Aldous Huxley: Brave New World (2014, HarperCollins Publishers)
384 pages
English language
Published 2014 by HarperCollins Publishers.
Originally published in 1932, this outstanding work of literature is more crucial and relevant today than ever before. Cloning, feel-good drugs, antiaging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media -- has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 AF (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, Brave New World is both a warning to be heeded and thought-provoking yet satisfying entertainment. - Container.
Read in and for English class in school. Would likely not have read it on an other occasion, although the themes and things discussed are thought provoking, I didn't really enjoy the book.
Brave New World is on every must-read list, and it belongs there. Huxley's longsightedness is undisputed: as far back as 1931, he picked up on some of the most disturbing features of what was becoming our society, and showed their darkest side. I don't know why I couldn't get more into the story. Sometimes it's just a matter of timing. In fact, I remember reading it as a teenager, and liking it a lot more. Truth be told, I must have been on a sci-fi binge, because I definitely remembered it all wrong - I think my mind collated 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World in a major, majorly inconsistent dystopia of its own. I don't know if it was just me, but I have the impression that our collective memory has boxed the book as a warning bell against the dangers of a world driven by escapism, sensual …
Brave New World is on every must-read list, and it belongs there. Huxley's longsightedness is undisputed: as far back as 1931, he picked up on some of the most disturbing features of what was becoming our society, and showed their darkest side. I don't know why I couldn't get more into the story. Sometimes it's just a matter of timing. In fact, I remember reading it as a teenager, and liking it a lot more. Truth be told, I must have been on a sci-fi binge, because I definitely remembered it all wrong - I think my mind collated 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World in a major, majorly inconsistent dystopia of its own. I don't know if it was just me, but I have the impression that our collective memory has boxed the book as a warning bell against the dangers of a world driven by escapism, sensual pleasure, and the obsession with being happy. I had completely removed the fact that 'the Savage' actually also comes across as fairly obsessed - with religion, purity, and purification through pain - is it just me, or that is also supposed to be a little creepy? As an aside, the representation of the 'uncivilised' as a sort of native Americans was hella problematic (yes, I know, it's easy to practice critical analysis from 90+ years in the future)
I guess it might be the point of the book, but I couldn't feel that any character was real, everything felt stereotypical; while at the same time that "prediction" of the future does not seem plausible to me.
And I repeat, it might be the point of the book, so, if that is the case, then great job. I just did not enjoy it or gained any interesting insight.
Die gesamte Dystopie ist sehr interessant und erschreckend, verliert sich aber leider dermaßen in detailierten, montonen Beschreibungen das ich aus langeweile immer wieder abschweifte und ganze Kapitel zum Teil noch einmal anhören musste. Leider ändert auch die zugrunde liegende Story daran nichts, da diese für mich so wirkt als habe Huxley sie im nachhinein eingearbeitet, um seinen Ideen irgendwie einen roten Faden zu verpassen, damit aus seinem Buch kein philosphisches Sachbuch sondern ein Roman wird.
Read this immediately afte reading the Orwell classic, 1984. I admit, I struggled reading this book. The method of story telling, with the switching of character perspective was difficult to follow. The idea of the book became far more clearer as the book progressed and became clear especially towards the end.
However the ideas presented in the book and their demonstration was thought provoking.
There is much to be learned from reading this book and it is easy to forget that it was written early in the last century, not this one. Sadly, the warnings Huxley offers about what society was becoming were largely ignored and we've come to a society that so closely mirrors his "civilization" that it could have been a metaphor about our current state of affairs written by a contemporary author.
It is a very short novel but full of warnings and lessons that are as applicable, or even more so, today as they were in 1930. It is a lesson in mass manipulation by the media and big pharma. It is a lesson in treating people ultimately as mere resource rather than persons. And it is a lesson in extremes, extreme pain v. extreme pleasure and the wrongheadedness in submitting to either.
