Hardcover, 112 pages
English language
Published by Chelsea House Publications.
Originally published in 1932, this outstanding work of literature is more crucial and relevant today than ever before. Cloning, feel-good drugs, antiaging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media -- has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 AF (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, Brave New World is both a warning to be heeded and thought-provoking yet satisfying entertainment. - Container.
What we remember most is how disappointed we were that the story spun all the wonderful potential benefits of science into a dystopia where class and capitalism prevailed. The book disturbingly portrays how a society with admiral goals can go wrong with rigid and fanatical application. Society, it is to flourish, it needs to be open and alive.
Read this immediately afte reading the Orwell classic, 1984. I admit, I struggled reading this book. The method of story telling, with the switching of character perspective was difficult to follow. The idea of the book became far more clearer as the book progressed and became clear especially towards the end.
However the ideas presented in the book and their demonstration was thought provoking.
I was pretty disappointed at the book considering its status as a classic must-read. I think it's, fine, just fine. A rather fair warning to the future generations of the extremities of pleasure and the deprivation of freedom and all ill feelings. The world presented in this book is one of utmost neutrality - no religion, no art, no sickness, no passion. Social classes aren't seen as oppressive limits to man, but as the foundation of societal stability. It's a dystopia wherein concepts of individuality and freedom are unknown to the population to keep them dumb and happy.
While the book explores mankind without its humanity — a striking concept — it does so in a dry, uninspired way of writing. As a commentary and a warning, it does fine. But as a work of literature, it feels rather drab. The relationships of the characters were flat, and the sudden …
I was pretty disappointed at the book considering its status as a classic must-read. I think it's, fine, just fine. A rather fair warning to the future generations of the extremities of pleasure and the deprivation of freedom and all ill feelings. The world presented in this book is one of utmost neutrality - no religion, no art, no sickness, no passion. Social classes aren't seen as oppressive limits to man, but as the foundation of societal stability. It's a dystopia wherein concepts of individuality and freedom are unknown to the population to keep them dumb and happy.
While the book explores mankind without its humanity — a striking concept — it does so in a dry, uninspired way of writing. As a commentary and a warning, it does fine. But as a work of literature, it feels rather drab. The relationships of the characters were flat, and the sudden shift of focus from one supposed main character to another was executed poorly. Overall, the work felt incomplete.
This book was written 90 years ago. That’s crazy. It’s still relevant today. The pacing, dialogue and world buildings were all very good.
Re-read it after about 20 years since the first time in high school. He got everything so right about the tendency to destroy what's human in us for the sake of stability and pain-avoidance. Must-read.
This book shows us that nothing can ever be perfect. Perfect health, no sadness whatsoever and technological advances might sound like a good foundation for a flawless society. But there's no worth to it, if the individual right of self-determination is lost in the process.
As you know, Goodreads use of the star system to indicate how much we "liked" or didn't like a book. I gave Brave New World four stars, which means I really liked it. My feelings for this book are not "really liking it". In fact, it's probably one of the most terrifying books I've ever read. I'm glad I read it. I won't read it again. Huxley certainly knows how to write a dystopian future.
Everyone's supposed to have read this book already, but I hadn't. I knew very little about it, other than I'd written it down on a list to read after someone mentioned it in a throwaway comment - "you know, like Brave New World".
The obvious comparison is to George Orwell's 1984, though Huxley is much darker. Orwell brings lots of interesting detail in terms of his vision of the future; Huxley's future is less focused: we learn about recreation, but very little about living quarters, or food, or much else. A television is mentioned at one point; but at one moment of action, someone scrabbles to look up a telephone number, an action that seems quaint and old-fashioned.
Like Orwell, Huxley makes you think. His vision is just as sinister, but both more joyous and more controlling. It's an interesting thought: and I wonder whether all our politicians have read …
Everyone's supposed to have read this book already, but I hadn't. I knew very little about it, other than I'd written it down on a list to read after someone mentioned it in a throwaway comment - "you know, like Brave New World".
The obvious comparison is to George Orwell's 1984, though Huxley is much darker. Orwell brings lots of interesting detail in terms of his vision of the future; Huxley's future is less focused: we learn about recreation, but very little about living quarters, or food, or much else. A television is mentioned at one point; but at one moment of action, someone scrabbles to look up a telephone number, an action that seems quaint and old-fashioned.
Like Orwell, Huxley makes you think. His vision is just as sinister, but both more joyous and more controlling. It's an interesting thought: and I wonder whether all our politicians have read this book and have honed policies around it. Stranger things have happened...
Brave New World is a classic novel.
I got vibes from 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, regarding the censorship of literature and other elements.
Yet due to the occasional use of Shakespearean English, it was difficult to read for me.
Additionally, the plot was difficult for me to follow.
However, this dystopian society is very intriguing and scary at the same time. The poisonous effect of soma, the brainwashing using hypnopaedia, and censorship of literature, is brilliantly written and contrived.
Therefore 3/5
This book hasn't aged well. It may be one of the first cases of a dystopian novel, but the author's imagination doesn't stretch much further than that. A lot of his points are very on the nose, and the final chapters repeat them, just in case the reader has made it this far without figuring out the message. Would not recommend, but for some reason it still gets assigned in school.
Oh what a brave new world.
Somehow this one slipped through the cracks so this was my first read. There are moments in the novel that deeply impressed me. In particular, I liked the way Huxley's writing style rushed the reader through this vast world through multiple points of view. Unfortunately, the pace couldn't sustain because he boxed himself into a sort of Hercule Poirot moment of exposition near the end in order to tidy up the narrative.
I also didn't get very much out of this story in 2019. None of the novel's perilous visions felt very relevant except, perhaps, the urge to give into the cult of the new. What I've observed in our moment, however, is an equally powerful urge to reclaim, resell, or regard the old (and price it higher than a new item).
I was curious about this one after finishing The Wall by John …
Oh what a brave new world.
Somehow this one slipped through the cracks so this was my first read. There are moments in the novel that deeply impressed me. In particular, I liked the way Huxley's writing style rushed the reader through this vast world through multiple points of view. Unfortunately, the pace couldn't sustain because he boxed himself into a sort of Hercule Poirot moment of exposition near the end in order to tidy up the narrative.
I also didn't get very much out of this story in 2019. None of the novel's perilous visions felt very relevant except, perhaps, the urge to give into the cult of the new. What I've observed in our moment, however, is an equally powerful urge to reclaim, resell, or regard the old (and price it higher than a new item).
I was curious about this one after finishing The Wall by John Lanchester (it was just an intuition they'd be connected somehow) and what I found is an interesting prose style and a narrative composition worthy of having read but nothing substantial enough for me to hang onto this time around.
I'm glad I read this book, eventually, as an adult. Having a different outlook on life and happiness, as compared to most high schoolers who are forced to read this classic, gave a different feel. The books seemed a little too basics, but then I have to put myself in the 1930s mindset of when this book was written. Now that would have been a curious time during which to read this book.
Dull in the beginning, but it picked up the pace around halfway through the book. Many people had recommended this to me claiming it was a more accurate representation of our current world than Orwell's "1984". I agree with them to an extent, however it did not leave quite the impression that Orwell's masterpiece had on my mind.
It amazes me that anyone in this fictional society thought deliberately making some people /stupider/ and fearful would help create a Utopian society.
Yeahhh nooooo.
Meanders a bit and seems frequently to be telling the story through the wrong character's perspective.
