Paperback, 268 pages
English language
Published Jan. 1, 1998 by HarperPerennial.
Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century …
Aldous Huxley's profoundly important classic of world literature, Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine” (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.
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.
Over time, Aldous Huxley’s idea of a dystopia where people are happy but ignorant has been copied so often in film and literature that I didn’t pay particular attention to Brave New World (1932) when I first read it. The reason for doing so this time was Neil Postman’s interesting comparison with George Orwell’s counterpart [b:1984|56196795|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612999498l/56196795.SY75.jpg|153313] (1949). In his 1985 essay [b:Amusing Ourselves to Death|74034|Amusing Ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business|Neil Postman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568871230l/74034.SY75.jpg|2337731], Postman argues that television has favored Huxley’s version of a dystopia as the more plausible scenario. Anno 2024, his argument no longer entirely convinces me, but it did provide me an excellent reason to reread both novels.
For me, Brave New World is all about ideas and less about story. The title is a reference to Shakespeare’s [b:The Tempest|26192823|The Tempest|William Shakespeare|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1445791361l/26192823.SY75.jpg|1359590]: Huxley presents a …
Over time, Aldous Huxley’s idea of a dystopia where people are happy but ignorant has been copied so often in film and literature that I didn’t pay particular attention to Brave New World (1932) when I first read it. The reason for doing so this time was Neil Postman’s interesting comparison with George Orwell’s counterpart [b:1984|56196795|1984|George Orwell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612999498l/56196795.SY75.jpg|153313] (1949). In his 1985 essay [b:Amusing Ourselves to Death|74034|Amusing Ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business|Neil Postman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1568871230l/74034.SY75.jpg|2337731], Postman argues that television has favored Huxley’s version of a dystopia as the more plausible scenario. Anno 2024, his argument no longer entirely convinces me, but it did provide me an excellent reason to reread both novels.
For me, Brave New World is all about ideas and less about story. The title is a reference to Shakespeare’s [b:The Tempest|26192823|The Tempest|William Shakespeare|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1445791361l/26192823.SY75.jpg|1359590]: Huxley presents a utopian world of peace and comfort in which people have no reason to complain – as long as they go with the flow. People are no longer ‘born’ but ‘decanted’ from artificial wombs. Order is maintained by a social hierarchy of casts (according to which everyone is satisfied with their role) and a drug (‘soma’) against inconveniences. The inevitable disruption occurs when protagonists Bernard and Lenina go on holiday to a Savage Reserve and find Linda, a human like them who stayed at the reserve years ago to give birth (!) to her son, John. When mother and son are being brought ‘back’ to society, John struggles to reconcile his Shakespearean view of humanity with this brave new world.
Huxley managed to create a society with values that contradict his own. (I do not say ‘ours’ as the author did not succeed in shaking off his era: the zeitgeist of the 1930s is ever-present and if anything, his idea of the future is still very analogue.) At times, I found it chilling to read his alphas’ and betas’ thoughts on civilisation; even (or perhaps: especially) in an oppressed world, appearances triumph over authenticity and liberty. If Huxley had left out the ridiculous Ford worship, it would have been even more compelling.
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.
