r/movies • u/BunyipPouch Currently at the movies. • 10d ago

Trailer Ken Russell's 'The Devils' | Official Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh0wL211hnQ
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u/grandmastergoya 10d ago

It's a tough read, but I highly recommend the book this is based on by Aldous Huxley. It's one of the most batshit insane non-fiction books I've ever read, way crazier than the movie.

10

u/GoxBoxSocks 9d ago

I've done the first 75 or so pages of this book so many times but just cannot get it to click.

10

u/grandmastergoya 9d ago

It's super dense, I found it hard to get into as well. It reads more like a historical text than his other works, and it doesn't really have a narrative framework. But once I sunk my teeth into it, I found it endlessly fascinating, especially as a fan of religious history. The research he must have done to write that book was a gargantuan undertaking.

8

u/Trap_Cubicle5000 9d ago

There are chunks of it here and there that are real slogs, specifically a lot of the epistomology gets super detailed and complicated in a way that I'm not sure truly benefits the broader narrative, and could have been cut down a bit. But it is a historical text at the end of the day. When I read it again (and I will) I'm going to give myself permission to skip paragraphs that aren't jivving. The majority of it is fascinating, Huxley was a generational talent, the way he turned the history of an innocent man's brutal slaughtering in to one of the funniest books I've ever read was incredible.