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A review by carlaabra
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
It’s well beyond the time that I should’ve read this. Gosh.
A dys?/u-topian future where humans are mass manufactured, embryos conditioned and children brainwashed into predetermined castes (Alpha through Gamma) and personalities (make the future miners like the dark, make the farmers like the dirt, make the laborers enjoy their labor). Above all, make everyone unthinking and “happy”—no suffering, no obstacles, just base desires and their immediate satisfaction, perfect workers and consumers. We follow Bernard, the self righteous loser, Helmholtz, the writer created with too much intelligence yet yearning for something valuable to say, Lenina, a woman beginning to question society but who chooses the hollow comfort of drugged happiness over true feeling, and finally John (The Savage), born the old-fashioned way on Savage Reservations where humans live a harsh but felt existence. John is removed from the reservations into the Civilized World in an experiment: can the savage appreciate such easy and empty pleasures? Should he?
Some of this book seriously lagged. But it’s worth it for the themes. What does it really mean to live a good life - to fulfill a purpose? What is happiness - is it always good, and is suffering always bad? Is the primary goal for human civilization to extinguish, indeed to obviate, any and all hardship? At what cost? There’s an interesting religious parallel that’s touched on, the holiness of suffering (the *passion* of the Christ; asceticism more generally). I was reminded of Calvin: how terrifying it is to consider predestination and therefore how strong a test of our faith to go on believing, God‘s will be done.
A dys?/u-topian future where humans are mass manufactured, embryos conditioned and children brainwashed into predetermined castes (Alpha through Gamma) and personalities (make the future miners like the dark, make the farmers like the dirt, make the laborers enjoy their labor). Above all, make everyone unthinking and “happy”—no suffering, no obstacles, just base desires and their immediate satisfaction, perfect workers and consumers. We follow Bernard, the self righteous loser, Helmholtz, the writer created with too much intelligence yet yearning for something valuable to say, Lenina, a woman beginning to question society but who chooses the hollow comfort of drugged happiness over true feeling, and finally John (The Savage), born the old-fashioned way on Savage Reservations where humans live a harsh but felt existence. John is removed from the reservations into the Civilized World in an experiment: can the savage appreciate such easy and empty pleasures? Should he?
Some of this book seriously lagged. But it’s worth it for the themes. What does it really mean to live a good life - to fulfill a purpose? What is happiness - is it always good, and is suffering always bad? Is the primary goal for human civilization to extinguish, indeed to obviate, any and all hardship? At what cost? There’s an interesting religious parallel that’s touched on, the holiness of suffering (the *passion* of the Christ; asceticism more generally). I was reminded of Calvin: how terrifying it is to consider predestination and therefore how strong a test of our faith to go on believing, God‘s will be done.
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexual content and Suicide
Nihilism