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A review by crywithclaire
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
2.0
what makes this book great is that it was the first ever to do it. but unfortunately, since then, people have “done it” much, much, better.
i know huxley had less to work with, but as far as utopian/dystopian fiction goes, this is probably one of my least favorites ever. honestly i even preferred divergent to this and if you know me you know thats not a compliment. i know i said i would be rating not on objective quality but on enjoyment, but if i were to do that it would get 1 star and i think the books creativity and overall ideas/sociopolitical commentary as well as being the first of its kind puts it more on the like 3ish star level even though how it’s presented is doodoo. so im averaging it at 2.
anyways since i love to complain here is my list of grievances:
- it’s not what huxley says, it’s HOW he says it. early 20th century old british guy prose tends not to bother me too much but GOD was huxley’s prose ANNOYING. i felt like i was at tea with the queen, and not in a good way. like there is no word for it other than annoying. and huxley way over-explains. i felt like he was pummeling me over the head with his ideas over and over again, just in case i missed it the first time! i know this book is short, but if huxley were a better writer it would have been even shorter. in the words of kevin from the office, why say lot word when few word do trick?
- huxley’s utopia is SOOOO CORNY. like a cornerstone of the society is that they deify henry ford but the way that they do that is just taking any time someone would say “lord” in 20th century christianity and replacing it with “ford” (our ford, his fordship, ford knows). and instead of doing the sign of the cross they call it the sign of the t after the ford model t. and they have a church service where drug tablets are passed around like communion while they sing a hymn called “orgy porgy” which is about exactly what you think! it’s lazy honestly. we don’t need a 1:1 inverse comparison with christianity. also was this book supposed to be funny? idk.
- huxley went to the jk rowling school of naming things (or perhaps vice versa). everyone’s last name is like a famous communist/socialist thinker or prominent scientist like ooh look an easter egg! i get that it’s to show that this society idolizes those people but when you introduce a new character every other page with the last name marx, trotsky, engels, watson, etc it just gets TIREDDD so quickly and is not done tastefully in my opinion. it’s like when dante puts his enemies in hell in the divine comedy except with less narrative purpose and way more often and also it’s surrounded by terrible prose so it’s just more annoying
- i think narrative jumps between time periods and/or perspectives within the same chapter are FINE. what i don’t think is fine is having multiple chapters where the perspective changes between the same two events/perspectives legit every other paragraph with no warning to the extent that it makes more sense and is more enjoyable if you skip through and read every other paragraph and then go back and do it again for the other set of paragraphs. i don’t understand the point of writing in this way.
- i get it’s from the 1930s but any book attempting to make some sort of progressive political or social commentary while claiming intellectual or moral superiority in some way that is ALSO overtly racist is just an immediate no for me. huxley’s grandfather was one of the OG pioneers of scientific racism and his brother was one of its most infamous proponents and it’s clear from this book that the apple does not fall far from the tree. like the subliminal stuff is also not good obviously but when the authors personal biases are SCREAMING off the page it just completely takes me out of it. “product of his time” and all that but really i do not care. like huxley, you think society has problems? the call is coming from inside the house.
- i think it would have been more impactful if the “savage reservation” was filled with like … “civilized” people (colonial term) by contemporary standards instead of stereotypical “savages”. in the book they’re like ooooh look at these “savages” and then show indigenous people with dark skin and body paint wearing loincloths and doing a drum circle and blood ritual. if he wanted to really hammer his point home he would have had the uncivilized place they visit be filled with a bunch of white people reading john locke and adam smith or something idk. instead of just having the one “noble savage” that even the other “savages” hate and he is the only white guy on the WHOLE reservation except his mom. i thought the point of this book was that the “uncivilized” people that huxleys society fears are our “civilized” people? because of how much society changed? but nope he just does stereotypical colonial stuff. i also get that like the point of doing it this way was to be like the world government lets people visit this particular reservation bc it is basically state propaganda but i just think it would have been more powerful and showed the extent of social conditioning if they had done it differently. SUCH a missed opportunity.
- what is going on with the subcastes? the first chapter is like there are only five castes, they are very rigid, so rigid, extremely, and it’s only five. but then castes contain subcastes like the alpha you have alpha, alpha minus, alpha plus, and alpha double plus and it’s like…so there are really like 20+ castes? and the differences between the subcastes are never properly explained either. plus i thought they were supposed to like rigidly never mix but then the alphas and betas bang each other all the time so like? at least divergent was consistent with their castes.
- this book does not pass the bechdel test
tldr, if you’re thinking of reading this book, you’d be better off putting it down and picking up 1984 instead.
i know huxley had less to work with, but as far as utopian/dystopian fiction goes, this is probably one of my least favorites ever. honestly i even preferred divergent to this and if you know me you know thats not a compliment. i know i said i would be rating not on objective quality but on enjoyment, but if i were to do that it would get 1 star and i think the books creativity and overall ideas/sociopolitical commentary as well as being the first of its kind puts it more on the like 3ish star level even though how it’s presented is doodoo. so im averaging it at 2.
anyways since i love to complain here is my list of grievances:
- it’s not what huxley says, it’s HOW he says it. early 20th century old british guy prose tends not to bother me too much but GOD was huxley’s prose ANNOYING. i felt like i was at tea with the queen, and not in a good way. like there is no word for it other than annoying. and huxley way over-explains. i felt like he was pummeling me over the head with his ideas over and over again, just in case i missed it the first time! i know this book is short, but if huxley were a better writer it would have been even shorter. in the words of kevin from the office, why say lot word when few word do trick?
- huxley’s utopia is SOOOO CORNY. like a cornerstone of the society is that they deify henry ford but the way that they do that is just taking any time someone would say “lord” in 20th century christianity and replacing it with “ford” (our ford, his fordship, ford knows). and instead of doing the sign of the cross they call it the sign of the t after the ford model t. and they have a church service where drug tablets are passed around like communion while they sing a hymn called “orgy porgy” which is about exactly what you think! it’s lazy honestly. we don’t need a 1:1 inverse comparison with christianity. also was this book supposed to be funny? idk.
- huxley went to the jk rowling school of naming things (or perhaps vice versa). everyone’s last name is like a famous communist/socialist thinker or prominent scientist like ooh look an easter egg! i get that it’s to show that this society idolizes those people but when you introduce a new character every other page with the last name marx, trotsky, engels, watson, etc it just gets TIREDDD so quickly and is not done tastefully in my opinion. it’s like when dante puts his enemies in hell in the divine comedy except with less narrative purpose and way more often and also it’s surrounded by terrible prose so it’s just more annoying
- i think narrative jumps between time periods and/or perspectives within the same chapter are FINE. what i don’t think is fine is having multiple chapters where the perspective changes between the same two events/perspectives legit every other paragraph with no warning to the extent that it makes more sense and is more enjoyable if you skip through and read every other paragraph and then go back and do it again for the other set of paragraphs. i don’t understand the point of writing in this way.
- i get it’s from the 1930s but any book attempting to make some sort of progressive political or social commentary while claiming intellectual or moral superiority in some way that is ALSO overtly racist is just an immediate no for me. huxley’s grandfather was one of the OG pioneers of scientific racism and his brother was one of its most infamous proponents and it’s clear from this book that the apple does not fall far from the tree. like the subliminal stuff is also not good obviously but when the authors personal biases are SCREAMING off the page it just completely takes me out of it. “product of his time” and all that but really i do not care. like huxley, you think society has problems? the call is coming from inside the house.
- i think it would have been more impactful if the “savage reservation” was filled with like … “civilized” people (colonial term) by contemporary standards instead of stereotypical “savages”. in the book they’re like ooooh look at these “savages” and then show indigenous people with dark skin and body paint wearing loincloths and doing a drum circle and blood ritual. if he wanted to really hammer his point home he would have had the uncivilized place they visit be filled with a bunch of white people reading john locke and adam smith or something idk. instead of just having the one “noble savage” that even the other “savages” hate and he is the only white guy on the WHOLE reservation except his mom. i thought the point of this book was that the “uncivilized” people that huxleys society fears are our “civilized” people? because of how much society changed? but nope he just does stereotypical colonial stuff. i also get that like the point of doing it this way was to be like the world government lets people visit this particular reservation bc it is basically state propaganda but i just think it would have been more powerful and showed the extent of social conditioning if they had done it differently. SUCH a missed opportunity.
- what is going on with the subcastes? the first chapter is like there are only five castes, they are very rigid, so rigid, extremely, and it’s only five. but then castes contain subcastes like the alpha you have alpha, alpha minus, alpha plus, and alpha double plus and it’s like…so there are really like 20+ castes? and the differences between the subcastes are never properly explained either. plus i thought they were supposed to like rigidly never mix but then the alphas and betas bang each other all the time so like? at least divergent was consistent with their castes.
- this book does not pass the bechdel test
tldr, if you’re thinking of reading this book, you’d be better off putting it down and picking up 1984 instead.