April '05 Book: Brave New World

I have only just started reading this book and find these sentences very hard to understand. Would you agree that if the reader cannot readily assimilate what the author is trying to say, that the author is at fault? Or did Huxley mean to be deliberately obscure here? For myself I think that these sentences are badly written and that the reader should be able to understand what the words are meant to convey. I haven't read any of Huxley before and am only up to chapter four. I found these first chapters too full of technicalities to be interesting. I want to get at the heart of the story and not be bogged down in technical details and feel that Huxley could have explained everything he wanted us to know in far less words and technicality. I found these details boring but felt I couldn't skim them in case I missed something important.

I think I agree with everyone else's comments on the meaning of these sentences. It is a necessary evil that students should have a slight idea of what they are doing in order for them to be as good and happy as possible. But 'they' (the controllers?) don't want anyone thinking too deeply as this is not productive for society. Instead society needs students that are fully occupied by small intricate things that will keep their minds busy with practicalities rather than pondering philosophies...which perhaps would lead to awkward questions pertaining to the meaning of life, morality etc. I think that this is confirmed at the end of chapter three where it says of the old men 'if ever by some unlucky chance such a crevice of time should yawn in the solid substance of their distractions there is always 'soma, delicious soma... returning whence they find themselves on the other side of the crevice, safe on the solid ground of daily labour and distraction...'

Not sure if I agree with Max's proposition that this building used to be a morgue though. I live in England and it is true that generally the side of a building that faces North will have the coldest rooms, but I do not think that here Huxley is referring to heat because he says that the temperature in the room is tropical. I think he is referring to the clinical atmosphere that possesses no warmth despite the temperature in the room and the summer outside of it. He builds on this when he refers the whiteness of everything inside, the porcelain, the workers dressed in white but with corpse coloured rubber gloves. In spring (which here is usually cold) and early summer the light in England can be described as harsh and thin, because it is so bright. Perhaps this places the story in the time of early summer, still with the same harsh light of the cold spring - wintry light despite the summer heat, responding to the wintry cold whiteness of everything inside the room.

I think that it's right that this building used to be used for a different academic purpose in the past and this is why the light is seeking people no longer there...some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh. I am thinking that the draped 'lay' figure is a university student not yet having achieved any credentials or accreditations - just a layman. And the academic goose-flesh is perhaps the lecturer, pallid because of spending so much time studying that he never gets to see the sunshine - which explains the goose-flesh, cold and never having experienced any natural warmth. Sorry if I have dragged your attention back to the beginning of the story when you might have been further on. I will shut up now.

Miranda

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Originally Posted by Scheherazade

'For of course some sort of general idea [the new students] must have, if they were to do their work intelligently - though as little of one, if they were to be good and happy members of society, as possible. For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers, but fret-sawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society.'

What do you make of this passage from the Chapter 1? What/who are the fret-sawyers?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Miranda

I have only just started reading this book and find these sentences very hard to understand. Would you agree that if the reader cannot readily assimilate what the author is trying to say, that the author is at fault? Or did Huxley mean to be deliberately obscure here? For myself I think that these sentences are badly written and that the reader should be able to understand what the words are meant to convey. I haven't read any of Huxley before and am only up to chapter four. I found these first chapters too full of technicalities to be interesting. I want to get at the heart of the story and not be bogged down in technical details and feel that Huxley could have explained everything he wanted us to know in far less words and technicality. I found these details boring but felt I couldn't skim them in case I missed something important.
Miranda

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i do agree that the beginning was a bit difficult to read. but on the other hand i think it's absolutely essential that he gave us all these technical details. especially coz we learn about how they clone ppl from the perspective of the Director, who is absolutely enthusiastic about it and goes on an on forever about how great it is that they can produce human beings... so that contrasts to our feelings, coz we think it's horrible to produce humans like machines or something, but this contrast isn't commented on, we are simply confronted with the BNW people's views. it he had cut it short and just said "wow, just fancy that, isn't it horrible?"FULLSTOP it would have been less effective, in my opinion... coz he would only have told us what we already feel anyway. but if he shows us how enthusiastic these guys are about the things they can do, it shows us how the kind of society these guys live in has influenced them and how they have internalized its values. ??? :confused:

Thanks for your reply SW.
I still think that Huxley could have filled us with as much revulsion and shown us the Director's enthusiasm without going into so much technical detail which I found tedious and boring to read. But then having read more of the story, you will be better informed than me as to where this all fits into the future development of the plot. If I hadn't been reading this essentially for the book forum, I wouldn't have continued to read it after the first few chapters. Have you read the Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood? It reminds me of this story, but the beginning of The Handmaid's Tale is more menacing somehow.

Miranda

Maybe, Huxley was following the Director's advice: 'generalities are intellectually necessary evils.' and giving us a general idea about the life in the World State before we started reading the more 'specific' parts of the story ;)

Thank you for the book club invite, Scher! Thought I'd checked out all the books on the list and decided I had no good chance of getting to read any of them soon, so I wasn't really checking in.

A couple thoughts to reply to:

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Originally Posted by SleepyWitch

i was wondering why there are only 2 clear cut alternatives not only in terms of what it means for Savage's life, but also why he portrays the Indians in such an extreme, almost racist way.. i mean, they are so unhygenic and disgusting..

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Two possibilities: The first is that the whole book seems to be written through the "lens" of the World State society. In the opening, we are presented only with the perspectives of people like the Director and Lenina. Our sensibilities (through our own societal lens) are shocked, but at the same time, we're lulled into the Director's version of the way the world should be. It's all so *reasonalbe,* it's all so *well explained.*

Through that lens, then, the Savage Reservation would be exactly that. Consider - how many of your daily rituals might seem "disgusting" or "insane" when compared to the supremely hygenic, hyper-organized World State society? The very fact that you have to go to the bathroom and wipe yourself with toilet paper... that you might say prayers periodically, or fail to take a shower for three days?

So what I'm suggesting is that we only accept the definition of "disgusting" which he provides because he has convinced us of it.

The second possibility is that the Savage Reservation seems to be run a bit like a zoo. There's a warden, people are let in with special passes to watch the animals do their stupid animal things. People are known to rise to the level of expectation. If a child is raised in a home where he's constantly told he's stupid, he most likely will turn out that way. If the same child was raised in a loving home where he was constantly encouraged, he could end up amounting to something.

If the whole world tells you you are a savage and an animal, how long is it before you start acting that way?


As for the technical details (can't quite figure out who mentioned them first) - I think they're absolutely vital. It's the details like that which make a book like this so stunning, because you read them and marvel at how logical - how possible! - it all sounds. And then you quivver in your boots because maybe, just maybe, someone will try this some day.

It's a bit like Michael Crichton's works (to site a more recent example of this phenomenon). More than a decade after he wrote Jurassic Park, something like 70% of people still think it is theoretically possible to clone a dinosaur using fossilized mosquitos. (It isn't. ;)) But the way he explained the process was so sterile and specific and *scientific* that we swallow it whole.

And the fact that he wrote in 1930? Incredible. I was amazed by how accurately, in many cases, the book reflects the conditions of today's society. Okay, we still have mothers, but...

I confess that I only finished this book because I had no other books that I hadn't already read. When I finally reached the latter portion of the book, I was really glad that I didn't give up on it. The technicalities were interesting because there were imagined almost 70 years ago and because our society is eerily similar to Huxley's ideas. I think many of our genetic advances are creepy, so I plan to give this book to others who advocate for large scale approval of genetic modification.

From a structural point of view, the Savage would have been an unlikely character to find a middle ground. Who else would have provided the contrast to "civilization"? Huxley sets up his characters as "pure savage" which is Savage. Pure civilized person which is Lenina. I kept thinking that Bernard would establish the middle ground, but the book (in my mind) took a strange turn in bringing Hemholtz into to the foreground. In the end, it is Hemholtz who strikes the balance and finds the middle ground. He went to an island where you can experiment with science, write poetry, explore religon or whatever your heart desires. To paraphrase the Controller - live with others who are too individual to fit into community life.

i haven't read the book since my sophomore year in high school (only two years ago)

i just read my 20 page compare and contrast with brave new world and 1984, and have realised that i would look at both books differently now. I definately need to re-read it with thoughts of how the world should be, rather than how it shoudn't be (which was how i looked at it that time around)

I have now finished Brave New World and agree with much that is said about it here, though I still maintain my opinion that the beginning chapter is too heavily laden with technical details. Although it is essential to the story, to know how conception etc occurs in the Brave New World, I still think that Huxley could have been more concise here and written in an more interesting way. It is important to arrest the reader's attention at the very beginning of a book and Huxley failed to arrest mine at all, not even my curiosity and if I hadn't have had the encouragement of reading for the forum, I wouldn't have read any further - and would have missed a really good read.

Once I got past these chapters, I began to like the book, especially when Huxley begins to add humour to it, as when he refers to Bernard's 'horror' of Morgana's eyebrow. I think that there is a lot of humour in this book, though maybe it is missed because of it's otherwise serious nature. In some places, it seems to me that Huxley 'sends up' his own ideas.

Of all the characters in the book, I think that I like Lenina the best, even though she is drugged up to the eyeballs and does not really want to be faced with reality. It is interesting that when she does begin to fall in love with Savage, that this is the moment that reality starts invading and she becomes miserable possibly for the first time in her life.

The character I liked least is Bernard. At first he seems to be the 'hero' of the story, but it seems that his discontentment does not stem from his ability to recognise himself as an individual, or to see the world as it is because his mental conditioning isn't quite complete somehow. He knows that the apparent happiness of society is manufactured, but it is not this that really troubles him. What troubles him is not being a part of it, for he is as happy as a sandboy (what is one of those anyway?) when he suddenly becomes a celebrity in bringing the 'Savage' back from the reservation. What 'bursts his bubble' is the Savage's refusal to 'perform' for him anymore and Bernard then enters a mighty sulk and mildly contemplates revenge. His happiness depends on being accepted - and his unhappiness resulted, not from his ability to see the 'soma' world as it really is, but from his non-acceptance in it.

I think that there is a weakness in the story in that it is too great a coincidence that the Director, should tell him of his lost love just before Bernard and Lenina embark on their excursion to the reservation - and then almost immediately he arrives, Bernard finds Linda and the Savage.

The Savage would seem to be Bernard's counterpart in that both are misfits in their society and therefore unhappy. The difference is that the Savage has morals that Bernard doesn't have. He has some 'high ground' but Bernard has no backbone.' Here Huxley has turned what is considered 'civilised' upside down, and the Savage has more integrity than Bernard who it seems has none. I found it funny where Savage discovers the sleeping Lenina and begins to spout his romantic idealism, as if she is very chaste, when she isn't anything of the sort. I think that this is another streak of Huxley's humour and does echo Shakespearean romanticism. The Savage sees Lenina as innocent...is she innocent? I think that she is, despite having so many lovers, because she retains her childlikeness - I suppose because of the subliminal 'conditioning' she has been subjected to

But for all his morals and integrity, Savage, unlike Bernard is crazy. Bernard is weak and selfish, but Savage is emotionally unstable and given to violence, quite unlike Bernard. Both are not very likable characters and I think it is a skill in Huxley's story telling that he keeps us informed and interested in the inner feelings of each character whilst at the same time, alienating us from liking them.

I agree that Helmholtz has a stablizing effect and is the voice of reason in the story. He is the one character I think that will be consciously happy at the end of the story. Both he and Bernard are being shipped off to the island - or did I get it wrong? I think that Bernard is being sent to the same place, but suddenly I am unsure of this. But Bernard will not be happy outside of the Brave New World either. He isn't on the same intellectual plane to enjoy the free thinking that Helmholtz will, nor will he ever have any opportunity to enjoy the sort of things that made him occasionally happy in the Brave New World, for outside of it there will not even be any Morganas.

I agree that it is sad that Huxley only gives one choice to Savage - to return to the reservation of remain in the BNW. Obviously he is a misfit in either world. But if he had been sent to the island also, he could have been happy there and shared his love of literature etc, learning and sharing from the other people there...a bit like The Literature Network really!!

This is very long. If anyone has read this far, I think you are very patient, and thank you for reading. I enjoyed reading the book and I have enjoyed reading the comments on it, and also writing this..but I don't know if I could concentrate long enough to read all this that I have just written. So if you did read this far..thankyou.

Miranda.

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Originally Posted by Miranda

Bernard is weak and selfish, but Savage is emotionally unstable and given to violence, quite unlike Bernard. Both are not very likable characters and I think it is a skill in Huxley's story telling that he keeps us informed and interested in the inner feelings of each character whilst at the same time, alienating us from liking them.

I agree that Helmholtz has a stablizing effect and is the voice of reason in the story. He is the one character I think that will be consciously happy at the end of the story.

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I think you're exactly right. There was a thread at some point for "worst" characters, and I noticed a lot of people suggesting Unlikable characters instead of Badly Written characters. (I suppose it's all in how you interpret "worst.")

In any case, I don't know that there are any characters at all who are truly likable in this book. Helmholz might come closest, but even he cannot entirely escape his reality (as we see in the bit with Shakespeare). I don't even know if I'd say there are any truly admirable characters in this book - characters which stick to their morals or defy society or transcend the shabby plane... John comes close to sticking to his morals, but it's hard to find his final situation worthy of admiration.

I think Miranda is onto something. One of the things Huxley does so well is keep our interest despite all these desperately flawed characters.

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Originally Posted by Miranda

I have now finished Brave New World and agree with much that is said about it here, though I still maintain my opinion that the beginning chapter is too heavily laden with technical details. Although it is essential to the story, to know how conception etc occurs in the Brave New World, I still think that Huxley could have been more concise here and written in an more interesting way. It is important to arrest the reader's attention at the very beginning of a book and Huxley failed to arrest mine at all, not even my curiosity and if I hadn't have had the encouragement of reading for the forum, I wouldn't have read any further - and would have missed a really good read.

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Interestingly, I enjoyed reading the scientific/technical parts in the beginning of the book. Considering that the book was written in 1930s, I wanted to see how Huxley visualised the future society. The way this information presented to us (I think in chapter 3) was intriguing to me as well; the conversation switching between the Director/Controller, Henry in men's room and Lenina in women's room... We had the chance to hear different aspects of these technical developments and how they affect the society...

I desperately wanted to like Bernard from the beginning but he makes it impossible for us to like him... by being himself simply.

Yes, I think you are right Snukes, there are no really likable characters in the book. I suppose maybe Helmholtz is the best, though I liked Lenina because of her innocence even though it is unduced. Helmholtz doesn't seem reactionary in any way, but is aware of something inside him that isn't satisfied by Soma and women etc. He is a pretty mild kind of character really isn't he, even though he has self awareness etc.

I agree with Scher too, that somehow you want to like Bernard but he just goes from bad to worse. I think the worst thing that Huxley causes him to do is bring Linda into the fertilizing room, making a spectacle of her. I don't know how Huxley achieves this but as Scher says, you are still wanting Bernard to find a way of redeeming himself, which of course he never does. Perhaps this is part of the suspense of the story.

I think that Huxley is a clever writer but I still didn't like the beginning of the book - but I am in a minority on this and think my opinion is irrelevant because everyone else does like it so it must have been right for the book. I am glad the Scher invited me to read it and join in the book club. I have looked at the titles for May and their reviews, but none of the books appeal
to me so I don't think that I will vote. But I will try and read whichever book wins because I have enjoyed this and writing and sharing ideas here, so much.

Miranda.

In BNW the difference between a human and a machine is becoming smaller and smaller.
The thought came first to us when we read the passage where the doc boasts how much humans they could make out of a single embryo. Like mass production. The age of production. (the other thing it reminded us is some chap who (we don't remember, where) boasted how many people one could kill with this and this weapon, eyes shining; death and birth are quite the opposites, but here they strangely become each other(like the similarity of morgue and birthroom that has been remarked here already), the soul taken away; remind us the "One death is a tragedy, million deaths is statistics"; in great numbers, the details of human life become less and less important, until they all become the same)
The bokanovsky-groups were the second thing that reminded us it. Again, mass production. All the same. Perhaps, when the science would evolve to some next level, perhaps all of mankind would be one-faced - one-souled (though there is not much soul left, only pleasure) things (society). No difference between them. All made in the same factory, bless Ford for mass production.

The third and most terrifying thing were the sleep-teaching and pavlovism. It was making mankind into a self-reproducing machine. The people who pulled the strings were also being pulled and there was noone that was not being pulled. And you actually were pulling your own strings. There was no evil overlord; the makers of the system were long dead, leaving their children the system, and everything that went on was automatical. Per pe tum mobile It could seem, like the system is very peaceful, compared to, like 1984, but it is wrong. The people are beaten and tortured when they are only infants (metaphorically) Their personalities are ripped away and they are given ones made in factory. (also, the eletric shock therapy and the screams of the babies seem like an ironic reference to it; people die mentally when they are infants)

Fourth, like a friend of us once remarked : Human, machine, human-machine, machine- human, who needs the soul anyway? A machine is soulless, and it seems that BNW is also. A person is a good person when he/she is efficient, pneumatic, to mention it. Why, even the Epsilons are useful. People are there to be used. To be used by their pleasures. The main words of BNW is production and consumation - everything's and everyone's meaning are them.


The Savage, Bernard, Helmoltz and others like them were like pieces of grit in the great system. They neeed to be either cleaned out or to be crushed by the system. The mistakes of the machine were the only place where humanity was left. They are individuals, having feelings, and therefore cannot be statistics, cannot be cogwheels, to them there is a difference between life and death and the period that is between them. And that cannot fit in with the system. They really cannot adapt from the emotion-life-death cycle to the pleasure-consumation-production cycle. The unability to adapt is the clearest in Savage. Remember when savage vomited when he saw all those same-looking twins (btw, a nice irony to Miranda's quote); he couldn't bear the thought that the holyness of human being is taken away and that humans are now made in factories.

I think the book wasn't quite what I expected it to be, but I can't remember what that was anymore….maybe I thought it would be more like 1984

It is one fo the books one keeps hearing about

big brother and the government out to get you

and i liked bernard, despite everything

was he a tragic hero?

savage was tragic too, but well, there is oplenty of tragicness to use there

I cant see Bernard as a hero

well, tragic heros aren't usually so heroic… tragic heros must have a flaw that causes both their rise and their downfall

the thing is Bernard never rises

bernard has both

rises too

Sure he does.

in the beginning of the book I thought he was our guy but he steadily went down IMO


what was Bernard's flaw? I mean, that flaw that made him a tragic hero?

his low self.esteem

maybe simple ambition?

resentment

self pity?

wallowing in self pity

low self-esteem the reason of all those mentioned above

But is self-pity what caused him to (esentially) try to blackmail the director to keep his job/become famous whatever it was he wanted?

all the time he was criticising others for being 'vain', he himself was obsessed with it
I think he grabbed the first opportunity which gave him the chance to get back at others

Is that what he wanted? Or did he want more for himself? (More fame, power, women, whatever)

see, low self-esteem

I think he wanted to get back at the Director

I think he wanted to be just like everybody else

because he knew that he would be sent back to exile on his return I think he wanted more than that. he wanted it all. more than what everyone else had. like being the absolute center of attention

passion?

making friends was not enough for him. he wanted to rub shoulders with really big guyss

yes, but it was a result of his suffering. suffering-> low self-esteem

but... I cant sympathise with him because of his sufferings

I think he could have low self-esteem, but that isn't necessary his *flaw* perse.

because he is not a likeable tragic hero. he does not learn from his own experiences
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I still don't like Bernard

I liked Bernard initially during the first chapters but he went down hil fromthen on

I didn't like him much either. Maybe how much you like a character has to do with how much you can identify with them...? You like a character if you see in them what you WANT to be.
You dislike them if you see in them what's bad in yourself.. I'm making awfully broad generalizations.

what I dont like in Bernard is his lack of sympahty, inability to learn from his own experiences. I would have called him a tragic hero if he had learnt anything

his "decadence " is something that makes me sympathize him

I think we want to like him because he doesn't fit in; we want to make him into the tragic hero, but in the end, he does not live up to expectations.

but the moment he had a chance, he went over the top...

And he went out the door with his tail between his legs.

well, if he had been an ordinary person, he hadn't

what I disliked in him most was him using John for his own good, he trated him as if he were a thing, not a person
when he found out that he is being sent to exile rather than being happy to live among people like him

But he didn't see John as a person. For all he thought he was different from or better than other people, he saw him just the same way all the rest did.

If he were physically up to the expected standard, I expect him to behave like Heimholtz

ie misfits, he was devasted that he wouldnt be able to lead the life he despised in others

if he were 'standard' I think he'd be one of the masses

john was simply a tool for him

Do you think his physical deficiencies are the only things that made them different?

well, frankly, yes

physical appearence-> low self-esteem-> pompuousness and stuff

Helmholtz was the ideal.

yes, I thought Helm was the perfect one

heimholtz was a perfect alpha male. he was beating girls off with a stick

imo the whole world was tragic

I think that is true.

yes

not to mention bernard who was especially tragic

too tragic possibly

he was sad, not tragic

perhaps not a hero but certainly veery tragic

no backbone

do you think there was a hero in the book?

No, Not in the way I think you would define hero.

he was a great spirit enprisoned to a body and mind that were seriously flawed. i think that his spirit was great

How can you separate a great spirit from a flawed mind?

it is tricky, yes

if he were so great, he would have learnt from his experiences; he would have been graceful and gracious

no

he wouldnt have treated Lenina the same way the others treated her because he was criticising others for that

he didn't

he did….and other women too… like a piece of meat…that is the expression he uses I think in the second chapter

it was his low self-esteem

low self esteem doesn't give anyone the right to behave the way he did

bernard is not a 'nice' person in my opinion

gravity doesn't give you the right to fall to death form a ninth floor. it is not about giving the right, it is the cause
yes, he was not nice

since when does niceness equal with greatness

he was not nice because he didnt mind using others. he was selfish. perhaps the most selfish person in the book

how many times must i say: low self-esteem?

I think they were all fantastically selfish.

that is true because that is the way they were brought up but I think bernard is the worst I think

well, more like bred

perhaps, but still tragic

I agree.

I cant see him as a tragic character

look at his decadence

tragic characters are supposed to realise their flaws, aren't they?

thank you. that is what bothers me. Bernard does not wake up and smell the coffeee

so you are despising a character because he has a low self-esteem because of his enviroment?

I was sympathetic because of that but his inability to grow out of it is sad

I don't think he had too low a self esteem, after he 'found' John he seemed cured from that imho. if he stayed all low self esteemy, I'd like him

I am not even sure it was low selfesteem. resentment

when someone is boasting and being arrogant then that is caused by a low self-esteem

He was trying to use a *trick* (John) to make up for his natural shortcomings.

pPeople with low self-esteem are apt to feel responsible for their partner's unhappiness, and to unwittingly sabotage their relationship as a result.

I think Bernard was tragic. I think John was also tragic. I think Lenina was sad, Linda was pathetic, and the rest of them were all pawns.

Yup though the pawns are tragic too

I still can't see what makes Bernard tragic…lol, everyone in the book tragic?

yeeeeessssss!!!!!!!!

His inability to escape his own circumstances.

so it was a tragedy?

I think that's what makes him tragic. I think the pawns were sad, rather than tragic. I'm reserving tragedy for Bernard and John.

Yes he could not escape his enviroment

he didn't seem to WANT to escape it

I think John is the only tragic character in the book and not a hero either

What if Bernard is a different kind of hero?

An unheroic hero?

Call him an extistential hero rather than a tragic hero.

yes

antihero more like

Like Oedipus.

not some flashy heroisms but tragic decadence

dont you think a hero should develop and learn something? Had some revelations etc?
so if someone had a bad childhood, say, we shouldnt be punishing them if they commit crimes?

a happy-ending hero?

It's more dramatically satisfying if they realize why they're doomed, but I don't know if it's necessary.

that is close to my point. Yes. it is not really their fault

Yah, but they still have to pay the price.

What makes a character a hero rather than simply a protagonist?

he doesnt like the fact that Helm gets attention and when he becomes falsely popular, he avoids Helm; doesnt invite him to his parties; skips their meetings

imho Bernard's got too many of the 'bad' traits to be a 'good' hero

Because Helm knows how hypocritical he's being?

Exactly or he thinks that Helm will see those and judge him

bernard is not a good hero

bernard is not a hero

but he is tragic

Are there any female Alphas in the book? I dont remember any and that annoyed me

nope.

We have quite few female Betas

tragic hero would suffer and learn from his sufferings
get at least some revelations

According to Aristotle's Poetics, there are four major
traits, which are required of the tragic character. The character must be
a good and upstanding person. The character must focus on becoming a better
person, must be believable, and must be consistent in his or her behavior.

i just thought that tragicness was just something very seriously sad i.e decadence
but now it comes out that it was a specific term
didn't think decadence meant sad. decadence: low moral standards and behaviour:

ha, found 'your' decadence: 1. process of civilization’s decline: a process of decline or decay in a society, especially in its morals

you think it is a happy event?

nope

but not sad either?

how can decadence be happy?

I didn't think that decadence=sad, as in... not not happy... ack, me so not explaining

tragic?

decadence is decline isnt it? in morals

i thought that tragic also meant decadence-like sadness

Decadence: (encarta says: ) 1. process of civilization’s decline: a process of decline or decay in a society, especially in its morals

2. state of decline: the condition of a civilization in decline

3. immorality: a state of uninhibited self-indulgence

[Mid-16th century. Via French décadence from, ultimately, Latin decadere “to fall down or away,” from cadere “to fall” (see decay).]

imo there is smth utterly sad when something that was once so utterly great and beautiful lies now in metaphorical ruins
BNW is tragicwhen the term tragic also applies to decadence

A tragic hero in literature is a protagonist that is otherwise perfect except for a tragic flaw, also known as fatal flaw, that eventually leads to his demise at the end. The concept of the tragic hero was created in ancient Greek tragedy and defined by Aristotle. In fact, an Aristotelian tragic hero must have four characteristics: goodness, superiority (in terms of politics, reputation, or perceived wisdom, etc.), a tragic flaw, and a realization of both his flaw and his inevitable demise. Usually, the realization of fatal flaw results in catharsis or epiphany

He must suffer
He must be doomed from the start
He must be fundamentally noble in nature
His story should arouse fear and pity
Though doomed, he must have free choice to some degree
:
fundamentally noble

i shall not argue more but it seems like bernard to me

An existential hero fits all but the last of those qualities. He has no choice.

so not Bernard

you're saying Bernard was a tragic hero but then later stopped being one?

later he was already tragic
later he was so tragic that he couldn't tragic any more
his doompoint was quite at the beginning

How about John?

Tragic or do tyou think otherway

He was definitely doomed from the start.

Yes. do you like John?

kinda

no

yes and no

nay from me as well

No as a personality, yes as a character. How's that?

Yes he certainly fits to the shining and clear tragichero role defined by jayandscher

I liked him before he left the reservation

Yes, his childhood was soooo sad

It was easier to feel sorry for him then.

though he seemed a bit too fanatic about the religion thingy of theirs

very easy to feel sorry for him

yes

his desire to be accepted. it is interesting that both Bernard and John strive to be accepted within their societies

his dream of a better place

Are they struggling against different kinds of opposition? Or just mirror-like poles of the same problem?

the inability to fit in?
:
true, neither is able to fit in. both rejected by the society

they should not be compared

That's what I was asking.

too different societies where they had grown up

but the fact still remains that they are rejected and unable to fit in

yes

however, they deal with it differently. Bernard is resentful whereas John is more than eager to please and do whatever it takes

the idolic person in his culture is a sufferer acting idolic is a way to fit in for him. in his society it was considered to be good when one was...good so he tried to be good

how?

religious fanaticism?

ah, that kinda good.

john wasn't in onflict with his culture. he was in conflict with the people in it

which culture? the Indians?

Yes so he tried to follow its moral norms

He was excluded. Does that count as conflict?

yes, but I agree with Tal on this one, he had problems with the people, not the ideology

right.

John himself didnt have problem with the people but rather people have problem with him?

the people had a problem with him

yes

how did the move to the BNW affect him you think?

it crushed his dreams

Out of the frying pan...

He was disappointed with the BNW but how did he handle that?

i remember that his Brave New World still excisted

in the past

when he was in the hospital; tthis was not his BNW

no, not what he thought it would be like

BNW was like a paradise to John

because of his mother's representation

so, when he had been there and seen it, then he knew that it was not a paraduise and that therefore paradise was soemwhere else BNW equalled paradise to John (yes, because of his mother)

how do you think he handled it all?

imagine like you were collecting money for going on a trip and you would look forward to it and cross out days etcetra and then it would turn out to be a disaster. how would you feel?

do you think he could have handled it better?
:
yes, too much religious fanaticism on him

what if that trip was your last hope?

self-beating etcetra

it is interesting that although John does not give in to the ‘charms’ of the BNW, he cannot avoid his own upbringing even though he knows he doesnt belong there and he wont be accepted by htem

in the end, are the charms really so charming?

what charms?

If you weren't endoctrinated from the beginning? You and I and anyone else would probably be just as horrified, don't you think? I'm just saying - if you were suddenly plopped down in the BNW - would YOU dive right into the 'soma-feely-layeveryoneinsight culture

not right

or would you be horrified that humanity could sink to that level? So you'd be willing to give it a try, try to blend in?

I dont know but if you were brought up in reservation and your mother kept telling you how great all was back in the BNW

If life there was so hard, I'd certainly do like John did and pin my hopes on my mother's fairy tale

I'm more of a reservation kid... if they have computers and internet in plantations

Yes and when you are there, it would be so hard not to give in and try it

I couldn't give up bathing... but I also don't like the idea of giving up free will (which is a whooooole other can o' worms)

well, they had free will... they just didn't know how to do anything else... and due to their 'upbringing' they didn't even want to do anything else than what's been told them to do

I would argue calling that free will.

no one forbid them doing anything

they had no choice in life

If you don't have the ability to make a choice - either because no choice is avalable or because you don't know to LOOK for a choice - that' snot freedom.

they had to do what they were 'planned' to do...

snot freedom. Hm.

No one forbid them, true.

if they were alpha, they couldnt take up a beta's job eg

But IF they deviated, they got ostracized and sent away.

if they were alpha they wouldn't want to have beta's job

But if they decided to have a child, they couldn't do that.

so they had no free will

Granted, they would never WANT a child but that's a choice taken away

they didn't want to have children, kids were ... goods kinda

in BNW even John didnt have free will. couldnt lead a simple life even though he is an outsider

no

He did have free will. Of all them, I'd say he did. The Controller may also have had some. But to have free will, you have to have understanding.

he wasnt allowed to have free will and make his own choices

I'd agree with that.

controller was given a choice

He DID have free will, and because his free will told him to act contrary to the mandates of the BNW, he was not accepted as human. But the controller was only able to have that choice because he came to understand more than he should have.

civilised savage

nice oxymoron

were there actually any humans? in the BNW

sure, whole bunch of them

when leaving out the BNW
Indians

they are all conditioned

depends how you define humanity

machined. mass produced humans

I would define humanity as having the capacity to choose. In which case I think there were very few humans in the BNW. Bernard and Helmhotz may have had humanistic tendencies?

how about Lenina?
:
and the sad thing (at least in the beginning of the book) is that even the rulers are machines
b and h are humans. they are the mistakes inthe great machine

She had some twitchings toward humanity, but in the end, her conditioning won out.

Yes, she was really feeling nervous and sad when working but then took a gramme of soma and was a happy machine again

spent too much time with one man but then took her friend's advice and gave herself to others so she wouldn't be seen as strange.

and she didnt mind dating bernard

I do have a hard time understanding how they could breed the capacity for love and devotion out of us.

i am talking of the bit where she didn't put medicine in athat thing and thirty years later someone died

Everything else I find perfectly reasonable, but that baffles me.

they didn't breed it out

or condition it out

they societed it out

i think with the right kind of conditioning, it would be possible

really?

remember lenina? she fell in love with savage but couldn't get him

where do we start to get the notion of love? mothers and family but they are not there to begin with

Do you think she fell in love with him?

yes

Or was it just the temptation to have something she couldn't understand?

Forbidden fruit syndrom?

'wanted' him

she was certainly very nervous and sad. what's wrong with me?

Sure. Could be a manifestation of suffering from an emotion (love) she has no conditioning to handle.

they had got rid of all emotions

But that would have to be an imperfect system. I don't think emotion is squashable.

they tried

yah, that they did.

in the beginnig, remember? you happy boys, you have been spared of emotion

that's right.

though one had had an emotion when he had to wait, ohmyford, for four weeks to get a girl

What do you think about John's feelings towards Lenina

schizo

I think he was in love with an idea.

Do you think John was obsessed?

yes

I think he was in love with an idea and she didn't fit his idea.

he was in love with the idea of love with this pure image of Lenina he had

in love with shakespeare

And when he finally came to terms with that, it drove him mad, essentially.

similar to BNW. ideal BNW,, ideal lover

indeed.

I find it interesting that he lashes out at Lenina rather than considering his own mistake

though, they were not what he had been expecting

it's always easier to externalize your anger but he could easily convince himself that she did.

well, she kind of did she did took soma before taking soma: whatthehelliswrongwithme, aftersoma: let's make love. a slight change

She has always had soma
when she did go to johns place, she took a gramme of soma. you think that soma was a part of her personality

soma is not part of her personality but part of their lives. they do it

it rather disactivated their personalities

lenina is so naive in so many ways that she cannot understand why John should be angry with her

i hoped really when she went to john that she wouldn't take soma

what difference would that make do you think?

she did not know what angry was?

definetely not the type John was displaying; physical

but really, she was very different before and after soma

I thought that was what soma was used for

yes

the thing is before she didnt have to go to those lengths. for the first time a man hesitated and said no to her. normally she didnt have to make the first move. it just happened

what would have happened if she hadn't taken soma when she went to john's ?

maybe she wouldnt have been that insistent

shier

she could have been and realised that he means no when he said no

and that would have been more recognisable to john

yes

it was normal to 'have' anyone anywhere anytime

exactly

sorry

so you think that without soma lenina would have been more julietty to john?

No she was raised like that, just under soma's influence she was more straight forward

when thinking about the names
:
lenina, bernard marx....

Marx, Lenina, that kinda names?

i see a certain influence but they spoke english

well, if you read an ordinary sci-fi, all aliens speak English if they speak at all

no, but they didn't speak not-english and just said it in english

remember: do you know what frenach and polish are

ah, you're referring to the thing when someone... can't remember, said something about 'once there was a German language' kinda thingy, right?

they probably were just influenced by communist thinkers and doers

about talking English?

about the names and there was a short talk about history. about who and what were destroyed

what did you think about the erotic games the kids had? what do you imagine under the term actually?

I imagine "playing doctor." Nothing good comes to mind with kids that age...

Indeed. I was kinda afraid all the book was gonna be like that, Huxley describing 'conditioning' of kids. we had to read the first three chapters for the lit course last term, I didn't feel like reading more of it if it was to be all like it. why Brave New World? I mean... I know it's a Shakespeare 'invention' but... what does it mean? I haven't read The Tempest and don't know the similarity between The Tempest and Huxley's idea of BNW like he described it

I don't either.

perhaps he couldn't come up with a name

but why BNW?

seems unlikely

and thought : well, a shakespearean quote always looks intelligent

it is ironic isnt it? brave new world. he says it couple of times in the book. John. first with excitement and expectation

then with irony

then when he meets the epsilion twins

sarcasm and irony

oh, really, what brave new world, what wondrous people

it seems like brave what they are doing and it is surely new but i think there is so much irony in it

tell me one thing. is Lenina dead?

no idea

yes

did he kill her?

Toasted her

yes

do you think that is the reason he killed himself?

Not specifically

yes?

the next morning he woke up and realised what he did? ie killed Lenina

what would be the other reasons? to be more specific the reson was that he thought he had killed her

why did he kill himself?

I think he finally realized he and the BNW would never be compatible.

and he couldnt go back to the plantation? or one of the exile islands? why didnt huxley give him that choice?

Because he'd be dangerous there.

although Helm and Bernie were given that way out?

Among all those other people who had "fringe" ideas. He's the one person who really knows what it's like to be free.

why did john kill himself?

what are the other possible reasons besides lenina

The utter hopelessness of the situation. He saw that he was an animal in a zoo. a new spectator sport for these robots. they junked themselves on the new feely that WAS the savage

why wouldnt he go back to the reservation?

he was not allowed?

but consider, if he killed himself because of becomng a zooanimal, why was whipping of lenina included=
I think it's separate.

I think he killed himself because he realised what he did to Lenina?

I also thought that he realised what he was reduced to do. lenina was one person he cared for
besides shakespeare. but really, john seems a bit schizo to me

they all have their faults and john is obsessed with religion and romantic ideal. no healthy outlook on life

i think that part of him loved lenina

actually who has a healthy outlook on life in the book?

Worldcontroller, heimholts

worldcontroller wants to control everyone. is that healthy? remember he was reading someone's paper... i dont remember on what now. even though he agreed with the ideas presented in the paper, he decided to send the author to exile because they were too close to the truth. and would 'wake' others up

well, he had to keep the order. he didn't want to risk with anarchy

he was building a secret army of 'normal-ish' people in exile

yeah it sounded like being on exile is a blessing in disguise

yes

having said that they would still be products of their up-bringing

do you thikn that babies were actually born on islands?

probably their attitude towards certain things wouldnt change. remember how helm couldnt help laughing at shakespeare? because of the sentiments expressed

but if they were there long enough...

do you think they would give up their malthusian belts etc?

well, you know what bad friends can do....

I doubt it