News – The Harvard Crimson". Thecrimson.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
- "Huxley's acid reign". Theage.com.au. 3 July 2002. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
External links
- Mortal Coils at Project Gutenberg
- Mortal Coils title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Aldous Huxley at IMDb
