Skip to main content

Brave New World: a Review

 


The two dystopian novels of the early 20th Century that set the standard for dystopian novels, were Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It is interesting that neither author was primarily known science fiction writer.

I read Brave New World when I was in High school. It was not required reading. I just read it on my own to check a famous science fiction book off my list. I don’t think I got much out of it. I know I didn’t get much out of it, just the basic plot: A society where happiness is the only good. Everyone has sex with everyone else. A “savage” makes an appearance and it upsets the applecart. I doubt if I got much of the nuance or the humor. I definitely would not have gotten the Shakespeare references. In fact, there are a lot of references my 17-year-old self would not have gotten. I just finished reading it again. With age comes more understanding.

The compelling insight into this “Utopian” society comes from the outsider, in this case, the savage. John (the savage) was an accident. His mother had found herself stranded in the wilderness and pregnant, and was forced to give birth. Real birth. In a society where sex is as free and common as blades of grass in a field, the thought of an actual mother giving actual birth is considered pornographic. In fact, the word “mother” is not used in polite society. John is introduced to this civilized society, and at first, he is a novelty to the society as the society is a novelty to him. He becomes something of a celebrity. But soon, he rebels against it. He complains that all good literature has been banned. People are entertained by “feelies” (first there were movies, then there were talkies, I guess the next great step in Huxley’s mind was that there would be feelies). John says to The Controller. “Othello’s good. Othello’s better than those feelies.”

“Of course, it is,” the Controller agreed. “But that’s the price we have to pay for stability. You’ve got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art.” Stability is the goal of this society. The Controller tells him, “The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and never want what they can’t get.”

To us, the civilized society of Brave New World is a nightmare. Genetics are controlled. People are pigeonholed into predetermined classes that determine what kinds of jobs they are allowed to do. They are taught to distrust anyone from another class, and revere those of their own class. They are conditioned what to think and punished for thinking or acting outside the norm. There is no creativity, and no freedom of speech. Yet, they are by outward appearances, happy.

This book had to be shocking for the time it was written (1932). It was a world whose morals were turned upside down. Works of early science fiction often suffer to a modern reader; the ideas and even the writing styles are often dated. But this one holds up remarkably well. And of the two big Dystopian novels of that time, this one and Nineteen-Eighty-Four, Brave New World is much more fun to read.

Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

  Despite both of us having science backgrounds, my wife and I share a leaning toward the artistic, though we may express it in different ways. In her life, my wife has been a painter, a poet, a singer, an actor, and a fiction writer. Not to mention a mother. I don’t remember what precipitated this event, but my wife, my son, and I were at home in the front room. My wife was responding to something my son said. She said, “remember, you get half your brains from me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be a complete idiot.” To which my son started howling with laughter and said to me,” I think you have just been insulted.” Sometimes I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. I get no respect. But that is not an uncommon state of affairs for fatherhood. When my son was going to middle school and high school, my wife was always the one to go in with him to get him registered for classes. One time she was unable to go and I had to be the one to get him registered. “Ugh,” he said. “why can’t Mama do i...
1 comment
Read more

A Child of the . . .

  What was it like to grow up as a child in the 90s? How about the 1940’s? Thinking about a child growing up in each different decade, conjures up images in my mind. But that is all they are: images. I was a child in the 1960’s. I can tell you what it felt like to be growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, but what it felt like to me is not what the history books remember. History will tell you the 60’s was about the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the space race. The 70’s was Disco and Watergate. I remember being aware of all of those things, but to me this era was about finding time to play with my friends, something I probably share with a child of any decade. It was about navigating the social intricacies of school.   It was about the Beatles, Three Dog Night, The Moody Blues, The Animals, Jefferson Airplane. It was Bullwinkle, the Wonderful World of Color, and Ed Sullivan. There are things that a kid pays attention to that the grown-ups don’t. Then there are things the adults ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Telephonicus domesticus

Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone from 1877 bears about as much similarity to the modern smart phone as an abacus bears to a PC or Mac. There are just about as many leaps in technology in both cases. It’s funny how a major jump in technology happens (like the actual invention of the phone). Then there are some refinements over a few years or decades until it gets to a useful stable form. Then it stays virtually the same for many years with only minor innovations. The telephone was virtually unchanged from sometime before I was born until I was about forty. Push-buttons were replacing the rotary dial, but that was about it. (Isn’t it interesting though that when we call someone, we still call it “dialing?” I have never seen a dial on a cell phone.) Cell phones were introduced and (once they became cheap enough) they changed the way we phone each other. New advancements followed soon after, texting and then smart phones. Personal computers were also becoming commonplace and wer...
Post a Comment
Read more