• Source: Mortal Coils

Mortal Coils is a collection of five short fictional pieces written by Aldous Huxley, published in 1921. The book consists of three short stories, a novelette and a play.
The title uses a phrase from Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1:

[...] To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to dream; aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause [...]
The stories all concern themselves with some sort of trouble, normally of an amorous nature, and often ending with disappointment.




Content


"The Gioconda Smile", novelette:
is a mixture of social satire and murder story, which Huxley later adapted into a film called A Woman's Vengeance (1948).
"Permutations Among the Nightingales", play:
is a play concerning the amorous problems encountered by various patrons of a hotel.
"The Tillotson Banquet":
tells of an old artist who was thought to be dead, and is "rediscovered"; a not entirely successful honorary dinner is organised for him.
"Green Tunnels":
is about the boredom of a young girl on holiday with her family. She develops a romantic fantasy, and is ultimately disillusioned.
"Nuns at Luncheon":
is a second-hand story told of a nun falling in love. The story mocks the writer's process, a concept Huxley used in his novel Crome Yellow.




Adaptations


Based on novelette "The Gioconda Smile":

A Woman's Vengeance (1948), film directed by Zoltan Korda
Mortal Coils: Play (1948), play by Aldous Huxley
Das Lächeln der Gioconda (1958), TV movie directed by Michael Kehlmann
The Gioconda Smile (1963), TV movie directed by Patrick Barton
Das Lächeln der Gioconda (1966), TV movie directed by Ilo von Jankó
Mona Lisan hymy (1966), TV movie directed by Jukka Sipilä
Úsmev Mony Lízy (1968), TV movie directed by Bedřich Kramosil
Based on play Mortal Coils: Play:

Das Lächeln der Gioconda (1953), TV movie directed by Werner Völger
Il sorriso della Gioconda (1969), TV movie directed by Enrico Colosimo




References






External links



Mortal Coils at Project Gutenberg
Mortal Coils title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
Aldous Huxley at IMDb

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