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Towering classic of dystopian satire, BRAVE NEW WORLD is a brilliant and terrifying vision of a soulless society--and of one man who discovers the human costs of mindless conformity. Hundreds of years in the future, the World Controllers have created an ideal civilization. Its members, shaped by genetic engineering and behavioral conditioning, are productive and content in roles they have been assigned at conception. Government-sanctioned drugs and recreational sex ensure that everyone is a happy, unquestioning consumer; messy emotions have been anesthetized and private attachments are considered obscene. Only Bernard Marx is discontented, developing an unnatural desire for solitude and a distaste for compulsory promiscuity. When he brings back a young man from one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old unenlightened ways still continue, he unleashes a dramatic clash of cultures that will force him to consider whether freedom, dignity, and individuality are worth suffering for.… (more)
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Huxley's world blends a critique of capitalism and communism both, a blend of a consumerist, sexually promiscuous, hedonistic pill-popping culture with mass production of human beings, conditioning from the cradle, and an abolition of homes, families, reminiscent of Plato's Republic. It's set in A.F. 632 (After Ford, as in Henry Ford) yet the prescribed surnames chosen by the state include Marx, Trotsky, etc. Given I had a Trotskyite political science professor who in all seriousness said approvingly she thought the only way to get rid of the "patriarchy" was to have the State take away children and raise them, the scenario in the book resonated with me.
The opening sentences immediately give you a sense of the world you're about to be immersed in:
A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, Community, Identity, Stability.
This impressed me stylistically. Great imagery, smoothly paced, this was a thought-provoking page-turner. The first half establishes the world thoroughly and imaginatively through a "normal" girl, Lenina Crowne, and someone a bit of an outsider, Bernard Marx. Then around half way through we're introduced to John Savage, a young man raised outside "civilization" in the "Savage Reservation" by a mother from their world accidentally stranded there--he's the perfect foil to their ordered world.
This book was fascinating, and if anything even more relevant than when it was published.
No leisure from pleasure
Was and will make me ill
Ending is better than mending
When the individual feels the community reels
Just some of the slogans from Huxley’s dystopian consumer society, from his Brave New World. Written in 1931 it was a huge leap forward from
Huxley became passionate about how he saw the world developing, so much so that nearly 30 years later he published a non fiction book entitled “Brave New World Revisited,” where he took stock of developments since he had written Brave New World to see if society was heading towards the dystopia that he had imagined. It will be of no surprise to find that not only did he think he had been on the right track, but also he thought in 1958 that developments had speeded up to such an extent that his dystopia would arrive much sooner than the 600 years he had predicted. In my penguin modern classics edition there is a forward by Huxley written in 1946. He says the need for efficiency and stability had already pointed the way to the nightmare Utopia of Brave New World, which he now predicts would be upon us within 100 years, so therefore by 2046.
The breakthrough for Huxley’s Brave New World is man’s almost total control of genetics and behavioural science with the ability to produce humans from test tubes that can then be adapted and moulded to carry out all the necessary tasks for societies needs. Fittingly the first two chapters are in effect a guided tour around the “Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre” and we meet some of the characters that will feature in the story. An entertainment industry and an official drug culture is all that is required to produce a stable, safe and happy world for the humans designed to live and work in it. - Utopia perhaps.
Huxley’s novel is not just an exercise in world building there is a good story involving characters that do not quite fit into the society. They coalesce around John: a savage brought from one of the tribal reservations into the Brave New World. It is their fate when they challenge the cultural norms that provide the momentum for the plot. Huxley gets to tackle some big themes here; a world based on sexual gratification, rather than love, the total breakdown of the family unit, absence of religion, loss of freedom, totalitarianism, the misuse of science and the nature of civilization.
This is a literary novel that has used science fiction to express the fears for a civilization that had barely emerged intact from World War I. The writing is imaginative and modern: an excellent example is the short intercutting paragraphs and sentences in chapter 3, that hammer out the theme of a world where the individual has no importance and no privacy. The title Brave New World comes from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest and Huxley interweaves lines from the Bard into his text to examine the inevitable loss of culture, in the face of an all pervading entertainment industry, that has no place for invention and originality. This is brilliantly done.
This novel is just as relevant today as it was in 1931 and in some respects Huxley’s fears are well founded. A burgeoning entertainment industry linked to a society where consumerism is paramount and where global corporations increasingly control our lives is a start that could lead us all into that Brave New World or something very like it. Huxley has written a book that is imaginative, sexy, and thought provoking.
Just play those sexophones, get out of those zippicaminicks and pass the soma: 5 stars
So in short, I guess I understand why this book is considered good but for me, it just didn't make the cut. And I found out from a friend how it ends. Very anti-climatic. I have no desire whatsoever to finish this book so I'm declaring it abandoned.
This serves as a historic, satirical time capsule of Huxley's changing world in the 1930s, totalitarian governments like Fascism and Communism were rising, but the Capitalists were lording it over the poor, just like the dictators were. Huxley mixes these three systems together to create a unique vision of a hell created not by Satan, long abolished by the anti-religious leaders of the World State, but created by Humanity's unquestioning trust that science for the sake of science will improve existence on Earth.
It's as relevant as it is dull to read. And as it is very dull indeed, you could safely say by this measure that it's very relevant. To be read for education and philosophy, not for pleasure. If you want a pleasure reading book, look elsewhere to the consumerist "bestseller" trash, ignoring the entire point of this very important book.
Since this is a review I won't give away some of the plot twists that occur at the end but they still keep me up in the air when I try to define this is a Utopian or Dystopian novels. I think its classification really depends on the reader's point of view. Even though Huxley does seem to be arguing for Individualism the Collectivist society that he has rendered on page is a sympathetic show-stealer that is not unlike Milton's Satan in "Paradise Lost."
You don't need me to tell you how scarily prescient Huxley was. Published in 1932, Brave New World describes in vitro fertilization, surrogate wombs (bottles) and wireless technology. The three pillars of this worldwide society are community, identity and stability. These are secured through biological and moral conditioning, the extirpation of the family unit (sex is reserved for recreational purposes only) and religion (although there are worship ceremonies which end in a sexual frenzy) and censorship of science and literature. God is replaced by "Our Ford" and the Christian cross has become a "T". Any unpleasant feelings are immediately dispelled by a side-effect free drug, soma, that gives the user a virtual mini-vacation.
What's really scary about this brave new society:nobody reads! Other than the biography of Our Ford, no other book is mentioned. Marshal McLuhan once said that when the missionaries first went to Africa they taught the people to read--not so they could read the Bible--but because once they read, they stopped identifying with the group/tribe and became individuals. To ensure the populace identifies only with the "community", there are no solitary pass times. In Brave New World, entertainment means flying somewhere after work for a dance or golf or a meal or going to the "feelies". These are movies that allow the audience to actually feel what's happening on screen. For example, if the actors kiss, the viewers' lips tingle. You may laugh, but see how the Controller Mustapha Mond explains the reasoning behind this:
"But that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art. We have the feelies and the scent organ instead."
"But they don't mean anything."
"They mean themselves; they mean a lot of agreeable sensations to the audience."
I had just seen and thoroughly enjoyed Mission Impossible !V: Ghost Protocol when I read this. "A lot of agreeable sensations to the audience" brought a blush to my guilty cheeks!
The second and third last chapters read like a Socratic dialogue between the Controller and John Savage, a man born and raised on a Zuni reservation and therefore not at all properly "conditioned". I listened to them several times. Mond's philosophy is so persuasive that I forgot that he was actually describing a dystopia!
Brave New World can't be adequately described in a little review like this. If you've been following this blog you've read the quotations from it I've posted. "Words can be like x-rays" got almost 100 hits! It reaches out to the reader through diverse subjects: religion (lack of), industrialism, literature, art, suffering, evolution, history (as in Ford's famous aphorism "history is bunk"), science.
Science fiction is inevitably a reflection of the time of its origin. Yet Brave New World is not a period piece. Some aspects can be detected in our own time. Could it ever happen: a society where Shakespeare is banned and The Gorilla's Honeymoon is the current blockbuster movie?
10 out 10 Recommended to readers who enjoy literary fiction and wish to deepen their understanding of life.
The story had its moments, but was very uneven. Parts of it were taken up with philosophical diatribes and debates that detracted from the pacing and I grew so disinterested that I stopped listening for a while. It was very clear that Huxley wasn’t writing this to entertain while getting people thinking, but to serve as a platform for his rhetoric. He ground that axe good.
When the story was chugging along smoothly it was a good one though. The ending was especially painful. I guess even conditioning and Soma cannot rid the human race of the need to humiliate, punish and consume violence. John’s disillusionment with the society he heard so much about was palpable. The controller’s needlessly cruel treatment of him in not wanting to discontinue his ‘experiment’ was astonishing. I guess he couldn’t leave real science behind after all.
The vision of the future and the technology not yet invented is fun and eerily accurate. The proliferation of psyche drugs to normalize all kinds of behavior is so akin to Soma that if someone doesn’t want to go on Zoloft or Wellbutrin it is shocking and somehow shameful. The quickness to diagnose someone as mentally deficient in some way and patch it with drugs is astonishing. Sameness is good, difference is bad. The pre-pubescent sexualization of kids was particularly disturbing both in and of itself and in its intent. That and the destruction and removal of the parent / child relationship along with any other familial ties were the aspects I found most difficult to grasp. Virtually all of our societies have been founded on individual relationships within a family group and imagining them entirely gone was difficult. Imagining them as taboo and smut was even harder.
Let’s not forget about the compulsory consumption. The precarious situation of the US economy which is consumer spending driven has been much under the spotlight lately. We’ve been all but told that to stop consuming is unpatriotic and we should continue to spend spend spend so as not to further upset the economy. Retailers run at a loss until Christmas most of the time. That can’t be a good way to run a business. Shelf life of everything from books to perfume to TV shows is shorter and shorter every year. Craving the new is even more desired and encouraged. Everything is disposable now – just throw it away and buy a new one! I’m ashamed of how these things are so ingrained on my sub consciousness so that I act just like everyone else even though I know it is not healthy. These parallels were the most interesting things in the novel to me and I really hope that the orgy thing isn’t next on the list.
This book basically describes a society that appears to be Utopian at first glance. Humans are made at certain genetic intelligence and caste; they are
The kind of creepy thing is that Huxley is pretty spot on about some of the things in his Utopian society. There is a lot genetic engineering going on, subliminal messaging, regulated drug use to promote serenity, etc. The beginning of the book is the most shocking because they explain how they modify the chemical make up of the fetuses to make them smart or stupid, strong or weak. This is followed by a discussion of how they condition the infants to like or not like certain things based on what function they will have in society. It is a society where everyone is equal but no one gets to make any decisions.
The people in the society are encouraged to be somewhat infantile in their decisions; time not working is spend playing games or engaging in sexual activity. Despite the society being depicted as somewhat British the members are encouraged to give into their baser natures whenever they want...emotion makes for unhappy people so it is best to not think about it too much.
What happens when John, a Savage raised by a (gasp) mother, a man who loves and hurts is brought into this society is fascinating but predictable. He has a hard time making sense of a society where "mother" is an indecent word and love is a foreign concept.
The book is very readable and well-written. The story is engaging. I am sure at the time this book was written it was ground-breaking. Unfortunately most of the factors of society that are discussed in this book I have read discussed in more current books. For me what set this book apart from other dystopians was the fact that it was written so long ago, also the fact that Huxley didn't pull any punches on the human conditioning...they are pretty ruthless, and lastly how reasonable he makes the set-up of such a society sound. There is a portion towards the end of the book where the Controller explains to John how their society evolved to what it is today; the Controller explains what they tried and what actually worked. The Controller's argument sounds disturbingly reasonable and almost makes you understand how a society set-up like the one in this book might work out well for a large amount of people.
Overall I enjoyed the book and I am glad I read it. None of the ideas really blew me away and the story was engaging, but not absolutely incredible. It is a book that makes you think; especially when think of the time frame in which it was written. The topics discussed are something which will make you take pause but some of the ideas presented aren't that far away from where we are today (genetic engineering, etc.). Definitely something to read and something easy to relate to.
I enjoyed reading this this novel, because it was amazing to see how Huxley's predicitions are not so far stretched anymore. Some ideas he came up with decades ago are starting to come true, and it is scary to think about what else could happen in the future. I would reccommend this book to anyone interested in a good science fiction book that gets you thinking.
Huxley's book, then, can be read not as a prophecy but as the product of the the author's own misgivings about an evolving modern world. In a sense, I can't help but feel that some of this arises from a certain class anxiety on the author's part. While genetic engineering and sleep conditioning are portrayed very unfavorably, as they physically limit the quality of human emotion and response, many of the things that Huxley fears -- from new technologies to urbanization to the dumbing down of classic literature to music drawn from other cultures and racial and cultural micenegation -- seem to reflect the traditional fears of the British upper class. I'm willing to forgive him this, partly because the future he's concoted here is so delightfully weird and peculiarly British. There are assembly lines, but no computers, lots of rayon, and helicopters everywhere. Not all's bad in Huxley's future, of course: there's "synthetic" jazz that just might be the best techno records never recorded, really, really, good drugs, sex-hormone chewing gum, and, well, lots of chances to get it on with a willing Gamma or two. Say what you will about Huxley's writing style, which can be a bit long on exposition, this is a singular vision of mankind's future.
An important component of this future is the Bokanovsky process which creates series of Gamma, Delta and Epsilon twins, as many as eighty-six, from one egg whose fetal development is chemically retarded to equip them for the mundane tasks of industrial society. There are also Alphas and Betas who were developed as individuals for the more complicated jobs in society. All are subject to programming to make them enjoy their lot in life and eliminate ambition or envy.
The author uses two devices to contrast the goals and mechanisms of the Brave New World from the world we know. The first is the Savage, John. He comes from an Indian reservation but his father and mother came from the civilized world. He is brought from the reservation by Bernard Marx an Alpha who doesn't fit in and sees John as his entree into the circles of the influential. John provides the title of the book, a line from Shakespeare he read as a youth. John reacts strongly to the immorality he sees in this new civilization and rejects the quest for happiness without guilt.
There is also a meeting with John and Bernard Marx and Mustapha Mond, his Fordship. Mond carefully explains that all else in society is sacrificed for stability, security and contentment. He defends the system as meeting the needs of the human animal and providing what they really need in life.
After this meeting John leaves the world of civilization to seek his own path. A path that ends in tragedy.
By design there is a lack of real emotional relationships in the book. Those types of relationships are not part of the Brave New World.
The book is artfully written and brings to mind the saying, "Be careful about what you wish for, you may get it." It shows that the tragedy and pain of life are a necessary part of humanity. I enjoyed the book and the juxtaposition of ideals and how they can be achieved.
Either Huxley was a genius or life truly does imitate art because there is so much in Brave New World that hits too close to home. As this was a book club selection, the first thing that people noticed was the focus on instantaneous gratification. In Huxley's world, waiting four hours for something is a travesty. Sound familiar? In this day and age of instant news coverage, ordering everything possible online, FedEx and next-day delivery, text messages, chat rooms, social media, and everything else, we are quickly becoming a society that is disgusted by news taking more than a few minutes to be verified, by packages that take more than a day to arrive, by food we actually have to take the time to cook or wait for someone else to prepare. Huxley's commentary on this fixation is better suited now than when he first envisioned this dystopian future and is almost depressing to behold.
It does not take a huge stretch of the imagination for readers to be able to recognize more than a few bits and pieces of today's society in Huxley's fictional one. The focus on technology and idolization of mass production is another aspect that hits a little too close to home, except in today's age, we could be worshipping Our Jobs instead of Our Ford. Feelies and the scent organ are similar to the 3-D and even 4-D movies that are in abundance these days, with feelies all-too similar to haptic game controllers and keyboards. As for soma, is there any doubt how popular such a drug would become, especially if it were legally sanctioned and provided no hangover? These similarities are the most chilling aspects of Brave New World.
It is so easy for a reader to get caught up in Huxley's world without paying attention to the message he is trying to make about what one sacrifices in order to create and live in such a world. There is plenty of food for fodder when one is able to set aside the horror of this new world. Bernard's and Helmholtz's inability to conform are indications that all is not well, while John's inability to cope with his new surroundings is the most blatant reminder of all that was lost to make the new and improved. The sterilization of the world diminishes the true nature of humanity, and everything for which humans have worked over the past centuries is naught.
Psychology, sociology, technology, and a healthy dose of imagination all combine to create the chilling image of a future society in which there is no religion, no family, no messiness, and no fuss. Its warnings are more true today than Huxley could ever have imagined. Therein lies the power of Brave New World.
Basically what Huxley has done, is juxtapose two of history's main conflicts: security and freedom. In Huxley's Brave New World, led by ten world controllers, security (with the help of advanced technology) prevails. Huxley's story is a warning about what's at stake in the struggle.
Brave New World is an incredible novel, one that was earth-shattering for the time period it was written in. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although the ending left me wanting more. If you are looking for not just a quick read, but one that will keep you thinking weeks after you're finished, Brave New World is an excellent option.
I recall loving this novel for how far ahead of its time it was, as it was written in 1931, certainly before the time of test tube babies, but also before the rise of Hitler and Stalin and the horrors of totalitarian governments. Ironically, though, it was disdain for America that apparently served as the impetus for the book. Huxley had visited America and found it overly materialistic and sexually loose. Henry Ford, champion of mass production at the time, is satirized as God in the book, e.g. the year is A.F. 632, After Ford, and his name is often used instead of God. Perhaps that seems a little silly or conservative (imagine his reaction to the 1960’s, or today’s consumer electronics age), however, while controlling the population’s gene pool via the outright genocide of the Holocaust had not occurred yet, the eugenics movement was active worldwide, and frightening.
Quotes:
On happiness:
“He remained obstinately gloomy the whole afternoon; wouldn't talk to Lenina's friends (of whom they met dozens in the ice-cream soma bar between the wrestling bouts); and in spite of his misery absolutely refused to take the half-gramme raspberry sundae which she pressed upon him. ‘I'd rather be myself,’ he said. ‘Myself and nasty. Not somebody else, however jolly.’”
And:
“The Savage shook his head. ‘It all seems to me quite horrible.’
‘Of course it does. Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.’”
I haven't read this book in 15 years, this being my second reading. Thoroughly enjoyed it. What genius. What a treat to have meaning so masterfully debated. Yes, it is cool to learn about the
There are a few things that date the book (besides the old sci-fi method of using flat characters to carry an idea along), such as the onesies and bell bottoms the people wear, but it was written in the thirties. I didn't even know they had bell bottoms back then.
The society that Huxley creates is one dependent on a hallucinogenic drug, soma. No one is able to function without soma to allow them to escape from the
This is a wonderful dystopian story that illuminates the dangers of government control and medicalization.
Post WWI, amidst the
After the “Nine Years War” with death, destruction, and anthrax bombs, the people is willing to give anything for a quiet life. A one sentence summary is trading truth and beauty for happiness and comfort. Out goes democracy, knowledge; in comes caste system, pre-conditioned thoughts and acceptance. The caste system created Alphas, Betas, followed by Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons, the last of which are simply “stupid morons”. Deltas and Epsilons have been genetically split from a single egg creating copies of twins (8, 16, up to 96), while Alphas are always created from a single egg to be the elites of society. Not happy, pop one or more soma pills. Looking old? Never. Perfect balancing maintains youthfulness till the expiration age of 60.
The most difficult emotion to control is always, always love. In Huxley’s BNW, love is removed from accepted life by 1) making all births artificial, thereby eliminating familial love. Being called a father is a joke, while being called a mother is an obscenity. Viviparous is a dirty word. 2) By having a promiscuous society as being the norm, “Everyone belongs to everyone else.” No exclusivity, no monogamy, no loving one person only.
With these heavily-principled books, I have a dislike for the extensive verboseness that inevitably occurs to explain and to philosophize on the principles. Huxley was no different having spent two chapters elaborating his final thoughts, in case you still didn’t get it from the previous 15 chapters. :P
Nothing comes for free. “Happiness has got to be paid for”, said the Controller. There is a price for everything.
Quotes:
On Promiscuity – my eyebrow went up on all these:
Lenina: “Somehow, I hadn’t been feeling very keen on promiscuity lately…”
Fanny: “But one’s got to make the effort…”
Henry: “Lenina Crowne? Oh, she’s a splendid girl. Wonderfully pneumatic. I’m surprised you haven't had her.”
Assistant Pre-destinator: “I can’t think how it is I haven’t. I certainly will. At the first opportunity.”
Lenina: “But he’s the one I want.”
Fanny: “As though there weren’t millions of other men in the world.”
“But I don’t’ want them”
“How can you know till you’ve tried?”
”I have tried.”
“But how many? One, two?”
“Dozens. But it wasn’t any good.”
“Well, you must persevere…”
“…I shall always like him.”
“…why don’t you just go and take him. Whether he wants it or no.”
On Blissful Ignorance – yikes:
“Because our world is not the same as Othello’s world. You can’t make flivvers without steel – and you can’t make tragedies without social instability. The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’ve plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they out to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!” He laughed. "Expecting deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy.”
On Happiness – yikes again:
“Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”
On God – I found these 7 simple words profound, considering how religion is regularly, conveniently twisted:
John, the Savage: “But God doesn’t change.”
Mustapha Mond, the Controller: “Men do, though.”