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A review by leswag97
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
3.0
While Orwell envisions a future shaped by hard and forceful power in his "1984," Aldous Huxley sees the future shaped primarily by soft and much more digestible power. In Huxley's "Brave New World," it is not fear which stabilizes, but happiness and pleasure. It is a world where the family structure has been completely annihilated, chastity and self-restraint thrown out the window, and gloomy sentiments and feelings can be easily done away with by taking the drug "soma." What keeps society running and stabilized is a harsh caste-system (ranging from Alphas to Epsilons), a de-emphasis of individual autonomy ("everyone belongs to everyone else"), and strict condition and hypnopedia which begins as early as infancy for the members of the new World State.
For the one character in the story, John the Savage, who has not grown up with this conditioning, who understands life in terms of "beauty" and "truth," and who has grown up reading and memorizing Shakespeare, the uninhibited freedoms and the never-ending pleasure- and thrill-seeking activities of this "Brave New World" force him to question what is best for humanity and what makes life worth living. From the perspective of the World State, John the Savage, by choosing to feel pain, to choose God, and to practice self-restraint, is actually choosing unhappiness; this is a truth with which John is satisfied to live. John craves meaning.
"Brave New World" has withstood the test of time for good reason: it is still thought-provoking and captivating because it is still deemed possible. Hedonism is not a thing of the past, automation and industrialization lead the way in many of our societies, and we are beginning to realize more and more that we are more conditioned than we like to admit (modern advertising techniques do not fall far from the tree of wartime propaganda).
All in all, I think "Brave New World" is an important work. I did not personally enjoy this book as much as I was expecting to, which is why I am giving it a rating of 3 stars, but I still think it was worth the read. The storyline was relatively simple, and the characters, apart from John the Savage, were not too interesting to me. I do think Huxley has a good way with words; his writing style is quick and witty.
For the one character in the story, John the Savage, who has not grown up with this conditioning, who understands life in terms of "beauty" and "truth," and who has grown up reading and memorizing Shakespeare, the uninhibited freedoms and the never-ending pleasure- and thrill-seeking activities of this "Brave New World" force him to question what is best for humanity and what makes life worth living. From the perspective of the World State, John the Savage, by choosing to feel pain, to choose God, and to practice self-restraint, is actually choosing unhappiness; this is a truth with which John is satisfied to live. John craves meaning.
"Brave New World" has withstood the test of time for good reason: it is still thought-provoking and captivating because it is still deemed possible. Hedonism is not a thing of the past, automation and industrialization lead the way in many of our societies, and we are beginning to realize more and more that we are more conditioned than we like to admit (modern advertising techniques do not fall far from the tree of wartime propaganda).
All in all, I think "Brave New World" is an important work. I did not personally enjoy this book as much as I was expecting to, which is why I am giving it a rating of 3 stars, but I still think it was worth the read. The storyline was relatively simple, and the characters, apart from John the Savage, were not too interesting to me. I do think Huxley has a good way with words; his writing style is quick and witty.