Filmed in five countries, this program traces the life of New Zealand's most beloved writer from her birth in Wellington in 1888, to her untimely death in France in 1923. Mansfield's extraordinary ability as a writer was influenced by the many fascinating aspects of her complex and often enigmatic personality. The courage she displayed in flaunting many of the conventions of her day places her firmly in the category of "women ahead of their time."...

Aldous Huxley's lifelong concern with the dichotomy between passion and reason finds its fullest expression both thematically and formally in his masterpiece Point Counter Point. By presenting a vision of life in which diverse aspects of experience are observed simultaneously, Huxley characterizes the symptoms of "the disease of modern man" in the manner of a composer - themes and characters are repeated, altered slightly, and played off one another...