Brave New World (Study Texts S.) (Transaction Large Print S.) (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)

by Aldous Huxley

In the end, it was Aldous Huxley, not George Orwell (whom Huxley taught at Eton), whose vision of the future had the touch of prophecy. The modern world did not collapse into the cold, damp totalitarian hell Orwell described in his 1948 novel 1984. What has happened is closer to Huxley's vision of the future in his astonishing 1931 novel Brave New World -- a world of tomorrow in which capitalist civilization has been reconstituted through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, where the people are genetically designed to be passive, consistently useful to the ruling class. As scathingly satirical as it is disturbing, Brave New World is set some 600 years in the future, in "this year of stability, A.F. 632" -- the A.F. stands for After Ford, meaning the godlike Henry Ford -- when mankind exists in an institutional form of happiness, managed by the World State. "Community, Identity, Stability" is its motto. Reproduction is totally controlled through genetic engineering. People are literally bred into a rigid class system and designed for specific purposes. As they mature, they are conditioned to be happy with the roles for which society created them, working without complaint or incident. The rest of their lives are devoted to the pursuit of pleasure through meaningless sex, elaborate recreational sports, the getting and having of material possessions and the taking of a pleasure drug called soma. Concepts such as family, freedom, love and culture are considered grotesque.Against this backdrop, a young man known as John the Savage is brought to London from the remote desert of New Mexico. What he sees in the new civilization he naively calls a "brave new world," quoting the Shakespeare (The Tempest) on which he was raised in the wild. But John soon challenges the very premise of this modern society, an act that threatens and fascinates its citizens, leading to a shocking but inevitable conclusion.Huxley throws the idea of utopia into reverse in Brave New World, and the result is what became known as a "dystopian" novel. In 1931, when Brave New World was written, neither Hitler nor Stalin had risen to power. Huxley saw the enduring threat to civilization coming from the dark side of scientific and social progress and mankind's increasingly insatiable appetite for simple amusement. While it seemed, after the publication of Orwell's 1984 and the onset of the Cold War, that Huxley's vision was dated and even a bit naive, time has proved the opposite. Brave New World retains its power as it continues to indict the idea of progress for the sake of progress -- breathtaking in its precise and gripping imagination, its cauterizing irony and its bold exploration of ideas.

• ISBN10: 0795300026
• ISBN13: 9780795300028
• Publish Date: 15 December 2000 (first published 12 December 1932)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Rosettabooks, LLC
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 198
• Language: English

Reviews

[lyx]

3.5 stars

Thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the book and learning about the "(brave) new world" and the people acting in it, as well as some of the conversations towards the end - and getting a different perspective through a certain someone - just the middle chunk of the book was a bit tedious to get through. A very interesting read nonetheless, and shocking to see how close we are to the depicted reality in certain aspects (and how far from it in others). I might not have fully loved it, but would certainly recommend it.

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

Initial Thoughts: I read this in high school and hated it and was hoping I would have a fresh perspective re-reading it now. I still think it's flat and boring. I understand that part of the point is that the life in the supposed utopia is flat, but that didn't stop me from yawning. There are some interesting themes here, since the things that the society here values are certain things our society is pushing for us to value, but overall I just can't find the narrative or the characters compelling.

[mary]

Meh. Yeah. Another dystopian novel. I thought the beginning was a bit melodramatic. The whole book was pessimistic though. I can appreciate the warning, and it's a good satire. (guess I've read all the most famous dystopian novels now, the giver, fahrenheit 451 and 1984). Overall, I'm very glad I read it, but I'm not so sure I would read it again.

[clementine]

I think that now that we have so much dystopian literature available (much of which directly builds on ideas presented in the classics such as Brave New World), we are desensitized to it. I can see how the ideas and themes in Brave New World would have been shocking and exciting at the time. Now, though, the dystopian market has been pretty well saturated, and this book doesn't have the impact I think it would have had in the 30s. There are definitely some issues that I think could have been overlooked if this were shocking to me.

First, I liked the premise. The world was very interesting and chilling, and the way in which Mustapha Mond rationalizes it makes it even more terrifying - because it almost makes sense. Obviously the world is very well-developed, and full of lots of little details that make it interesting and all the more disturbing! I really enjoyed the socialist naming scheme, and the tidbit of information that there is a very small pool of these names that is shared by everyone.

I think my main issue is with the plot - or rather, the lack of one. The whole book is very expository. Again, I think this is effective when your intent is to be shocking and to present new and thrilling ideas. Building up this clearly terrifying world works well when that's what you want to achieve. And I certainly liked where the ending was taken - again, chilling and abrupt. But I didn't find the plot (or what there was of one) very interesting! I think a lot of this was the excessive dialogue. This book could have benefited from more action and more description and much less expository dialogue! Dialogue cannot carry the story. It is an effective tool, of course, but using it to explain everything (and in great long paragraphs, too - who talks like that?) is lazy and boring. As a result, I couldn't really dive into this book properly. I always felt as though I was just skimming the surface and not fully getting immersed in it, despite the well-constructed world. It just wasn't vivid enough to hold my attention fully.

I did enjoy that unlike the majority of dystopian novels I've read, where the themes seem to be repression, abstinence, and poverty, Brave New World depicts a society that is all about sexual expression and excessive consumption. On the surface, the society may seem happy and almost utopian, which raises questions about the flip side of any utopian society.

At the end of the day, this is definitely required reading for all the dystopian lovers out there! So much of the current stuff builds on the classics, and reading them can enhance understanding and appreciation - so while I didn't love this book, I think it deserves to be read.

[celinenyx]

Liked it better than 1984.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Aldous Huxley got it right when he wrote Brave New World, he wrote about a society were everyone lived for themselves, only considered about the pleasure they would receive out of life. This was written as a Utopian society but it does seem to reflect our society as well. The novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World fifth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

[angelarenea9]

I liked hearing about the way the world worked. I have noticed I like the actual utopian society best in most dis-topia books. I got a little bored when they went to the reservation. But it was a relatively OK book and I enjoyed it enough to remember most of it years later.