Brave New World | Aldous Huxley

Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | STANDING THE TEST OF TIME

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Brave New World

	Brave New World Aldous Huxley Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 734 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great Read

A very interesting book to think about. An amazing view of the future, despite the fact that Huxley couldn't have known about the impact of computers.

STANDING THE TEST OF TIME

BRAVE NEW WORLD - EACH OF THESE PAST TWO WINTERS I HAVE GONE ON A YOGA RETREAT TO MAUI AND EACH TIME I HAVE READ A CLASSIC PIECE OF LITERATURE. LAST YEAR IT WAS `TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD', AND THIS LAST RETREAT IN FEB '08 I READ BRAVE NEW WORLD. BY PAGE TWO I WAS HOOKED BY THE DARK HUMOR WHEN THE FUTURE VOICES WERE REFERRING TO `OUR FORD' AND `IN THE YEAR OF OUR FORD'. HARD TO BELIEVE THAT ALDOUS HUXLEY WROTE THIS IN 1932. HIS PREDICTIONS OF HOW DEPENDENT SOCIETY WILL BECOME ON MACHINES AND DRUGS WAS QUITE AN ACCURATE VISION. IN RESEARCHING A BIT OF HISTORY ON THIS WORK I LEARNED THAT IT WAS NOT RECEIVED WELL BY CRITICS IN 1932, YET IT'S CHILLING PREMISE HAS STOOD THE TEST OF TIME.
THE STORY STARTS OFF AS STUDENTS ARE SHOWN AROUND A FERTILIZING FACILITY WHERE MASS PREGNANCIES IN TUBES ARE MONITERED AND DIFFERENT TYPES OF PEOPLE ARE CREATED TO SERVE IN DIFFERENT CAPACITIES (ie-a caste system). WE GET TO KNOW A SMALL CAST OF CHARACTERS , BUT IT IS BERNARD MARX, A SUB AVERAGE ALPHA, THAT IS SHOWING SIGNS OF DISCONTENTMENT THAT PROPELS OUR STORY ALONG.
HE TAKES A TRIP TO AN ANCIENT INDIAN RESERVATION WHERE THE PEOPLE STILL MARRY EACH OTHER, BELIEVE IN JESUS, AND....WHERE ONE WOMAN FROM HIS SOCIETY WAS LEFT YEARS BEFORE, MATED WITH A LOCAL AND PRODUCED A SON WHOSE ONLY REAL FORM OF EDUCATION WAS A HUGE VOLUME OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
THIS `SAVAGE' IS BROUGHT BACK TO LONDON AND DISPLAYED FOR ALL TO SEE AND WHEN HIS VOICE AND THOUGHTS ARE HEARD.....WELL, ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE. IF YOU HAD TO READ THIS IN SCHOOL AND DIDN'T PAY MUCH ATTENTION, OR IF YOU HAVEN'T, LIKE ME, READ IT AT ALL....YOU SHOULD.

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Stark Tale of Life in an Objectified World

For very long did I desire to read Huxley's classic, Brave New World, given as I am to the dystopias which were written in the first half of the twentieth century. I can only say that I am disappointed that I waited as long as I did to take up the text.

The first tier of the text which remains startling to almost all who read it is the base objectification of mankind through scientific and social "programming" and "planning." Indeed, this is usually the first thing which comes to mind when one recollects the first time that he or she read the text. In many ways, it does remain an excellent vantage point from which one can jump into the full meaning of the text, for who can but shudder at the words of Mr. Foster, "Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par" and realize that there is some deeper malaise of the human soul being investigated in this text.

Indeed, the powerful core of the text which truly makes it relevant regardless of whatever technical progress may occur in the world is the fact that Huxley shows the reader the end result of hyper-objectification of the self and the world. This objectification is manifested in the scientific and social structures which undergird the society in the text but also breaks forth in several other major ways. The use of soma for escape from pain and trouble is an attempt to run away from that subjectivity which raises the objective experiences of life to a more fully human level, allowing the individual to more rationally (and emotively) know where his/her place is in the whole of the world. The lack of delay in gratification once again is a destruction of the subjectivism which allows all pleasure to be such because the individual pines for the object.

The mark of a great work is not necessarily that it is so unique that it is unlike anything else. Myth is all the greater, as Chesterton would say, because it is not the story of a particular man but of mankind. In many ways, Brave New World fits this mark well. Alexis de Tocqueville once said that a society would be more likely to fight to keep the comforts which it may accrue that to fight for freedom. Huxley, in his later reflections entitled "Brave New World Revisited" says that man may for a while be more likely to say "Give me hamburgers and television" over "Give me liberty." One can hardly forget the world of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 where pleasure and escape are the choice of all society. However, Huxley also adds the corrective that as these objects rationed the subject will once again cry, "Give me liberty or give me death." Characters like Bernard Marx, Helmhold Watson, and John the Savage stand out as those who, through the pains of realizing their subjectivity, glimpse at the glories (and dangers) of humanity. This corrective remains a hope, although Huxley also reminds us, like Plato and Christ, that the truly holy and jus man will be killed, forced into exile, or left to twist in the wind.

Brave New World is a timeless dystopia because it deals with these sempiternal and ubiquitous questions of humanity. It is oracular today in a world which, in its more cosmopolitan and even suburban settings, will look to the television and listen to the radio but will not be silent under the stars. We share in the malaise of the day and are not impervious to its pernicious tendencies. Therefore, we should take heed an hear the words of Mr. Aldous Huxley.

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Funny, Scary, Tragic, Unusual Future

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is in many ways a paradoxical world: comically tragic, organized chaos, perfectly imperfect, a living and breathing oxymoron. There are several key players within the story--John (The Savage), Bernard Marx, Linda (John's mother), Lenina Crowe, Mustapha Mond, and Hermholz Watson. Much of the story is told from the point of view of Bernard, an Alpha male who is displeased with the structure of society and eventually talks Lenina into going to visit the "savage" society. While there, Bernard winds up meeting John, a "savage" who has many characteristics that make him a deep thinker and philosophical about man's existence. Bernard eventually talks John into making the trip to "civilized" London, an upside down utopia where babies and humans are "created", emotion is suppressed or avoided altogether, the collective is favored over the individual, and progress is stressed.

Huxley has an imaginative method of illustrating this new world. The topsy-turvy dystopia establishes that words such as "mother", "father" and "love" have no real use. Passion is ignored in favor of progression. Huxley comically and intentionally depicts "norms" of this shocking society. Without the basic idea of family or relationships between couples, people seem more like organisms than flesh and blood. Huxley perhaps was making a point about the times, maybe his society, maybe ours.

One of the more disturbing aspects to the world is the ideology of illusion serving to be the method for fixing one's problems or difficulties. Nearly all the characters escape from the world they live in by taking the hallucinogenic drug soma, designed to make them forget a troubling encounter or experience by travelling far away from the present. John, considered to be the "savage", is the only one willing to break from this practice while also actively trying to convince others of its wrongs. While others escape with soma, he escapes into reading Shakespeare, a form of therapy from this mad existence. Towards the end of the novel, John, while debating with Mustapha Mond (a Controller, vehemently tries to protest this "Brave New World" thinking: "Whether `tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing them...But you don't do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It's too easy." Soma seems to be a symbolic surrender, a post-modern easy button to life in the Brave New World. John's frustration with many of the people in this circle is that they are so brainwashed that they cannot even grasp his protests; he cannot convince them that there is another way to think. This is what eventually is John's undoing: he tries to seek refuge from this existence, this way of life, but there is no changing, no escaping, and no going back. Created in Huxley's work is an ironic confederation of idleness, the societal emptiness described eloquently by Mustapha Mond: "In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Conditions have to be thoroughly unstable before the occasion can arise."

If there was one element I didn't care for, it was the first part. While the first fifty pages or so set the scene for the new civilization, where the five castes of society are introduced and the background is set for the futuristic society, I found them to be a bit tedious. The novel really takes off when Part two begins, and we meet some of the aforementioned main characters. I only reveal this fact because some may lose patience in the beginning of their reading; if you stick with it, I think you'll be much more interested once the plot gets going.

This is a scary, original, and ironic ride into the future. Which future? That's for you to decide.

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Beautiful audio, annoying layout

I use this audio cd set to help my 12th grade English class study the novel Brave New World. Michael York does a fantastic job reading the novel by providing a vast array of character voices. It is the new layout design of the CD that has changed which makes use in the classroom difficult. The CDs are no longer labeled to indicate which chapters are covered per cd. This would make it difficult for anyone who wants to switch between the audio and the book itself.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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