Brave New World

Rating:
Summary: A Thought-Provoking Book
Review: I'm not particularly interested in the question of this book's place as a work of literary genius. It may be an indispensable part of the Western canon. It may be predictable and its characters flat. I think both arguments can be made convincingly.

Both positions miss the point of the book, though. Huxley wasn't unskilled as an author, but he never wrote expressly to produce a great piece of literature. His writing was purposeful and prophetic, intended to communicate a warning. Huxley would likely prefer a reader who denigrates his literary skill while grasping his point than one who blindly lauds him.

What, then, is the point? Huxley paints a portrait of a not too distant world where the life has gained in comfort but lost all of its flavor. There remains no passion, no true excitement (only its physiological equivalent), no opportunities for sacrifice and love. All of these have been sacrificed on the altar of stability and contentment.

All goes well until a few outsiders (Bernard, Helholtz, and John)who don't quite fit the mold of this society are introduced. The tension gradually builds to the climactic confrontation between John's worldview as an outsider and the ideology of the World State. Huxley leaves this final debate open, requiring that we examine our own assumptions.

The clear implication of Brave New World is that our society contains the seeds of a future world like the one Huxley describes. The dangerous trends that he identified in the 1920s continue to dominate the societies of the world's industrialized nations: overconsumption, hypersexuality, self-medication, the pursuit of ever greater creature comforts, the decline of ethics and of poetry, the promotion of leisure for its own sake, and the possibility of genetic engineering controlled by a narrow elite.

The greatest testament to Aldous Huxley would be if we each left his book determined to reevaluate our culture's often dangerous values. Brave New World demands a change in the way we think of ourselves and in the way we live our lives. Anything short of that response shows our failure to get the point.

Rating:
Summary: Rather overated
Review: I acknowledge that Huxley had vision,creativity,and a very deep intuition on a philosophical and the sociological thought process. Yet the book never truly says more than what you are already expecting. Before I even picked this book up to read it, I had a good idea of what he was steering towards. And I must say I hit the nail on the head. A Utopian state where everyone is engeneered, the Christian views of the world or in the brave new world are non-existent and erudition is perverse. The real depth and deep thought never truly surfaces. Even Huxley himself expressed litary error and dissapointment after it was published. Brave New World is not a horrible book, it does bring out some good points, but it is not what people say it is. This book is clearly overated and interestingly enough it holds a lot of qualities which advocate christendom. So in closing, if you want philosophy then read philosophy, not a peice of supposed fiction which on telling someone you have read it will mean you are well read.

Rating:
Summary: Prophetic?
Review: I really enjoyed this futuristic story about the advance (was it really an advance?) of the human race. The book shows what life looks life when humankind's sole purpose is hapiness. Meaningful relationships are non-existent, families are an anathema, discrimination is encouraged and most of the human population is doped up on drugs. Today, about seventy years after the writing of the book, it is scary how much our culture has gravitated toward Huxley's picture of 'A Brave New World'. At the end of the book, the contoller who is in control of the 'new world' basically says this about religion, "I think there is a God, but it is best to cover him up and keep people from being involved with Him." I think this is an underlying faulty assumption of our culture that leads to many of society's problems today.

On a lighter note, in the beginning of the book Huxley describes an advanced, super-civilized world and they are so advanced that they have huge cabinets of file cards keeping track of all their information (sarcasm on my part). I found it very amusing that in the thirties, our culture had not even dreamed of computers yet. It makes me wonder what is going to be in the future that we cannot even dream of?

The book is a great, interesting, sobering story. There is a ton of philosophy (especially toward the end), but the storyline is easy to follow and fascinating. I wish someone would make a movie.

Rating:
Summary: A Classic.
Review: Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' is a classic almost everyone should read before they get out of high school or college. It is not just for science fiction fans, but for lovers of good storytelling in general.

Rating:
Summary: Utopia ?
Review: I found this book quite astonishing, especially considering it was written in 1936. The author presents a possible utopia in which people are spared all types of mental and physical pain throughout thier lives, all desires are met with instant gratification, and the consumption of mind altering drugs with no side effects is encouraged by the state. People are brainwashed from an early age to be simple and childlike, thus alleviating any of the pressures and angst that comes with being a free thinking individual. There are no families or relationships to burden people with the want or loss of love. Huxley makes it apparent that pain and prolonged desire are unique and valuable human qualities, for without pain, one can never know true happiness or passion for life. The book is very relevant to today's society in which being intelligent is considered unpopular, questioning the status quo merely a form of trouble making, and believing in love rather than promiscuous meaningless sex, blasphemy. It makes you appreciate the imperfections of humanity, and taking the bad with the good a little bit easier after considering the alternative.

Rating:
Summary: A Life Without Pain
Review: It was the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) who said "life without pain would have no meaning." One would think that most people would want as little misery or anguish in their lives as possible (unless they're masochists), but I think the gist of Schopenhauer's statement is that if people go through life without feeling or experiencing anything unpleasant, then they're not really alive. They might as well be a beautiful mannequin. (Could that mean an afterlife in hell is more meaningful than an afterlife in heaven?) If people have no understanding of the bad, then they can't fully appreciate the good. Then there's that old adage about taking the rough with the smooth.

The word mannequin fits as a description for the people in "Brave New World", in the sense that they are mass produced and identical. As a matter of fact they are clones, bred in the Hatchery, their role in life predestined through gene manipulation and mental conditioning.

While the society in "Brave New World" is described as dystopian (lack of individuality, lack of choice, devoid of substance), there are some things to be envied too. Everyone feels secure with a sense of belonging, no one is starving in the gutter, there is no racism, no violence, no motivation for violence, and of course, no war. If anyone wants to check out of reality for a while they can take soma, a euphoric drug with no serious after-effects. Everything is unnatural and artificial. (But then, hasn't civilization always been unnatural and artificial?)

In essence, everyone feels content. Well, almost everyone. Bernard Marx sees the world around him, and is all too aware of its insipid shallowness. He sees himself as an outsider, someone who finds it impossible to fit in. As a man who refuses to "join the party", he chooses to wallow in his own discontent, to indulge in his own intellectual superiority. He won't even take soma. Naturally, this kind of behavior draws some unfavourable attention, particularly from Mustaphor Mond, the World Controller.

When Bernard takes a break from this society of claustrophobic togetherness, he travels to the United States, visiting a Reservation where people can live the "old-fashioned" way (fall in love, have families, contract disease). There, he finds a savage called John. Bernard takes John back to London, where he is seen as a freakish novelty, and Bernard, by association, enjoys a period of celebrity status. Like Bernard, John soon realizes how lifeless the people are and tries to escape.

Written in the 1930s, "Brave New World" has an ambivalent quality about its description of the future. We naturally assume that the future will be better, that every generation is better off than the one that precedes it. The world we live in now (in the West, at least) does have some similarities. Sex has long since lost its taboo status. In fact, people never shut up about it. There are those who see modern society as decadent, immoral and ungodly. To the more fanatical types, it is so repugnant, they seek to destroy it and impose their own way of life on the rest of us. That is a price we pay for free will and diversity. When we live in a world where no one can agree, and people are too stubborn to respect the beliefs of others, there is always trouble.

"Brave New World" is unlikely to be forgotten as an important piece of literature, but I prefer George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" (1949) when it comes to dystopian fiction. It's definitely more bleak and terrifying than the earlier book.

Rating:
Summary: such a crazy paradox....
Review: Wow.... I'm a freshman in IB and our enlgish teacher had us read this book for in depth analysis. All i can say is this book has so much packed into such a tiny volume of pages. Huxley is a brilliant writer. The ethical questionings, philosophical debates, the satire, and all the other stuff in between the lines will blow your mind. Espesially the way he presents it all. My advice: read the book and then decide if I'm just simple and don't know what im talking about. As well be advised, this book is extremely deep, and I recommend reading it only if you are matured enough mentally and appreciate deep books requiring crazy analysis. I'd say this book is more for sophmore or junior level and above - unless you are crazy advanced in English. I'm talking IB level.....

Rating:
Summary: It's actually happening.
Review: Many critics don't realize that when they speak badly of Huxley's predictions, that he had written them in 1932. How different was the social fabric of the Western World at that time! No, he may have overshot somewhat and not have predicted everything to the letter, but I doubt many other of his contemporaries would've guessed how close he DID come, in light of such things as experiments into cloning and gene modification research, rampant SSRI and prescription calmative usage, sexual liberation, fortified foods, gradual replacement of religion-centered personal guidance with psychology & group therapy. Some people object to Huxley's own views, that he was an unappreciated and well-educated but an iconoclast only insofar as it got him attention and allowed him to create the illusion of creative genius. Well, that's about as ad hominem as you can get. Some people just don't like some authors.

We may see parallels in Brave New World in the forefront of our social issues and technological breakthroughs, but in Huxley's day this was all bizarre and outlandish. Modern life, with its computers, sexually active youth, meal replacement powders, popularity of intellectually vapid magazines and TV spokesman (read: corporate) sponsored literature, and indictment of "under god" in the constitution would be just as much "science fiction" to depression-era intellectuals.

Huxley's writing style is a little disconcerting at times, vacillating between different scenes of action. It gave me reason to pause a few times, and at points it read more like a screenplay. His style is for the most part simple, and I for greatly prefer this over authors who pretentiously attempt to write in an overblown fashion, creating nothing but a haughty sounding literary failure.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest cautionary tale in American history
Review: Many books, such as Aldous Huxley's classic "Brave New World" go beyond the scope of science fiction: they are also meant to be used as a cautionary tale, to warn the reader of future possibilities in daily life.

By showing what the future may be like, Huxley manages to do this in a very frightening way. In Brave New World, nobody is born through natural means, rather, they are all born through test tubes. The people that create you also decide how you will turn out in the future: by giving you doses of alchohol, as well as harmful electric stimulation in your infant years. This decides if you are as smart as an Alpha, or grouped with the slow Epsilons. Alphas generally get good, high paying jobs, while Epsilons are often the janitors, the elevator operators, and the garbage collectors.

However, you are made to like what you are. Whether you are an Alpha, a Beta, a Delta, or an Epsilon (all groupings of your intelligence) you are happy with your placement. You are trained to like what you are, and wish never to be at a higher or lower level.

All in all, society is a utopia: everyone is happy. Enter one man, however, and you wind up with a dystopia, where not all persons and individuals are happy. Bernard Marx, a disaffected sleep specialist, begins to feel unhappiness, and dislikes the benovent totalitarian dictatorship ruling over the world.

Although there are no wars, no poverty, and no crime, Marx is still unhappy. Everyone around him is almost always high off of soma, a drug that is meant to keep the citizens calm. Promiscuous sex is also encouraged, although birth is not.

However, Marx and his new cohort, John the Savage, feel the need to change the ills of this dystopic society. The society they live in is a society of constant consumerism, and the time is 632 AF (after Ford). They dislike the way of life, and eventually, Mustapha Mond, one of the powerful rulers, begin to interfere in their thoughts.

This excellent novel provides a cautionary tale of dystopia, as well as the destruction of the individual.

The only problem is, that in this world of madness, it may take a few readings to truly understand the comical satire that Huxley is preaching.

One last remark: I say this is satire because people and citizens are born into their roles in society. Alphas are born to be doctors and lawyers, while Epsilons are born to be laborious workers. This reminds the reader of the monarchial system in Britain, where the rulers are born in their positions. Thus, the satire is strongly evident in perhaps one of the greatest cautionary tales in American history. Much along same lines, I'd like to recommend a second book, much less known, entitled [e-mail] (a medicated memoir) by Tom Grimes, a strikingly hilarious satire of a world gone mad with consumerism, where prozac has replaced soma as the calming drug and our innundation in relentless, mind-numbing corporate marketing disguised as quasi-information threatens to kill us all. [e-mail] and Brave New World are two books that will alter the way you think. Check them out!

Rating:
Summary: Scifi? Drama? Political Satire?-whatever, it's great!
Review: Aldous Huxley has concocted the most abstract, encompassing, and somewhat frightening novel about a possible and plausible future destination the world could arrive at if it decided to follow a certain course of action. In Huxley's novel, the events that are depicted here can be determined to take place about six hundred years from now. Extreme scientific progression in the field of genetic engineering and biochemistry coupled with an apparent social retrogression into a rigid, inflexible caste system have transformed the people of the earth into a totally bizarre society which contrasts radically to today's lifestyle. One of the novel's characters, John the Savage, finds out he's analogous to a square peg in a round hole once he is removed from his indian reservation environment and transplanted into the "brave new world" of the futuristic London. John's plight illustrates the inevitable obfuscation anyone can experience if obtrusively placed in surroundings of omnipresent unfamiliarity. In consideration of the year 1932 when this novel was published, the facts that the principles of heredity were discovered by a cloistered Austrian monk a relatively few years before, and that nucleic acids would not be determined to contain the genetic "blueprints" of organisms until many years later; it's easy to see Mr. Huxley was a very erudite, perspicacious, and artful writer well ahead of his time. I am still waiting to see if a feature motion picture based on this novel will ever be produced. A little bit of trivia here: Mr. Huxley's death on November 22, 1963 went relatively unnoticed by the general public only because someone else of more prominence was assassinated that same day.