academic goose-flesh

lzarzalejo73

lzarzalejo73

Senior Member
Spanish
I guess I shouldn't even try to understand what Aldous Huxley meant when he wrote "...a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory" in his book Brave New World (Chapter One, page 2) From the context, I can figure out the sad setting in the "squat grey building" where there was no-one to be seen, not even "some draped lay figure" (anybody lying on the floor) or even "some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh" I presume "pallid shape...gooseflesh/goosebumps/goose pimples" refers to someone suffering from cold, but what baffles me is the adjective "academic". And of course, I fear I misunderstand the whole passage. Could someone, please, cast some light? Thanks in advance for your kind cooperation.
 
    • Unfortunately, you have not given much background and I doubt anyone is going to go and find their copy of the book.

    Where is this taking place? What is the building? Who is the observer/narrator? Why is this being described to the reader?

    The word "lay" give us a clue, but not enough of one...
     
    It's been a long time since I've read this book so I don't remember this, but I can give you a guess and you can see if it fits in with the rest of the text. The ray of sunlight was shining through the window looking for somebody, anybody, to shine upon. The two types of people it was looking for are opposite types, giving the impression that anybody at all can get the sunlight if only they were there. You have a "lay figure" which I take to mean a "layperson" meaning a non-professional, contrasted with a "shape of academic gooseflesh," or (I imagine it to be) a non-layperson, an academic, somebody with professional knowledge and experience. It feels like he's humorously describing a person as a random shape of flesh, much like you could humorously (and cynically) describe people as "bags of bones," "bags of flesh" or "meatbags." The person is pallid, or sickly pale, implying they need some sunlight on them, which might further describe the nature or character of this building and its inhabitants.

    That's my two cents. See if it fits with the rest of it.
     
    A "lay figure" is a model of the human body used by artists, which can be used by itself, or with clothing ("draped").

    As far as "academic gooseflesh"............I'm unsure. Maybe a live model, who gets goosebumps from the cold, while posing in an artist's studio ("academy")?
     
    Ah - I concur now with Minnesota Guy. I'm not an artist by any stretch so I had never heard "lay figure" before as the modelling dummy. Google confirmed :)
     
    I'm really impressed, and thankful, for your truly enlightening analysis. Thank you all, including you, always so helpful, PaulQ. I guess no more comments are necessary now.
     
    lzarzalejo73 said:
    I guess no more comments are necessary now.
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    On the contrary, you guess wrongly: context is there not for you or me but for future visitors to refer to, to place the example in that context.

    The building that is being described is the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre - a soulless place - in which human embryos are hatched as natural reproduction no longer exists. There will be no artists in here at all nor will there be any artists models.

    In the clause "a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh,", "some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh", is in apposition to "some draped lay figure" - they are the same thing. The light sought an academic who would look like a lay figure: thin, stiff - the academic is the same but pale and with a pale, loose skin like that of a goose.
     
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    For context this is a description of a building where people are made in test tubes; it is the opening chapter:

    A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.

    The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure...
    Brave New World read online free by Aldous Huxley
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    The word 'lay' has this meaning:
    Lay - ADJ
    2. Not having professional qualifications or expert knowledge, especially in law or medicine:
    "a lay member of the Health Authority"
    lay - definition of lay in English from the Oxford dictionary
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    The text goes on to describe the kind of knowledge students are given:
    "Just to give you a general idea," ... generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.
    Click to expand...
    In other words, there are no philosophers/academics, only 'lay people' in this Brave New World.
     
    There's an analysis of the opening sentences of the novel here:
    BBC Arts - Close Reading: Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley - BBC

    What might a cold, harsh, thin light be hungering for? [...] All the qualities that define life, vital human life, and the sex that produces it?[...]

    Here it would be content even just to find a semblance of human life – a mannequin (that’s what the lay figure means). This starved light would even settle for ‘pallid academic goose-flesh’.

    Hmm...Sarah Dillon manages to evade giving any explanation of what the "pallid academic goose-flesh" might be, which makes me think that it's a deliberately obscure phrase; the reader is not meant to understand more than the literal meaning of the words, at this point
     
    Thank you, velisarius. I'm afraid I don't have the required, the necessary formal qualifications to go into so fine, deep analysis. Still, as I progress reading the book, I presume, I sense all the relevant quoting you enclosed (What might a cold, harsh, thin light be hungering for? [...] All the qualities that define life, vital human life, and the sex that produces it?[...] Here it would be content even just to find a semblance of human life – a mannequin (that’s what the lay figure means). This starved light would even settle for ‘pallid academic goose-flesh’), will, hopefully make sense to me,all related to the CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, where events take place. As far as the "pallid academic goose-flesh" bit, "I (the reader) am "not meant to understand more than the literal meaning", not "at this point anyway" anyway. Let's hope I'll eventually be able to. Thanks again.
     
    Huxley is describing a world where intellectual investigation is a thing of the past. We are asked to imagine a world with one language and one way of thinking. It's chilling; no freedom of information on the internet and no language schools would mean no WordReference Forums.
     
    lzarzalejo73 said:
    From the context, I can figure out the sad setting in the "squat grey building" where there was no-one to be seen
    Click to expand...

    I don't see how you figure that out. The (north-facing) room being described is specifically the Fertilizing Room. Only 6 words after the end of your quotation, the workers in the room are described. Shortly afterwards, we are told that the workers number 300. Even sooner (about 25 words after your quotation) the light is described as striking along the yellow barrels of the microscopes. So there are people to be seen; moreover, since we're shortly afterwards specifically told that the workers are using the microscopes, it seems on the face of it absurd to suppose that the harsh light sees the microscopes but not the people bent over them. Since glass, nickel, and porcelain (which the sunlight 'finds'), along with the brass of the telescope barrels, reflect light, and all we're told of the workers is that they wear white overalls and pale,corpse-coloured gloves [oddly, much what you might describe as draped mannequins or pallid shapes of academic gooseflesh], it would make sense to suppose a contrast between the sun finding a response, a sign of life, from the glass, etc., but not from the human figures; however, squaring this with the words Huxley uses, 'hungrily seeking … but finding only...', requires a little good-will.
     
    It is a bit mysterious, but it seems to me the light doesn't recognize the workers as people. They are robotic clones doing their assigned duties like cogs in a giant machine.

    It also seems to me that gooseflesh is not a reference to cold but rather to the perhaps pale white skin of a pudgy academic type (maybe a type known by Huxley), (reminiscent of a plump goose), who has spent all his time in the lab or the library and doesn't see much sun.

    Plucked-Goose.jpg


    At least, to the light, he would be a real human being.
     
    lzarzalejo73 said:
    I guess I shouldn't even try to understand what Aldous Huxley meant when he wrote "...a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory" in his book Brave New World (Chapter One, page 2) From the context, I can figure out the sad setting in the "squat grey building" where there was no-one to be seen, not even "some draped lay figure" (anybody lying on the floor) or even "some pallid shape of academic gooseflesh" I presume "pallid shape...gooseflesh/goosebumps/goose pimples" refers to someone suffering from cold, but what baffles me is the adjective "academic". And of course, I fear I misunderstand the whole passage. Could someone, please, cast some light? Thanks in advance for your kind cooperation.
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    Realize that traditionally visual artists especially painters chose North facing studios with large high windows or skylights in order to get a neutral "cold" white light that made their paint colors appear more true.

    I read this passage as comparing the lab to a painter's studio. The light is personified as expecting to fall on the artificial or real bodies of painters models. "Academic" painting included traditional realism based on classical Greek art, and was the only place in Victorian England where you could "respectably" look at naked people. I assume academic gooseflesh is a reference to a naked model posing.

    But instead of art this space is turned over to science but still a science of creating bodies.

    Huxley is writing mid 20th century when modern art has become mostly abstract but would expect his readers to know about the styles of art that persisted 30 or so years before he wrote.
     
    Ah! The thread is illuminated by the generous beam of Ponyprof's inspiration. The sentence preceding the quotation by the OP is 'The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north', but I for one had completely failed to pick up on the idea of the artist's preference for north-facing windows. Maybe, given the variety of interpretations offered, Huxley was being a bit optimistic about his readers, but there's surely no doubt that Ponyprof is right. 'Brave New World' is the sort of novel one only reads once, in my case long ago, but I don't remember finding any difficulties with it then, which just shows how sloppy our reading often is (even as students of Eng.Lit.)
     
    [Threads have been merged at this point. DonnyB - moderator]

    ...a harsh light...hungrily seeking some lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel....


    From Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
     
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    It's a complex literary image. One part is called a "transferred epithet", where an adjective is moved from one noun to another. But there's also a "synechdoche" were the part of a thing is taken to refer to the whole. So, to unpack it:

    ...a harsh light...hungrily seeking some stiff figure, some academic person with pale pimply flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel....
     
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