Charming Domestic Scene Regarding Aldous Huxley

Was recently complaining of no book to read, and so was given Point Counterpoint by Aldous Huxley. Hadn't read much by Huxley, like every other college student I'd devoured Brave New World and his essay on Perception, but I did recall a few years ago I'd picked up a volume of his short stories at a library sale and been appalled by their shoddy construction and pedestrian characterization.
Still, I had opened my mouth, and here was this book in my hands. So, I launched myself into Huxleyland, my spirits buoyed by a dust jacket that proclaimed it a "Modern Masterpiece by Modern Master", or something to that effect.
Imagine my dismay to discover that Huxley the prose stylist was even worse that I'd suspected, the worst sort of pedant! Here was an essayist trying to write fiction, which inspires in me the same sort of dread one might experience watching a nurse perform open-heart surgery. He blunders about, writing everything that comes to mind in hopes of hitting on a good image or simile. And he occasionally makes contact, but of course by then you're too exhausted to care. Just one example, and I won't get this exactly right, but paraphrasation will (trust me) suffice: An old laboratorious gentleman pauses amidst his beakers to capture a faint melody, identifying it as Bach, charmed, transfixed. And there's a passage preceding the precious groaner (which still I withhold), something about the melody tracing itself on the air, which is nice enough, but then Huxley follows with, "The hairs in the old man's auditory canal were washed about like seaweed in a heavy sea."

That's all I have to say. I rest my case. Anyway, suffice it to say I was not making very good progress on Huxley's opus, and it was suggested by the good lady who gave me the book that I found it distasteful only because it had been her suggestion. To which I replied (and humor me, poor reader, as I so rarely get the good lines, as I so rarely get the zinger): "I don't like it because it's a bad book."

One thing I didn't mention: Mrs. Dalloway (a masterpiece) was published in 1925. Huxley's book came out in 1928. Did Huxley (oh did you, Aldous?) get swept away by Woolf's genius? Did he fall prey to the anxiety of influence? I must know the reason for this book's grand ambition and monumental badness. It shows every sign of loving care, of immense devotion and grinding toil, all details lovingly rendered. This is not a careless book, just a horribly misguided one. How did it come about?