Product Description

Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #76354 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Synopsis
Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress...

About the Author
Aldous Huxley was born on 26th July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early twenties, but it was his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) - bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work Brave New World (published in 1932 this warned against the dehumanising aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the pacifist novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) were accompanied by a series of wise and brilliant essays, collected in volume form under titles such as Music at Night (1931) and Ends and Means (1937). In 1937, at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As the West braced itself for war, Huxley came increasingly to believe that the key to solving the world's problems lay in changing the individual through mystical enlightenment. The exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs was to dominate his work for the rest of his life. His beliefs found expression in both fiction (Time Must Have a Stop, 1944 and Island, 1962) and non-fiction (The Perennial Philosophy, 1945, Grey Eminence, 1941 and the famous account of his first mescalin experience, The Doors of Perception, 1954. Huxley died in California on 22nd November 1963.

Customer Reviews

Strictly No Shakespeare
Aldous Huxley was born in England in 1894 and saw his first novel - "Crome Yellow" published in 1921. He is best known for his anti-utopian novel "Brave New World", which was first published in 1932.

"Brave New World" set in the year 632 AF - 632 years after the first Model T Ford has rolled off the production lines. (Henry Ford has, it would seem, become the world's main deity, and the "Sign of the T" is commonplace). The 'civilised world' has become a radically different place - although everyone is, technically, happy it's cost a certain amount of 'free will'. The family unit no longer exists, with children now being created in a laboratory. Since the overwhelming majority of women are 'created' sterile, the entire population's physical and intellectual development can be carefully controlled from conception. This level of control ensure that - with only very few exceptions - people are happy fulfilling their pre-determined role in society. (Members of the 'Epsilon Minus' class are bred for menial labour, while - at the other end of the scale - members of the 'Alpha Plus' class are bred for their intelligence). Promiscuous sex and recreational drug use is encouraged, and only a deviant would consider abstaining from either. Similarly, spending time alone is considered abnormal, while monogamy is practically a perversion. One of the book's key characters is Bernard Marx - an Alpha-Plus, who has some rather dubious tendencies. He's planning on taking a rather unusual trip to a "Savage Reservation" : in these places, the primitives who live there have children and raise families in the time honoured fashion. They also grow old and don't consider cleanliness to be "next to fordliness".

I've slightly mixed feelings about "Brave New World". I was a little disappointed - though, with the constant comparisons to "1984", I think my expectations of it were maybe a little off. The elements of the book dealing with indoctrination, conditioning and bio-engineering are certainly relevant to today's world - however, the book just didn't make the impact it could have. Part of the problem, for me, was that the book's focus shifted so often from one character to another - next to Winston Smith, the characters that appeared here were a little flimsy. Similarly, I didn't find Huxley's Brave New World quite inspiring the same depth of feeling as Orwell's Oceania. Nevertheless, it's certainly worth reading, and I can see why it's so highly thought of.

Brave New World
This book is a classic and for very good reason. It has some powerful themes and is written in such a gripping way that you can't put the book down until you've finished. It doesn't have the darker, totalitarian, hyper-surveillance overtones of Orwells '1984', but gives an equally disturbing view of the future. The ideas of social conditioning and recreational drugs are especially chilling and makes you look at the world around you in a whole new light. I found the ending a touch lack lustre (hence the four stars), but the journey getting there is marvelous and will make you uncomfortable at times as you consider what life you'd prefer, the drugged easy utopia ,or the feeling savage lands. I guess that's a debate that we ask ourselves spiritually or in our everyday lives to some degree anyway, (simply getting by or feeling deeply and rocking the boat). This book is just an amplification of that. Overall a great read, with stirring themes that will play on your mind for some time to come and well worth the time taken to read it. One of those books that leaves your life richer for having read it.

A great book
I think that this stands alongside 1984: it is as great a book, but a different man's viewpoint of a nightmarish?/perfect? future. And, despite advances in genetics and transport, etc., BNY does not feel dated. I first read this in the 70's (that ages me!), when hedonism was the name of the game, and it still resonates today. It doesn't matter if characters are 'likeable' or not; the important thing is that they feel right. Bernard Marx is ALWAYS a realistic, and realistically flawed, man. At the end of the book, of course I'm disappointed at his lack of moral fibre, but it was to be expected. Like John, Bernard was condemned before birth to always being an outsider in his decanted/birth society and he has the outsider's Olympus size chip on his shoulder. However, most of us, I think, would ultimately have chosen his path of least resistence/compromise. I find Bernard as tragic a figure as John, and his 'fate' is spot on. John, of course, is the quintessentially 'Greek' tragic figure: a man who is not so much unwilling as unable to fit in anywhere, betrayed and broken by his own 'fatal flaw' of being incapable of compromise. He's almost Christ-like when he throws the Soma away. But Bernard's tragedy is more subtle: one can remove the man from his society in which he's never really been accepted, but how do you remove the society from the man? A great and still profound read.