Antic Hay is a comic novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1923. The story takes place in London and depicts the aimless or self-absorbed cultural elite in the sad and turbulent times following the end of World War I.
The book follows the lives of a diverse cast of characters in bohemian, artistic and intellectual circles. It clearly demonstrates Huxley's ability to dramatise intellectual debates in fiction and has been called a "novel of ideas" rather than people.
“Futilitarian” best describes the type of desultory, pleasure-seeking intellectual Huxley pinned so mercilessly to the literary map in this book. Wickedly funny and deliciously barbed, the novel epitomizes the glittering neuroticism of post-First World War London.