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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
dark
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Thought provoking for sure. As someone always on a quest for happiness, it does beg the question, is constant happiness actually unhappiness. If there are no lows and no drama or conflict and only perfection can an individual even understand happiness. This utopia actually sounds awful to me, although the occasional soma trip is appealing.
challenging
dark
medium-paced
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Review not entirely spoiler free but it was released nearly 100 years ago so I think most people know at least vaguely what happens. I did before going into it, but I was not expecting a lot of the actual content.
“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
This book is really engaging. I could've read the whole thing in one sitting - I would encourage people to do that if they have the time, I think it would benefit from that. The idea of a society based on constant unending consumption, where everyone is so amused and stimulated all the time that they have no opinions or interests, where hobbies and sports are only promoted if they require tons of expensive equipment, where clothes are made out of materials designed to tear quickly and not be repaired, where books are not banned but simply forgotten because they're old and irrelevant? Where everything is convenient all the time and emotional discomfort is avoided at all costs? I wonder what that's like to live in 💀
I was actually really shocked to check the front page and discover that this book was written in 1932. I thought it was from the 60s. This is mostly because of the fashions he describes, I think, but it just seems too good a prediction to have been written THAT long ago. Also this book would have been FAR more scandalous to a 30s audience than a 60s one or a modern one. The encouragement of promiscuity would've definitely rattled the remaining Victorians at that time.
The book kind of slaps you in the face with the world building but I appreciate that. The author sets it up in a way that is obvious but isn't a boring list of "this is how the world works here". You can put things together AND be told what's happening. His later career as a screenwriter makes a lot of sense, I can easily see how this book could be turned into a film just based on structure alone. The fact that the book is not vague about anything is something I liked and found very easy to read.
Bernard Marx is a bit of an anti-hero. He starts off interesting adn counterculture in a place where counterculture does not exist and is discouraged not through violence, but through social shame, but once he gets a taste of acceptance he becomes a total wet blanket and he abandons all his convictions and previous opinions. I did want to know how his ending went, though. John's ending is almost the only one that makes sense for him, as sad as it is, but I do wonder what happened to Bernard.
Lenina is a window into what the average person in the world thinks and acts like. She is vapid and has no interests or opinions of her own; everything she believes was taught to her through conditioning. But evidently the conditioning isn't completely effective, even on model citizens like Lenina. She's supposed to be promiscuous and never fall in love, but she tends to fall in love (or like) with just one man at a time for long stretches that the others frown upon - first Henry Foster, then Bernard Marx, then John the Savage. There are quite a few characters who vary from their conditioning and it makes you wonder how many other people in the society are aberrant in this way.
John Savage is really a fascinating character as the only non-conditioned character in the book, but he's still not what any of us would consider a normal person. He is the only character that truly feels anything, and what he feels is skewed and distorted through years of semi-rejection by his mother and exclusion by his community in the reservation and religion that has clearly been half forgotten and combined with other mythologies over the centuries it has apparently been since religion was normal, but I think he's the only character the reader can truly relate to. "Civilisation" horrifies him. It seems glittering and wonderful at first, but the reality of it is strange and upsetting and sterile to him. I could say a lot about John but I'm meant to be writing something else right now, this is procrastination.
Linda is the saddest character by far. The way she simply wastes away in an endless cloud of soma once she gets back to civilisation is horrifying. She is an addict because of her trauma but I also wonder how many other people in that world are also dependent on soma. Are the lower castes truly happy with what they have or are they just pacified with it? They seem to receive it instead of money as wages. This is the only thing I feel like DOESNT reflect our society in a scary way - I don't think society would ever give up using money. The upper classes couldn't hoard soma in the same way.
The only thing I couldn't understand is why Huxley mentions several characters as having lupus.
dark
reflective
medium-paced
En algunos momentos me ha dado aires de La Republica de Platón en la forma de plantear los dilemas morales.
Un poco denso pero super interesante.
Un poco denso pero super interesante.
dark
slow-paced
The concept was interesting, I suppose. I didn't really get attached to any characters, in fact disliked many, and was rather irritated by some. It could have been the audio book performance, but I doubt it. I think it would have been great in its own time, but I've heard it compared to books like 1984 and I definitely prefer more engaging characters and plot. It was still interesting, the concept of stability and contentment versus chaos and fulfilment leading to the solution of living shallow lives.