Rating: Summary: BORING.. OUTDATED... Review: The writer created a new style. It is not futuristic: it should be called "surealistic fiction". The book is boring, the general portrait of the future is very brief and full of lacunes, one of the characters spent most of the book just quoting Shakespeare. The ending is absurdly weak; well, it's a trip with no destination at all. It is just boring. I bought thinkin it was a classic, but it is just boring.
Rating: Summary: A look at a world not too far away Review: This book was very enjoyable, and well written too. It shows an alternate futre in which society has finally reached a utopian state. The book dramatically portays the struggles one would have to give up if they would want to live in this utopia. For example, you are predetermined from birth what you will be doing for the rest of your life. All free choice has been given up for the stability of society. One of the lacking things in this book i would have to say is the lack of details. There is no mention of how people get their individuals jobs, only on what roles they will play in society. I would have liked a bit more explanation about some of the things that were not mentioned in the book. I think that it would round out the book a little more and perhaps make the world that Huxley created seem just that much more real. One of the best parts about the book is the content, which should never be changed. It is still relavent today, perhaps even more now than when he wrote it back in '32. I think the book is actually scary in a wa since some of the things that he mentions are starting to happen. More and more the attention of our government and media is focused towards safety and happiness. This book gives a nice proposition of how we can achieve it. Personally, i am happy with how our world is today, and the only thing that i would change is to remove hate from the hearts of people. That in my opinion is a perfect society.
Rating: Summary: A good read. Review: I enjoy books like this one. I like looking at their society and thinking that I'm really glad that things aren't that way around here. What a relief. I don't think I could live in a society that is so obsessed with pleasure. A very good book though, I highly recommend it.
Rating: Summary: the best novel ever written Review: brave new world happens to be my favorite book of all time. an unprecedented look at society which can be applied to anytime there after, brave new world should be read by all. it could be used as a wonderful educational tool, and it should be used as one. it could easily change your views on life as you know it. words can not describe the impact this book will have on you for the rest of your life.
Rating: Summary: Brave New World Review: Brave New World is boring at the beginning, but it becomes more interesting later. I wouldn't recommend the book for everyone because it is very suggestive. I am reading it in my senior English class. This book has so much immorality that it shouldn't be allowed in schools. The book has good points and reveals problems in any society, but that doesn't mean that just because it is educational that it should be used in a school setting. I would suggest that if the book would interest someone they may want to read it on their own time, and not for a school class.
Rating: Summary: A Porphetic Vision of a Utopian Society Review: "Brave New World", a fantasy of the future, which sheds a blazing and critical light on the present, is easily Huxley's finest work. This mighty novel of a soulless, streamlined Eden is the twentieth century's most brilliant, erudite and terrifying evocation of the future our civilization may be creating. Above all, "Brave New World" is a prophetic vision of natural men in an unnatural world, where freedom lies dead and all our concepts of morality are forgotten. It is easily the most shocking, open-eyed look at a frighteningly possible tomorrow.
Rating: Summary: Because this IS a Brave New World Review: About 70 years ago Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, in hopes of setting off a "semi-serious alarm" as to what will happen in the future. This book deals with the problems of religion, science, art, politics, sex, drugs, and mostly every aspect that can effect one's life. And needless to say most of his predictions came true. This really amazes me and should really amaze anybody who reads it. However, I don't recommend Brave New World to most people. For several reasons, one being that this book is written in a VERY whimsical style. For example, in the end of Chapter 3, snippets of conversations are taken and jumbled up (this may seem easy to tackle; but trust me, it isn't). Second, the book is very confusing at times, this isn't a book you can read with the radio is on, you need all you attention toward the book (or else deciphering it is impossible). Third, the book has MANY very deep meanings. Huxley some how placed all of the problems of society into a book 250 pages, and you could easily assume that it is chuck full of content. Personally this is one of my favorite books. Brave New World's style is very original, nothing like I have read before. Its message it bitingly powerful, and shows exactly what this world is headed for. But for everybody who says this is better than Orwell's 1984 (or vice versa) are mistaken. The books have very little in common. Orwell is taking about totalitarianism and its various faults, Huxley is talking about the effects of Social Utopianism. So for anybody who hasn't read either, don't be mistaken by the fools who think otherwise.
Rating: Summary: For prescience, this is THE book of the 20th century Review: Although the number of reviews here show that Brave New World still has a sizeable readership, this book has to some extent been unfairly overshadowed by Orwell's "1984". Whereas Orwell's vision of the future has proven to be wrong in almost every respect, Huxley's could be rewritten almost word for word today and still be an accurate portrayal of the direction we're moving in. For trivia buffs, there is a sad footnote to Huxley's comparative obscurity: Do you know when he died? November 22, 1963. Even in death, he was overshadowed by a more glamorous but vastly less talented person.
Rating: Summary: It was pretty good, but a little confusing Review: To read this book, you have to unlock that other 90 percent of your brain that stands dormant for the better part of your life. It's one of those books that takes your whole attention, no TV blaring, no siblings running around, just reading. I tried my hardest to recognize all the subliminal messages and morals this book was trying to teach, and I still couldn't get them all. The whole plot of a futuristic "utopian" society is well documented in this work. Huxley was a genious, period. How a person could write a book in the 1920's, and predict such things as a "happy drug", and a futuristic societies so advanced, is beyond me. If you like science fiction, or just like a good "mind" book, get this one. It'll have you thinking for a long time afterwards.
Rating: Summary: Yes, there are flaws, but still a great book Review: Brave New World has attracted a wealth of praise and criticism since it was first published. Some of the criticism is justified, but the book's value is undiminished. Yes, Huxley is in love with his own vocabulary; if you have any doubts on that score, read the introduction he wrote sometime after Brave New World was published, which is so "highfalutin" as to be ridiculous. The book itself is better, but one of Huxley's fundamental rules seems to be, "Never use a two syllable word if you can use a seven syllable word instead." However, you don't really have to know what "viviparous" or "pavlovian" mean to follow the plot; most of the vocabulary can be figured out well enough from context. Brave New World is often criticized as being "dated" - some of the technology seems absurd by today's standards, and Huxley's portrayal of Native Americans seems far from "politically correct". My response to this is, yes, if you want to get stuck on details, those would seem to be defects in the book. The same criticisms about quaint technology could be made about just about anything written by Jules Verne or Isaac Asimov; and, I seriously doubt that anyone will ever use Huckleberry Finn or The Martian Chronicles as textbooks in a sensitivity training seminar. So what? Expecting Huxley, who was born in the late 19th century and wrote Brave New World in 1932, to have a 1990's (oops, 2000's) outlook and knowledge is silly, and misses the point of the book entirely. Taken in a broader context, though, Huxley's message is as fresh as ever. In Brave New World, the social order is maintained through, among other things, instant gratification and conditioning. Unfulfilled need produces passion, aspiration, creativity, motivation, growth, and a desire to change things - all dangerous in a society which prides itself on "stability". Our modern society is, of course, nothing like this. Huxley describes "feelies" - high-tech sort of movies, complete with impressive special effects, designed to entertain the common herd, described by one character as "written by an idiot." Hmmm - stories written by idiots, complete with the latest special effects...have you been to the movies lately? Likewise, "soma" may seem a strange idea to the reader - but consider the alarming tendency today to medicate any discontented adolescent with Prozac. Conditioning? Political correctness + an MTV view of life + idolization of celebrities + etc + etc = ... what? One last note - Huxley himself later said that if he were to rewrite Brave New World, he would give it a different (more hopeful) ending. I suppose if anyone has a right to rewrite a book, it's the author - but personally, I'm glad he never tried. The ending _is_ depressing; but Brave New World shows where today's culture will lead, if all the worst aspects are permitted to continue to thrive and flourish. And it is a depressing place.
|