Synopsis of "Time Must Have a Stop"

Baby-faced adolescent Sebastian Barnack is the protagonist of  "Time Must Have a Stop",a novel by Aldous Huxley, written in 1944. Misunderstood and underestimated,  gifted but unrecognized, Sebastian winds his way through complex life events while home in England and in Italy vacationing with his uncle Eustace.   The novel transpires in the 1930s,  against growing Fascism, a menacing backdrop that influences the story Domineered by over-assertive relatives, as well as victimized by his own adolescent drives and machines, he is comic and serious both.  Though intelligent, he thinks like an adolescent, per Huxley's intimate grasp of inner dialogue. Already a talented poet, but not good at “maths”, as the term was used back then, Sebastián's literary gifts contrasts with his youth.

 A note on names. The title "Time Must Have a Stop" is drawn from Huxley’s storage of literary associations.  “Time Must Have a Stop” are the impassioned Hotspur’s words—-from "King Henry the Fourth"-- as he muses on the nature of time. Sebastian is a reference to St. Sebastion, the arrow pierced saint.  Looking so young is one indignity he must suffer. 

The story begins with Sebastian leaving a reading room in a library. He is accosted by a middle-aged woman, "trying to detain this phantom." The dowager, Daisy Ockham, has lost her own son  and husband by drowning. Sebastian with his curly hair, and look of a Rubens angel, seems to her the incarnation of her son, Frankie. She offers him some chocolates. He appraises her class quickly by registering the accent, and the quality of her clothes and decides he can taks the chocolates. Then he feels guilty that a boy had to die for him to have these chocolates.  Such are the ruefully internal conflicts that plague Sebastian.

Sebastian’s father, John Barnack, is a lawyer who espouses socialist causes throughout the world—-high-minded but doctrinaire, stingy, and remote from his son.  Sebastian sees the fervor he expresses for everyone but his son's welfare.  His mother, a more appealing person than his father, has died. Ever without funds, Sebastian endures not only his prepubescent appearance but must wear hand-me-downs when with his friends. Sebastian lives amongst aristocrats and consorts with them in his worn-out clothes, ever feeling humiliated.

Susan is a partial consolation. She is his cousin. Motherless and with his father on the road, he spends much time with Susan.  They take piano lessons  with an "asthmatic" German teacher who wheezes through his cigar smoke and constantly chides Sebastian, the “liddle genius.” Sebastion takes his revenge on the unsatisfactory world by teasing the ever admiring Susan, and scaring  her with made-up horror stories, and fabricated romances with elegant ladies, which she believes and her indignation grows. He particularly develops the theme of a fictional Mrs. Esdaile, and their romance, which Susan enviously listens to, believing her to be real. 

 One unusual chapter in this part of the book describes the internal act of poetical composition, the search for words and nuances. Sebastian's father, John Barnack, rigid and sacrosanct, resents Sebastion's resemblance to his late wife, a Sebastian exults when he is sent to Italy to visit Uncle Eustace, a hedonistic man who shows him life's finer things.  Uncle Eustace can’t stand his over-idealistic brother John. While visiting Eustace, Sebastion also falls in love with an earthy but conniving caretaker at Eustace's mansion and is seduced. Life is very different here in affluent Italy. Uncle Eustace, an art collector, even gives Sebastian a Degas, an apt representation of his earthy nature. Better yet, he promises Sebastian new evening clothes (a tux) so he can go out with his well heeled friends. But before the evening clothes are bought, Uncle Eustace dies. Sebastian, suddenly realizing he will not get his evening clothes, decides to swap the Degas for a new tuxedo, being greatly cheated. An auditor of the late uncle's estate notes the missing Degas and accusations of theft against innocent employees multiply. Sebastian remains silent, while the falsely implicated suffer. 

Finally, he knows he must get back the Degas. Unable to do so himself, he enlists the help of Uncle Bruno, a dotty, religious zealot,,or so it seems at the time. Uncle Bruno retrieves the painting but at great cost--calling on compromised friends that inadvertently make him, Bruno, an enemy of the Italian Fascisti. The Fascist police imprison and mistreat Bruno and hasten his declining health. Sebastian undertakes the care of the dying uncle, and while doing is profoundly altered by the old man's kindness and spirituality. Bruno's effects a transformation in Sebastian, helping him achieve vision, awareness, maturity, love, and compassion for others.