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Brave New World

Brave New World

List Price: $12.95
Your Price: $9.71
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Actually, not that good.
Review: The characters are irritating and one-dimensional. The too frequent shifting points of view are unnecessary and confusing. Aside from the occasional glimmers of dry wit (not including the "Our Ford" joke which tires out quickly), the writing is for the most part flat. Even the orgy scenes manage to be dull. The latter half of the novel is simply a rant of Huxley's personal beliefs, all of which have been stated elsewhere and more eloquently. There are no real deep societal insights. In short, extremely overrated.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Un-braving the Shallow World
Review: At the foremost beginning of this novel, I was presently surprised that this book was what it surely seemed to be. Even though Aldous Huxley, the author, was very in-depth with all the matters of this "brave new world", Huxley, seeming intentionally to make the affairs of these characters public. Showing that this frail society of inventors, in Freud's world of perfection, was in-fact defect and a result of a greater problem with themselves at the very heart of the situation.

The characters, by design, are with out a doubt shallow, and find it hard to maintain a singular deep relationship with anyone but him or herself! Furthermore, this novel is plainly a disgust to read. If not finding it a pleasure to read, but how about for ridicule among those whom read it? To think that a society, like this one, could be thought as having any type of perfection is insane. This particular Utopian society is a jumbling mess. Perhaps the idea for this story is to place the image in our minds eye that at any given moment societal views could be skewed.

Upon the reminiscing of all the information compiled into this one book, I find that Shakespeare would have something to say about this particular concept of thinking. Besides, he is a key element to the later part of this book however; I do credit Huxley for his creativeness in this venture. Seemingly fearless to write on such a topic, un-avoiding the possibility for a fueled debate on such a matter. The courage one must have in attempting to elaborate on such a confrontational issue is bold alone in itself. He deserves the praise of a true literary marvel. Huxley has a masterful mind, challenging those who might revolt to such literature. I have a feeling that this novel will continue to bring controversy to the market even in the twenty-first century as it did in the thirties, and the interest of all whom may read it. This novel is a drug, like soma, that keeps you coming back for more, no matter how much you dislike the book. It becomes very addicting.

I have read the online responses time and time again for A Brave New World and it still baffles me why some think a perfect world, with happy people, sterile and having test-tubing, daily drugs to numb pain and more is any way logical whatsoever. What's the point to this all? The question remains as, why? The issue of concern is that in this World State,in which they live is not perfect, they are not perfect. What defines perfect? You decide.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Brave New World
Review: Brave New World is an excellent book. However it was more then a book it is a commentary. It was written in 1931 at the rise of Nazism. The story is about a "perfect" world where humans are made in labs. This "perfect world" also bans the Bible and Shakespere the two biggest icons of humanity. The controller, Mustapha reads these books, but thinks they are useless. A "savage" by the name of John enters this perfect world and can't except it. He faced many hardships in the society and only wanted to seek solitude. He runs into people with names strangely similar to those of prominet people in the early 20th Century. Marx-Karl Marx. Lennia-Lenin,Pop`e- Pope. In the end John wants to control his own fate and commmits suicide.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: An OK Novel
Review: I didn't really enjoy reading this book too much. The main characters were annoying, and the writing style was unnecessarily confusing. The only redeeming quality to the book was the valid and interesting points on civilization as a whole. Many reasonable problems were brought up, and not only brought up, but answered as well. Overall, it is not even close to the best books I've read, but it is far from the worst.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very important book in the 30's, an interesting one today...
Review: I really like A. Huxley. I've read some of his other work, studied his life a bit, and found him to be a pretty cool dude; he was intelligent, curious, and fearless.

He was also pretty dark.

This book is a wonderful examination of the present (back then) projected into the future, where subtle issues of the day are allowed more time, and through technology, more ability to express themselves.

As interesting as the topics of industrialization, government control, and "what happiness is" are, I was dissapointed that (as creative as the man was) he couldn't render a better alternative to a world that had become a very scary and dark place. For instance, in a society as techologically advanced as the one he describes, why would they abandon efforts to reach immortality? Take away that spector and it would materially change the relationship between man and happiness, and his use of drugs to augment it.

But alas, it's easy for me to be a critic. Bottom line, this is a wonderful and worthwhile read.

Enjoy...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Terrific...just not as terrific as I thought it would be.
Review: I finally read this book, and must say, it is utterly terrifying. It was a great read, but is it as good as everyone says it is?

Huxley's outlook on the future is a little too negative for me. Yes, I get all that he is trying to say. And yes, the book does make you think and it is the kind of book you can discuss forever. However, he does not convince me at all that the future is bleak.

I will not turn this into a discussion on the positives and negatives of progress, etc. This is a book review. The bottom line here is it is a great read. It will definitely open your mind, and is a great conversation topic. It just falls a little bit short of all time great, and may be just slightly overrated.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the thesis of dystopia
Review: this is a great book. (i hate capitalization so i will not be using any). this book shows us the means mankind can and inevitably will go through to reach utopia, which in and of itself is erroneous. no plan devised by man can produce utopia in that he is corrupted by his own humanity. when we hear the word utopia we automatically think oh yeah, thats peace and harmony. well, i shouldnt say we, cuz i dont. utopia, in my opinion, is not necessarily peace. it is simply the state of society in which every person is free to be him- or herself. pure individuality if you will. as i have been quoted several times, "Utopia is the feeble attempt of man to grasp true intellectual freedom." even if man somehow manages to create a way of controlling society and programming its citizens utopia will still not have been reached. obviously it isnt reached going by my definition in that the people are told what to think and are nothing more than drones carrying out their meaningless lives. but even throught the accepted meaning of utopia it is still not attained in that even though everyone exists in peace with everyone else there are still the ones doing the controlling that are left uncontrolled. thus they are free to think whatever they want. inevitably they will disagree and the utopia--even though it is false--will be shattered. we may dream of a utopian society but that can never happen on this earth.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A word of caution
Review: This is one of my all-time favorite books (in part to chapter 3), I would still like to caution readers: A, don't read while depressed, this book'll not really help. Secondly, for some reason I read this book for the first time during the summer before 7th grade, because I thought it would be a typical science fiction-type dealie. BAD IDEA. It really freaked me out, but I couldn't stop reading because I liked it so much. I'd say, wait until high school. I find some new angle every time I read it, but as Eric Cartman would say: "It warped my fragile little mind." Well, at least for one July afternoon. I still recommend it tons, though.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A disturbing book about OUR Brave New World
Review: Despite its existence since the early 20th Century, this novel remarkably continues to unravel a future that contains progressively disturbing similarities to that of ours. Such conflicts as science and religion, beauty and flaws, society and solidarity, love and lust, indulgence and morality, life and death... are all questioned in this quest for happiness and meaning of life. I found this book thought-provoking by the end.

The book introduces several characters, the first one being Bernard Marx who didn't quite fit into this perfected and almost mechanical civilised society; later on he visits a 'Savage' camp that is part of the 'old' world, which hadn't been modernised and still remained cultural, uncivilised and 'flawed'. Throughout these journeys, comparisons between the two worlds are evident, and the book explores the conflicts as well as the connections between the individuals that struggle to live in them.

You would need to read the book through to the end in order to really appreciate its entirety; I personally found it a little bit of a struggle to get through sections sometimes because of the elements and concepts that you had to grasp, but once you've accustomed to it and reach the end of the book, it really is worth the read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: All objections considered this is indeed prophetic
Review: When someone writes a novel (or develops a theory in a simple conversation) about the future he's not necessarily trying to be a "Nostradamus", "play god" or other such nonsense attributed to Huxley. First of all we all are opinionated about what's to come even in the not so close future. It's natural, it belongs in human sense to try and foresee where we are going because projecting helps us avoid mistakes, or, helps us "correct" our steering.
Huxley, more than half a century ago sees a society heading to a world full of cloned non-individuals who are conditioned with scientific (and horrifying methods) from childhood to behave in specific ways and fulfil specific "social missions" or "assignments". There's no free thought except for inside the frames you have been planned for and the illusion that your thoughts are indeed your own.

People (or the clones that inhabit Huxley's Brave New World) are born and kept into chambers where messages are repeated to them 100s or 1000s of times until these messages become a mentality that the clone sees as his own. Arts have been reduced to more scientific propaganda where there is no message to be conveyed except for the "feel good" effect that keeps things "quiet", there is no objections and no critique because as the clones are very well convinced "what is there to criticize".
For those with the occasional lapse in "reasoning" there is 'Soma' , a wonder drug which everyone takes and which soothes down your tendencies of questioning or depression. The uniformity is ruthless and anyone who (somehow) manages to step out of line is sent "away", usually in some place with rebels similar to him where conditions are harsh and opportunities for survival are scarce.
This is summarily Brave New World as seen by Huxley and if we try, or as we keep trying to see whether he did indeed have a point we can only compare with what we currently got. This is the only safe passage to a "safe" conclusion.
In that respect Huxley proves to be frightengly right even if the current methods dont seem similar to the ones described in his book (but who's to say they wont become such?).
While uniformity in today's society might not seem all-encompassing it's not in Huxley's book either. Today, people might not be conditioned from birth in chambers with countless repeated messages but they are conditioned through a uniform school system with uniformed dogmas. They then keep being conditioned with centrally controlled media and any objection or tendency for questioning is similarly thrashed by the weight of "public opinion" which is of course not the product of individual thought.
And as for the wonder-drug 'Soma'?

While we might not have a wonder-drug (yet) we have a plethora of other drugs which we all (or almost all) take for exactly the same reasons may those be alcohol, cigarettes, softer drugs, or harder or even the omnipresent anti-depressants which are becoming as common in use as alcohol.
What about the feel good arts, the 'feelies' as they are descibed in Huxley's book? Go into any record store and look at the charts. If you still have any objectional, individual thought in you, you wont see anything but message-less, critique-less, thoughtless art that only wishes to calm you down, to soothe you like a 'feelie' would. Sure, music that doesnt fit those lows exist but are you "trained" to find it or are you "conditioned" to understand it? The same applies for books or for movies.
Being that this is a review for a book and not a sociological analysis (which would probably take not one but many other books to start with) I'll keep it simple:
Huxley is indeed accurate in what he foresees based on his times. And while this development is not (or is it?) fully developed yet, while it will probably get a lot worse before it ever gets any better, the point remains the same. Had Huxley been living today and tried to write the same book i dont see how it could've been any different. If anything it would only be more scary or more discouraging concerning our course as a species what with cloning now being reality and not sci-fi anymore and with science being even more a servant to those that pull the strings for "our own good".

Some reviewers here say that the author is not charismatic or that literally looking at it he's a mediocre writer that has a powerful idea but doesnt know how to lay it out well. There might be a degree of truth in all of these claims but, in my humble opinion, with such books this is totally besides the point.
Huxley wants to express a fear, an angst, that not only he has, but many of us, before him, and after him. This is strikingly obvious. In in that "mission" of his he succeeds beyond any doubt because the present serves as hardcore evidence for his claims.

Along with '1984' by Orwell this book is not simply a "dystopian" classic but a great sociological analysis disguised as a novel. Its value is more than meets the eye especially when one thinks that our eye is not trained to meet much.


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