Bibliofreakblog

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

The title, “brave new world” comes from a quote in Shakespeare, from Miranda in The Tempest, “Oh…What brave new world that has such people in’t”.  But keep in mind that “brave” in Shakespeare’s usage, and indeed, in the title, meant something more like “handsome” rather than courageous.  And indeed, the citizens of Huxley’s futuristic dystopia are anything but courageous.  They aren’t conditioned to be.

From birth–which takes place in test-tubes and labs; pregnancy and sex for anything but vast amounts of orgiastic pleasure is considered gross–society is stratified into five classes, alphas, betas, deltas, gammas and epsilons.  The alphas are in charge, the intellectual elite.  Alphas  have been bred with a regard for their physiques, while epsilons are stunted during the fetal stages with alcohol.  The epsilons are human machines, doing the grudge work.  At yet, due to their conditioning, they are happy where they are.   Most of them.

There is no God.  There are no books.  The alphas might be the intellectuals, but they are not philosophers.  All five castes are kept appeased with “soma” (sort of like liquor, with all the happy, stupefying effects and none of the hangover).  

One experiment is recounted (these people are not above experimenting on their own kind).  They cleared Cyprus of all of its inhabitants, and filled it with thousands of alphas.  Civil war broke out in a matter of years, as no one wanted to do the menial work, and political intrigue stifled the society.  I have that little paragraph starred in my book, and I laugh bitterly whenever I read it.  It reminds me of the saying that intellectuals/socialists/liberals/etc. are all for Communism as long as they can be writers and artists.

There are some “reservations” in which people live wildly, though with a penchant for crude viciousness.  It is on a vacation to such a reservation that our protagonists meet John the Savage, the book’s main character and voice of reason.  John’s mother came from the regular society, but was abondoned on vacation.  Having no access to an abortion, she raised John herself on the reservation, though he was ostricized from the reservation’s citizens.

John was however raised with one benefit: the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

When John enters the soma-pacified, sex-crazed, illiterate society, he is horrified.  The society is fascinated with him, but he just wants to be left alone.  

The best part of the book, in my opinion, is the philosophical debate John has with Mustapha Mond (named for Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, and Mond from Brunner & Mond, the industrial chemical plant Huxley worked at as a young man, and source of inspiration for much of the book).  John tells him, “But I don’t want comfort.  I want God, I want poetry, I want freedom, I want goodnesss.  I want sin.”  Mustapha Mond counterpoints that with that comes old age, syphilis, hunger, apprehension, etc.  And that’s why this book will never ever ever go out of style.  It’s the question Americans have been struggling with particularly since 9/11: What are you willing to give up for comfort?  For protection?

In case you hadn’t guessed, this story does not have a happy ending.  But that is no reason not to read it.

If you like this book/author, you might like:

Brave New World Revisited (CNF) by Aldous Huxley
1984 (F) by George Orwell
The Handmaid’s Tale (F) by Margaret Atwood
The Fate of the Earth (F) by Jonathan Schell
The Road (F) by Cormac McCarthy 
A Clockwork Orange (F) by Anthony Burgess
Farenheit 451 (F) by Ray Bradbury
Cat’s Cradle (F) by Kurt Vonnegut
We (F) by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Never Let Me Go (F) by Kazuo Ishiguro
Children of Men (F) by P.D. James
Men Like Gods (F) by H.G. Wells
Utopia (F) by Thomas More
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (F) by Phillip K. Dick
T.S. Eliot: Collected Poems, 1908-1962 (P) by T.S. Eliot
The Complete Works of Shakespeare (D) by William Shakespeare 
Rant (F) by Chuck Palahniuk
The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle (F) by Hugh Lofting
Aldous Huxley: A Biography (NF) by Sybille Bedford 
This Timeless Moment: A Personal View of Aldous Huxley (CNF) by Laura Huxley 
Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialogue Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley (F) by Peter Kreeft 
The Fountainhead (F) by Ayn Rand 

Other works by Aldous Huxley*:

Time Must Have a Stop (F)
Brave New World Revisited (CNF)
Crome Yellow (F)
Antic Hay (F)
Point Counter Point (F)
Those Barren Leaves (F)
Eyeless in Gaza (F)
After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (F)
Ape and Essence (F)
Island (F)
The Genius and the Goddess (F)
Between the Wars: Essays and Letters (CNF)
Mortal Coils (F)
Young Archimedes & Other Stories (AKA Little Mexican) (F)
Collected Short Stories (F)
The Defeat of Youth & Other Poems (P)
The Life and Letters of Aldous Huxley (Vol 1-3) (CNF)
The Perennial Philosophy (CNF)
Huxley and God: Essays (CNF)
The Doors of Perception (CNF)
Heaven and Hell (CNF)
Moksha: Aldous Huxley’s Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience (CNF)
Literature and Science (CNF)
The Complete Essays (Vol. 1-6) (CNF)
Knowledge and Understanding (CNF)
 

 *NOTE: This list is not exhaustive.  For the most part in only includes works still in print, though you can still find many of his works used.