A review by amelia555
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

3.0

The fun thing about old science fiction novels is to see what that got wrong and what they got right, even if they lean towards the extreme (and they mostly do). I feel like 1984 (because these 2 are often compared) ended up being more prophetic with its ideas of over the clock surveillance and fake news. BNW predicted dumbing and numbing of the masses with pleasure - and, well, it's not exactly wrong, in a way, as lots of us become addicted to escapism. Class divide really did become very apparent with time, too. But overall, I read this novel as some sort of a cautionary fairytale, while 1984 felt like an eerie almost slice of life. BNW takes things a bit too far for all of its characters. Lenina and others' conditioning is extreme, but so is John's devotion to Shakespeare. Neither seems probable. A lot of ideas in this book seem like too much, although I kinda can see why they might have been born in 1932. The world felt too decadent, a World War happened, morality was declining (at least in the eyes of some folks) as well religious inclinations of the youth. Maybe what Huxley described felt like a logical step. Still, I felt like 1984 was more of a "society is going to hell due to politics" and BNW was more of a "tsk-tsk-tsk, kids these days" kind of a novel. I prefer 1984.