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.