Ape and Essence (by Aldous Huxley, published 1948) is not about apes, it's a dystopia like Brave New World. The book starts off in hollywood with two movie producers who rescue a script from destruction. They are intrigued by the script and drive to the country to find its author. The rest of the book is the rescued script "Ape and Essence," presented in its entirety and without remark.

Image:Goya ape and essence.jpg (the etching by Goya described in the beginning of the book)

Plot Summary (spoiler)

The script begins with the destruction of the world by nuclear and chemical warfare at the hands of intelligent apes - a critique of the human race. The two warring sides each have an Einstein on a leash which they force to press the button, launching the atomic weapons at each other.

The story then advances 100 years, to a time when the radiation has subsided to safer levels and the New Zealand rediscovery scientists (New Zealand being spared from the bombings because it was "of no strategic importance") are sailing to California, hoping to salvage some resources from it's once-great cities.

Unfortunately, a strange society has emerged from the radiation and two of its men capture one of the scientists (Dr. Poole). Dr. Poole is introduced to an illiterate society which survives by "mining" graves for clothes, burning library books as fuel, and killing off deformed babies (from the radiation) to preserve genetic purity. The society has also taken to worshipping "Belial" and limiting reproduction an annual one-week orgy which begins on "Belial's Day Eve" after the deformed babies are "purified by blood."

The book climaxes during the purification ceremonies of Belial's Day Eve with an intellectual confrontation between Dr. Poole and the Arch Vicar, the head of the Church of Belial (much like the confrontation John savage has with Mustapha Mond in Brave New World). During the conversation the Arch Vicar reveals that there is a minority of "hots" who do not express an interest in the post-WWIII style of reproduction, but they are severely punished to keep them in line. In exchange for his life, Dr. Poole agrees to do what he can as a botanist to help increase their crops yields, but about a year later he escapes with Loola in search of the community of "hots" that is rumored to exist North of the desert.

The book ends with Dr. Poole and Loola picniking in the desert by a tombstone which carries the name of the author who wrote the script (get it?). Dr. Poole reads a poem (see below) to Loola and crushes an eggshell and sprinkles it over the grave.

The poem he reads to Loola:

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe
That Beauty in which all things work and move
That Benediction, which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love,
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me
Consuming the last coulds of cold mortality.
--Percy Bysshe Shelley, (an excerpt from Adonais)

Characters (spoiler)

Alfred "Alfie" Poole is the main protagonist and a typical Huxley male character. Throughout most of the story he is a shy but kind intellectual. He becomes a much more bold character and loses some of his innocence by the end of the novel, but retains his kindness.

"Well, here he is, our hero, Dr. Alfred Poole D.Sc. Better known to his students and younger colleagues as Stagnant Poole. And the nickname, alas, is painfully apt. For though not unhandsome, as you see, though a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and by no means a fool, in the circumstances of practical life his intelligence seems to be only potential, his attractiveness no more than latent. It is as though he lived behind plate glass, could see and be seen, but never establish contact. And the fault, as Dr. Schneeglock of the Psychology Department is only too ready to tell you, the fault lies with that devoted and intensely widowed mother of his - that saint, that pillar of fortitude, that vampire, who still presides at his breakfast table and with her own hands launders his silk shirts and sacrificially darns his socks." "'Never,' he is repeating to himself, 'Never! Whatever mother may say.' For though he respects Miss Hook as a botanist, relies on her as an organizer and admires her as a high-minded person, the idea of being made one flesh with her is unthinkable as a violation of the Categorical Imperative."

Loola is the other protagonist. She is a young girl living in the society that exists in post-apocalyptic California.

"There are ... two young women, all of them busy with shovels in or around an opened grave and all dressed identically in shirts and trousers of tattered homespun. Over these rough garments each wears a small square apron upon which, in scarlet wool, is embroidered the word NO. In addition to the aprons, the girls wear a round patch over either breast and, behind, a pair of somewhat larger patches on the seat of their trousers." "[Dr. Poole's] words and, still more, his pious gesture allay Loola's suspicions. Her face clears; she gives him her most charming smile. The dimples in her cheeks come to life like a pair of adorable little creatures fitfully leading a secret and autonomous existence in independence of the rest of Loola's face. Dr. Poole returns her smile, but almost instantly looks away, blushing as he does so to the roots of his hair."

The Arch Vicar moves most of the plot along. He is also Mr. Huxley's voice when he wants to criticize our ideas of science and government. The climax of the novel occurs when Dr. Poole and The Arch Vicar discuss their ideas about society inside "The Unholy of Unholies." This is much like the climax of Brave New World when John Savage discusses society with Mustapha Mond.

"In the lobby all talk ceases abruptly and there is a long, expectant hush. Then a horn is blown and another of those strangely babyish, but self-important voices announces: 'His Eminence the Arch-Vicar of Belial, Lord of the Earth, Primate of California, Servant of the Proletariat, Bishop of Hollywood.' ... Dressed in a long robe of Anglo-Nubian goatskins and wearing a golden crown set with four tall, sharp horns, the Arch-Vicar is seen majestically descending. An acolyte holds a large goatskin umbrella over his head and he is followed by twenty or thirty ecclesiastical dignitaries, ranging in rank from three-horned Patriarchs to one-horned Presbyters and hornless Postulants. All of them, from the Arch-Vicar downward, are conspicuously beardless, sweaty and fat-rumped and, when any of them speaks, it is always in a fluting contralto." "The Arch-Vicar raises his hands to his tiara, touches the two anterior horns, then lays his spiritually charged fingertips on the Chief's forehead. 'May you never be impaled on His Horns.'
'Amen,' says the Chief..."

The Chief is a side-character used to describe a typical "post-thing" man.

Flossie is a woman who seems completely content with her situation. She works with Loola digging up corpses, but seems to be somewhat higher rank.

Ethel Hook is Dr. Poole's academic contemporary. They are both botanists and members of the New Zealand Rediscovery Crew. She would like for Dr. Poole to marry her - and she genuinely loves him, but in a friendly and pragmatic sort of way. Unfortunately, Dr. Poole sees her as somewhat of a mother-figure and finds it impossible to requite her feelings.

"In her tweeds and her horn-rimmed spectacles Ethel Hook is one of those extraordinarily wholesome, amazingly efficient and intensely English girls to whom, unless one is oneself equally wholesome, equally English and even more efficient, one would so much rather not be married. Which is probably why, at thirty-five, Ethel is still without a husband. Still without a husband - but not, she dares to hope, for much longer. For though dear Alfred has not yet actually proposed, she knows (and knows that he knows) that his mother's dearest wish is for him to do so - and Alfred is the most dutiful of sons. Besides they have so much in common - botany, the University, the poetry of Wordsworth. She feels confident that before they get back to Auckland it will all be arranged - the simple ceremony with dear old Dr. Trilliams officiating, the honeymoon in the Southern Alps, the return to their sweet little house in Mount Eden, and then after eighteen months, the first baby..." "And now, after all these years, after so many comittee meetings attended, so many lectures delivered and examination papers corrected, now at last, moving in His mysterious way, God has made her, she feels, responsible for this helpless and unhappy man. And because he is unhappy and helpless, she loves him - not romantically of course, not as she loved that curly-headed scamp who, fifteen years ago, swept her off her feet and then married the daughter of that rich contractor, but genuinely none the less, with a strong, protective tenderness."

Belial's Day Eve (spoiler)

If a baby is born that has more than seven fingers per hand, more than four nipples, or fewer than 2 thumbs the law states that it must be "purified."

"Vessels" (meaning females, from "vessels of the unholy spirit") who give birth to such illegal babies have their heads shaved and are beaten with bull pizzles.

After the purification of the previous year's newborns, the "NO" patches are removed and the orgy begins. Once Belial Week is over, the patches go back on and it's buisness as usual until next year.

This is mostly just copied and pasted from [1] my personal website, so I hope it's ok.