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oz617's reviews
473 reviews
Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley
challenging
dark
medium-paced
0.25
A Goodreads reviewer described this as "old man yells at clouds". That pretty much sums up the experience of reading it. Huxley takes us - ostensibly as a response to Brave New World, but specifically as he tries to prove that it wasn't just a metaphor - on a tour of his political idea about individuality and collectivism. He believes that in an overpopulated world, Communism is more likely to spread because people are not able to live as individuals. This is a particular problem, in his view, in "industrially backwards" countries (he mentions Africa and Asia in broad strokes), where the people are too religious or too stupid (on account of having survived too many diseases and gone on to breed with low IQs and low quality genes) to think of birth control on their own.
If, like too many people I've seen recently, you don't think that's eugenics, you don't know what eugenics actually is.
Huxley goes on to give us some genuinely insane chapters about Nazi mind control and how the Communists can control babies while they sleep. Also he gives an overview of what drugs are on the market and how dictatorial pharmacists might control the masses with them - it's a lot. He recommends that the government ban hypnosis and subliminal messaging. In his (largely unearned) defense, it's very of its time.
Somehow this ends with urging the youth towards Syndicalism. This last chapter is the most reasonable and coherent - except that it can't be, in truth, on account of it being based on all these entirely false premises. It's all wrapped up in an anti-modernism based on the idea that 50 years ago, in Huxley's boyhood (c. 1900s), people were reasonable and democratic and it was impossible to have imagined that this society would have gone on to commit the holocaust, described as "atrocities on a scale undreamed of by the benighted Africans and Asiatics". These are the words of a man who has never read a single academic from outside his own context. The whole thing is the work of a sci-fi writer who badly needs to talk to people who are not also sci-fi writers.
Old man yelling at clouds indeed.
If, like too many people I've seen recently, you don't think that's eugenics, you don't know what eugenics actually is.
Huxley goes on to give us some genuinely insane chapters about Nazi mind control and how the Communists can control babies while they sleep. Also he gives an overview of what drugs are on the market and how dictatorial pharmacists might control the masses with them - it's a lot. He recommends that the government ban hypnosis and subliminal messaging. In his (largely unearned) defense, it's very of its time.
Somehow this ends with urging the youth towards Syndicalism. This last chapter is the most reasonable and coherent - except that it can't be, in truth, on account of it being based on all these entirely false premises. It's all wrapped up in an anti-modernism based on the idea that 50 years ago, in Huxley's boyhood (c. 1900s), people were reasonable and democratic and it was impossible to have imagined that this society would have gone on to commit the holocaust, described as "atrocities on a scale undreamed of by the benighted Africans and Asiatics". These are the words of a man who has never read a single academic from outside his own context. The whole thing is the work of a sci-fi writer who badly needs to talk to people who are not also sci-fi writers.
Old man yelling at clouds indeed.
The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
1.25
The star is for the artwork. The story was remarkably underwhelming, and the kiss it's always marketed with was just a bit gross? I mean, sleeping beauty always is, but it's usually at least a chaste "true love's kiss", not "she kissed her long and hard" when the girl is. Still asleep. And coming from Neil Gaiman it just felt a bit "now enters the sexy lesbians to kiss for us". Blegh
Superman: American Alien by Max Landis
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The BFG by Roald Dahl
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.5
This was always my least favourite Dahl book. Probably better if you're English and patriotic about it.
Ice-Bound On Kolguev; A Chapter In The Exploration Of Arctic Europe, To Which Is Added A Record Of The Natural History Of The Island by Aubyn Trevor-Battye
adventurous
informative
slow-paced
4.25
Really loved this. Ignore the daunting title - it's a charmingly written account of an incredibly (but largely harmlessly) stupid man's attempt to catalogue some birds and learn a new language. He has his moments of being a Victorian Englishman, but they're decently few, and interspersed with long arguments against the status quo, praising the native people and condemning those who'd call them lesser.
Aubyn is at his best when not in a survival situation, evidenced by him losing most of the skin on his hands before his assistant realised that they could wear their extra socks as gloves. It took longer for either of them to realise that, rather than just shooting and skinning them for museums, one can also cook and eat birds. They'd eaten raw bacon before they worked that one out.
There's times when he worries the reader must be getting bored, and moves too quickly on from an account I wished he'd linger on. He talks to the reader directly a lot, especially near the end, as if he can't believe we're still there. I'll miss him. I hope he manages to catch a fish soon.
Aubyn is at his best when not in a survival situation, evidenced by him losing most of the skin on his hands before his assistant realised that they could wear their extra socks as gloves. It took longer for either of them to realise that, rather than just shooting and skinning them for museums, one can also cook and eat birds. They'd eaten raw bacon before they worked that one out.
There's times when he worries the reader must be getting bored, and moves too quickly on from an account I wished he'd linger on. He talks to the reader directly a lot, especially near the end, as if he can't believe we're still there. I'll miss him. I hope he manages to catch a fish soon.
The Wanderer Scorned by Natasha Woodcraft
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Paradise Lost by John Milton
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
Surprised to say I genuinely hated that. Paradise Lost gets compared with the Divine Comedy a lot, which I think is a disservice to the Divine Comedy, because what I've been loving about Dante is how precise everything is. The Divine Comedy is easy to follow, clearly structured, and the changes it makes to theology all seem reasoned. Most importantly for me it's critical, and it's about *people*. It tells us who went to hell, and why, and often Dante even disagrees with it. The main character has feelings and emotions and wants explanations.
Paradise Lost on the other hand is functionally a Bible retelling, but positioning itself, for some reason, as scripture. Satan is the only character who has wants and desires, but they're Evil wants and Evil desires and he spends most of his time just brooding. The one exception to this is Eve, who eats the fruit so she might become godlike, but this is undercut by being told constantly that she was made to be pretty but brainless. Man's fall isn't blamed on her, or on Satan, but on Adam, for giving his wife the freedom to make that choice. The author jumps in to tell us women always do that.
That bit could easily be criticised by telling me it's from a different time, and I almost accept that, except that I just read the pilgrim's progress - a book from the same era, by another puritan man, and I was so amazed by how much less sexist than I'd accounted for that was. It even Specifically tore apart this point of view!
The thing I've not decided whether I like or not is the reference to classical mythology. Paradise Lost invokes Greek and Roman epic constantly - I've read the first manuscript, but the revised version was even structured into 12 books so it would copy the Aeneid. But this is all really weird feeling, because it's 1) English, and 2) Christian. It feels insulting to be constantly comparing your heroes to the Greco-Roman ones, while also saying their Gods either didn't exist or were spirits that belong in hell. But a lot of that is my own conjecture, because the poem really doesn't explain itself on that count, so it winds up feeling more like an appeal to intellectuals who've read the epics than anything else.
This extends to the language too. TS Eliot said that Milton wrote English like it was a dead language, and I agree. It's structured like Latin, which does feel very Biblical, but makes it harder to read. And it creates a style that I frankly just dislike. It's clearly meant to be read on the page, and that means it doesn't flow in the way Dante's does. Maybe I'm just biased by how much I Do like the divine comedy.
Essentially, it feels like a poem you're supposed to study rather than read, and I just don't like it enough to care to. Maybe I'll do this again in 10 years and love it then, I don't know, but for now, not for me.
Paradise Lost on the other hand is functionally a Bible retelling, but positioning itself, for some reason, as scripture. Satan is the only character who has wants and desires, but they're Evil wants and Evil desires and he spends most of his time just brooding. The one exception to this is Eve, who eats the fruit so she might become godlike, but this is undercut by being told constantly that she was made to be pretty but brainless. Man's fall isn't blamed on her, or on Satan, but on Adam, for giving his wife the freedom to make that choice. The author jumps in to tell us women always do that.
That bit could easily be criticised by telling me it's from a different time, and I almost accept that, except that I just read the pilgrim's progress - a book from the same era, by another puritan man, and I was so amazed by how much less sexist than I'd accounted for that was. It even Specifically tore apart this point of view!
The thing I've not decided whether I like or not is the reference to classical mythology. Paradise Lost invokes Greek and Roman epic constantly - I've read the first manuscript, but the revised version was even structured into 12 books so it would copy the Aeneid. But this is all really weird feeling, because it's 1) English, and 2) Christian. It feels insulting to be constantly comparing your heroes to the Greco-Roman ones, while also saying their Gods either didn't exist or were spirits that belong in hell. But a lot of that is my own conjecture, because the poem really doesn't explain itself on that count, so it winds up feeling more like an appeal to intellectuals who've read the epics than anything else.
This extends to the language too. TS Eliot said that Milton wrote English like it was a dead language, and I agree. It's structured like Latin, which does feel very Biblical, but makes it harder to read. And it creates a style that I frankly just dislike. It's clearly meant to be read on the page, and that means it doesn't flow in the way Dante's does. Maybe I'm just biased by how much I Do like the divine comedy.
Essentially, it feels like a poem you're supposed to study rather than read, and I just don't like it enough to care to. Maybe I'll do this again in 10 years and love it then, I don't know, but for now, not for me.
Lanark: A Life in Four Books by Alasdair Gray
challenging
emotional
mysterious
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Absolutely mad in a brilliant way. It's very hard to say what's a flaw and what's intentional, got me thinking the whole way through. Some sections dragged. It was worth it