God does not change. But people do
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We are treated to a glimpse of a possible future world where friendship can still exist. This is a story of a hand full of individuals in a world that emphasizes "Community, Identity, Stability" that find each other and discus subjects that most of the people of that time cold not understand. However we do. Naturally the author Aldous Huxley builds his own scenarios and draws his own conclusions through the characters speeches and description of experimental history.
Bernard Marx who is about to lose his job because he is different (vary different) form those around him, decides to take a vacation to visit the Zuni's. There he meets a misplaced person named John. Together with the help of Bernard's friend Henry they intend to change the world. So they find out the world is incapable of changing.
We get an Ayn Rand type speech from Mustapha Mond one of the world controllers' that helps you realize that in this brave new world the three friends are the anomaly. How can this enigma be solved?
Do not forget to watch the 1998 movie version with Leonard Nimoy as Mustapha Mond.
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Brave New World
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This book is a classic and for very good reason. It has some powerful themes and is written in such a gripping way that you can't put the book down until you've finished. It doesn't have the darker, totalitarian, hyper-surveillance overtones of Orwells '1984', but gives an equally disturbing view of the future. The ideas of social conditioning and recreational drugs are especially chilling and makes you look at the world around you in a whole new light. I found the ending a touch lack lustre (hence the four stars), but the journey getting there is marvelous and will make you uncomfortable at times as you consider what life you'd prefer, the drugged easy utopia ,or the feeling savage lands. I guess that's a debate that we ask ourselves spiritually or in our everyday lives to some degree anyway, (simply getting by or feeling deeply and rocking the boat). This book is just an amplification of that. Overall a great read, with stirring themes that will play on your mind for some time to come and well worth the time taken to read it. One of those books that leaves your life richer for having read it.
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Outstanding and very readable
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This is a genuine classic that explores the nature of liberty and happiness and how they are not necessarily part of the same equation. The foreword of the Huxley centenary edition explains how Huxley's own ambivalence towards the vision he describes is reflected in the novel and this is borne out by a lightness of touch in the way the society is described; this is no straight down the line condemnation of miserable totalitarianism as is Orwell's 1984, the classic to which it is always compared. The society described here undoubtedly has many attractions, especially for the privileged Alpha and Beta classes. The hedonism invites comparisons to the Earth of Logan's Run rather than that of 1984, except for the absence of compulsory euthanasia in Huxley's U(Dis)topia. A wonderful novel and very easy to read.
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a great book
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This book is often seen as a warning about what society might become. And as with any good books, there is much truth in it - many of the concepts that underpin this society are to be found within our own. It is just that the author gives them a little twist, puts them together in new ways. If one only reads this expecting a warning, you are missing something (though given Mr Huxley's increasing lack of optimism about humanity's future, this is possibly not intended!) - for even in the Brave New World of fear and excessive control the unexpected happens, chance creeps in. The whole society is geered towards making people be happy, a process of control that begins before birth - yet people regularly feel the need to take drugs to keep the misery at bay. Part of the earth is not under 'civilized' control. Enough people break their 'programming' for it to be necesary to remove them from society. Mistakes happen during the 'bottle' stage, causing defective adults to grow from the embryo. It's a comforting truth in the context of the society put forward here that where humans are involved, chance cannot be removed. As a book, it has slighty underdone characters and only one character has an arc - though not having read anything else by the author I don't know if thats bad writing or good writing! How much character and change is possible in this society, after all?! Despite this, the world is well presented, and the complex task of ensuring people understand how a completely different society works is done with breathtaking ease. There are even touches of humour here and there and one very funny and yet completely serious conversation between the controller and the savage. It had me giggling on the bus! I was surprised to enjoy this book so much and even more surprised at its readability. It puts forward some interesting ideas, gives a little hope (to me anyhow!) and yes, it gives a warning that is still (or, even more than when it was first published?) relevant to us today. Well worth buying!
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The Bible For The Genetic Age
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Read this book if you want to know what the future holds, and to also marvel at how many of Huxley's ideas have translated to reality from this work.
The main image that has stuck with me since reading this book many years before, is the prediction of human beings being grown in lab conditions under glass containers - they are denied or supplied nutrients according to their forthcoming status in the dystopian society Huxley is depicting. There are so many parallels with todays world such as the 'happy' drug Soma, that it has become eeriely prophetic.
Some find this book cold and sterile, but I think that is where it's brilliance lies - it's an intuitive glance forward, from a writer who knew where man was ultimately headed.
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