Aldous Huxley and Proust

Mentioning Proust yesterday made me think of Aldous Huxley's character Anthony Beavis who is so rude about him in Eyeless in Gaza:
"'How I hate old Proust! Really detest him.' And with a richly comic eloquence he proceeded to evoke the vision of that asthmatic seeker of lost time squatting, horribly white and flabby, with breasts almost female but fledged with long black hairs, for ever squatting in the tepid bath of his remembered past. And all the stale soapsuds of countless previous washings floated around him, all the accumulated dirt of years lay crusty on the sides of the tub or hung in dark suspension in the water. And there he sat, a pale repellent invalid, taking up spongefuls of his own thick soup and squeezing it over his face, scooping up cupfuls of it and appreciatively rolling the grey and gritty liquor round his mouth, gargling, rinsing his nostrils with it, like a pious Hindu in the Ganges."
Completely unfair but very memorable.
No-one seems to read Aldous Huxley's novels any more. I've forgotten almost everything about them, except that passage and the fact that I enjoyed them. I suppose one could regard this as one of the pluses of advancing age: due to failing memory I am now able to read books I enjoyed already and enjoy them all over again.
Actually another bit of Huxley I haven't forgotten is the section on the word 'carminative' in Crome Yellow:
"'It's a word I've treasured since my earliest infancy,' said Denis, 'treasured and loved. They used to give me cinnamon when I had a cold - quite useless, but not disagreeable. One poured it drop by drop out of narrow bottles, a golden liquor, fierce and fiery. On the label was a list of its virtues and, among other things, it was described as being in the highest degree carminative. I adored the word. 'Isn't it carminative,' I used to say to myself when I'd taken my dose. It seemed so wonderfully to describe that sensation of internal warmth, that glow, that - what shall I call it? - physical satisfaction which followed the drinking of cinnamon. Later when I discovered alcohol, 'carminative' described that similar, but nobler, more spiritual glow which wine evokes not only in the body but the soul as well. The carminative virtues of burgundy, of rum, of old brandy, of Lacryma Christi, of Marsala, of Aleatico, of stout, of gin, of champagne, of claret, of the raw new wine of this year's Tuscan vintage - I compared them, I classified them. Marsala is rosily, downily carminative; gin pricks and refreshes while it warms. I had a whole table of carmination values. And now,' Denis spread out his hands, palms upwards, despairingly, 'now I know what carminative really means.'
'Well, what does it mean?' asked Mr Scogan, a little impatiently.
'Carminative,' said Denis, lingering lovingly over the syllables, 'carminative. I imagined vaguely that it had something to do with carmen-carminis, still more vaguely with caro-carnis, and its derivatives, like carnival and carnation. Carminative - there was the idea of singing and the idea of flesh, rose-coloured and warm, with a suggestion of the jollities of mi-Careme and the masked holidays of Venice. Carminative - the warmth,the glow, the interior ripeness were all in the word.'"
Poor Denis.