Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | Frighteningly Prophetic

Brave New World | Aldous Huxley | Good Book

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Brave New World

	Brave New World Aldous Huxley Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 728 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Aldous Huxley's tour de force, Brave New World is a darkly satiric vision of a "utopian" future—where humans are genetically bred and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively serve a ruling order. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, it remains remarkably relevant to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying entertainment.

Frighteningly Prophetic

Brave New World / 0-06-092987-1

While "Brave New World" may lack the narrative punch of other dystopias such as "1984", I cannot help but feel that for sheer prophetic rightness, Huxley hits the nail on the head where others fail. Where Orwell sees an oppressive government that frightens and tortures its populace into submission, Huxley envisions a world where government control is total and yet unnoticed, simply because the population does not care.

Why care about your government when there is so much more fun stuff to be doing? There's soma - a happy-pill that counters all sadness, doubt, and anxiety - to take, romances to conduct, entertainment to consume, and so many other more interesting things to think about. And don't we see that today, in the news media (I second the reviewer who mentioned Postman's wonderful "Amusing Ourselves to Death"), with reports that are more focused on entertainment than on the dissemination of information.

Huxley's insightful book is an individual wake-up call to us all - a reminder never to become so complacent that we simply stop caring about the greater world around us.

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Good Book

An excellent book with an excellent plot and perfect examples of external and internal conflicts among the characters and the society in which the characters live in.

Dystopia, i long for thee

I purchased Brave New World after reading 1984, and while I must confess that I enjoyed Orwell's book just a little bit more, Huxley's work was still an immediately compelling read. I think what I liked best was just how "british" this future was, by which I mean, everything seemed so very posh and hip and how we Americans would tend to see the British, as opposed to (sorry to keep drawing comparisons) 1984, whose depictions of England were much more how they might be viewed by say, South Africa.

Another thing I liked about the story was that I didn't particularly care for any of the characters that much. I actually enjoyed the disappointment of having each character let me down just when I thought their basic goodness would shine through. Initial protagonist Bernard Marx is far from the jaded idealist that one wants to believe he is, instead vying for vapid acceptance in the shallow society that he is ostracized from; Lenina Crowne does not become enlightened to Marx or the Savage's wyas of living and remains blissfully baffled by each of them, and wistfully goes on enjoying the meaningless sex and soma holidays; even John the Savage becomes unrelatable, turning into something of a zealous monk who becomes so averse to any feelings of personal satisfaction that he... well, read the book.

I thoroughly enjoyed Brave New World and will in all likelihood pick up Brave New World Revisited in the near future.

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