brave new world

[yvelines]

did anyone of you ever read aldous huxleys "brave new world"? if so, how did you like it? because to me , it offers like plenty of different topics to talk about and to discuss, but i really hated the way it was written, because it took me like ages to read just one chapter. how do you feel about that? i'd like to hear some different opinions and perspectives =) thx for the answers

[wat??]

I also dislike the way it was written.

[dfloyd]

about eight years later, I found it an easy read. Usually, some reading experience will tell. I also found Point Counterpoint difficult at first. You have to give these writer's, some of the more intellectual ones, a chance. This is best accomplished by reading more intense literature and developing your reading skills. What you don't like today, maybe your choice of tomorrow.

[keilj]

i read it a long time ago, when I was about 14. but I liked it a lot - it was one of my favorite books as a teen/young adult

[Janine]

I have read the book twice; first as a teenager or maybe it was in college, and not long ago I read it again later in life. I love the book. I didn't notice it was difficult to read. Perhaps as others said, when you develop finer reading skills, you will enjoy re-reading the book. I think then you have a better comprehension. Perhaps later in life you may appreciate it more.

[The Atheist]

There's a whole Huxley section here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=149).

[ktr]

philosophically, it's pretty legit, but - as a piece of literature, i think it is vastly overrated. rather a boring book, in my opinion.

[The Atheist]

I also dislike the way it was written.


philosophically, it's pretty legit, but - as a piece of literature, i think it is vastly overrated. rather a boring book, in my opinion.

I wonder whether this just shows that Huxley's science hasn't travelled through time as well as other books of the same vintage - which also emphasises the difference between BNW and 1984.

Look at what Huxley uses to lure us into the story:

Recreational drugs
Test-tube babies
Cloning
"Feelies" at the movies
Wanton sex

Well, we have all of those things right now. Ok, we don't have the feelies, but who wants to feel a bearskin rug when you Wii in your own lounge?

Huxley's story feels superimposed on today's world and it just doesn't fit.

[chelseea5]

I agree. I feel like it took me WAY too long to finish one chapter, and just really get hooked into reading it.

[Jason Teixeira]

I disagree. I felt that the intro was very engaging as it gives us a perspective of what the world is like, Having it mirror the world of George Orwell's 1984. 1984 is strict and militaristic in its oppression its people with The Ministry of Love, Brave New World however, is more passive using genetic breeding and structured teaching to make people better or worse.

[Poetaster]

I liked this book, a lot. The comparison to Nineteen Eighty-Four is an obvious one, but which future is worse?

[The Atheist]

I liked this book, a lot. The comparison to Nineteen Eighty-Four is an obvious one, but which future is worse?

1984, by a wide margin.

No sex v sex all the time = no contest.

I've never been able to see quite what's wrong with Huxley's Utopia. As long as I'm an Alpha, I could live very happily on a diet of drugs and free sex. Vast improvement over 2-minute hates and the Thought Police.

[kev67]

I have sometimes thought it would have been really rubbish being a Gamma in Brave New World. Being a Delta or an Epsilon would not be so bad because they had all their clone siblings for company. Each batch would live in their own self-contained world. Their work might be repetitive, but they would not mind. Being an Alpha, especially an A+ or A++ would also be great. Everyone wants to have sex with you. You get to have great thoughts and do great things. Being a Gamma basically means being a filing clerk. Your job's boring. You don't have lots of clone friends. You don't get any respect. No one particularly wants to have sex with you. I would predict that the Gammas had the biggest soma problem.

[Poetaster]

I have sometimes thought it would have been really rubbish being a Gamma in Brave New World. Being a Delta or an Epsilon would not be so bad because they had all their clone siblings for company. Each batch would live in their own self-contained world. Their work might be repetitive, but they would not mind. Being an Alpha, especially an A+ or A++ would also be great. Everyone wants to have sex with you. You get to have great thoughts and do great things. Being a Gamma basically means being a filing clerk. Your job's boring. You don't have lots of clone friends. You don't get any respect. No one particularly wants to have sex with you. I would predict that the Gammas had the biggest soma problem.

God, you are right. I've never thought of the plight of the poor Gamma's before!

[Stuart Edwards]

Huxley was right when he highlighted the potential consequences of misuse of technology to manipulate the masses into a totalitarian system. He warned about the potential for disastrous consequences wherever technology advanced faster than our ability to integrate or adapt to it.
Of course he also is credited with having said 'Man is impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations.'
Huxley said all of that decades before the days of GPS, Internet, Video games, televisions, smart phones etc.
Brzezinski also said
“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. ”
― Zbigniew Brzeziński, Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era
On the plus side, humans are an innovative lot, and there are some amazing technologies emerging that can be used to solve things like environmental pollution, but across the developed nations (..i.e. transferring wealth & resources to developing nations in accordance with Agenda 21) all of the infrastructure has been put into place, the data banks, the GPS via smartphones, cars and eyes in the sky, CCTV's and so on, the ability for a 24/7 control grid to exist is already here.

Add to that the fact that individual liberties have been all but eliminated in recent decades under the guise of keeping you safe wherever you happen to live across the empire, along with stifling of free speech and other measures that contribute towards the criminalisation of the public, and its easy to see the direction we are being pushed and it appears to me to be a combination of elements from both Brave New World and 1984.