Brave New World - Discussion
December 26, 2007 10:25 pm Discussion, Finished, January 08, Science FictionOfficial discussion thread for Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (Amazon)
Science Fiction book of the month, January 2008
Description:
“Community, Identity, Stability” is the motto of Aldous Huxley’s utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a “Feelie,” a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today–let’s hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren’t yet to come.Please leave your comments below. Be sure to include your reading progress as you post.
January 10th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I finished this one up a couple days ago and have been meaning to post a review of it. This turned out to be a wonderful story which took place in what i like to term a ‘manufactured world’. People are bred and it even goes a step further to ensure they are bred to certain specifications in order to fall within a certain class of society and to carry out specific duties. They are ‘conditioned’ to behave in a manner acceptable to the controllers and the rest of the world and use drugs (soma) when they get into uncomfortable situations.
While Huxley (the author) was probably one of those weird guys who exaggerates the conditions around him, it is interesting to see such a take on what he truely felt the world was heading too. Though the book was published in 1931 some of his predictions were eerily true. I don’t think he’s the best story teller ever but the subject matter he chose and expounded on definitely makes you think and is what makes this a classic.
He wrote a follow up called Brave new World, published in 1958 where he discusses what he had wrote and the dramatic changes in the state of the world and how they almost support what he predicted in BNW. If your copy of the book did not include this, you can read it here for free: http://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html
I would wait until after we here 1984 though as the two go hand in hand and George Orwell and 1984 are referenced quite a bit in BNW Revisited.
note - i’m trying not to give up too much of the story and trying to type while working.. please excuse me if it sounds a little like i’m stuttering, haha.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:23 am
So I finished BNW last night, just minutes before midnight (and the end of January) - so I did meet my goal for January! Woo-hoo!!
Anyway, my thoughts on the book:
Let me start off with my praise first: I really enjoyed Huxley’s writing style. It’s marvelously intelligent, and the vocabulary is refreshingly challenging and unique. It made for a pleasant, seasoned read. And the technical splendor of his writing is not in any way compensating for a lack of beautiful, artistic style: I got the flavor of a somewhat snobbish, bragging intelligence that belied a true emotional, artistic streak. His numerous references to Shakespeare, for instance, show a softer side that seemed almost polarized from the blunt, technical descriptions that are featured through much of the novel. It was almost as if, like the character Bernard, Huxley was an unconfident, oppressed but self-pitying, introverted yet intelligent little man; but one who had strong sentiments about life and society, and a deep emotional core that, despite his best efforts, can’t be masked.
The story itself was middling for me; I felt no real attachment to any particular characters and the movement of the plot was at best intriguing and at worst boring. I found it difficult to motivate myself to keep reading this book, not because it was technically challenging or overly lengthy (in fact, it is quite short!). But it just didn’t capture my interest for some reason.
That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate the message of Brave New World. I’m sure that had I been around in 1931 when this book was published, it would have been earth-shattering for me. A society of genetically engineered and psychologically/sociologically controlled people, intrinsically stripped of the freedoms we qualify as guaranteed – that was a pretty novel concept at the time! Factoring in the metaphoric implications of such a society would be fantastically engaging. But being a child of the late 20th century, it’s not exactly new. There have been countless movies, shows and books that have taken this idea and ran with it, in one form or another. So I wasn’t exactly “shocked” by Huxley’s portrayal of future society. Partially because, as I said, “it’s been done”, and partially because (scarily), it came true.
I suppose I’m being too critical: The fault doesn’t seem to lie with Huxley, or with the novel itself. I just have a hard time being impressed by the message of the book when it’s so… obvious. Huxley’s personal views on the mass-mindset of pop culture are glaringly obvious and not at all subtle, which isn’t necessarily bad, but it just left me a little… bored?
In the end, I can definitely identify with the message in some respects. I think of the state of pop culture, like music: Modern music is a glut of pornographic rubbish; mass-produced, cheap and tasteless. That’s why I identify with the independent music scene: It’s challenging, refreshing, unique, and soulful. It’s the Savage of the modern world; spitting in the face of the disgusting, cheap and immoral industry surrounding it. And I appreciate that Huxley recognized such a significant disparateness between identity and popularity at a cusp of change in society. Obviously this applies to wider, larger, and more important facets of society than just music, but that’s a personal application that I appreciate. In the end, I love the message of BNW, just not the story.
I’m glad I read the book, but I have to admit I’m a little disappointed. I think I need to make time to read BNW: Revisited (I bought the combined book set) and get the “post script” views from Huxley, who admitted openly that the original book was not without faults, though he refused to change them (it is better to accept the mistake and move on with a new view, without harping over what could have been, he implied). I think BNW: Revisited may help me acquiesce with my differences with the novel.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Okay, and on a completely and utterly freaky note: Last night when I was finishing the book, during the chapters describing the Savage’s conversations with Mustapha Mond, the World Controller, I was imagining that if this was a movie, Mond should be played by Leonard Nimoy (”Spock”). It just seemed to fit in my mind for some reason. Well, I’ve been reading the Wiki on BNW and discovered there was a film adaptation in 1998. Guess who starred as Mustapha Mond?
Leonard Nimoy.
I’m officially freaked out.
February 1st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
hahaha! no way! I must admit that I’m disappointed that no one else will be able to read that review as it was remarkable, lol! I got the exact same impressions as you did in regards to his personality. He definitely oozes introvert. I agree though that the story was somewhat bland in spots. I think, overall, it was pretty good but from an entertainment standpoint it wasn’t all that. I just attributed some of that to the time when it was written. Trying to place myself in a ‘1931 mindset’ allowed me to really appreciate what was being told a little more. It wasn’t the most exciting read but I did definitely enjoy reading it.