Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited (P.S.)
by Aldous Huxley
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recommended to Krystal by:
Sam Ankenbauer
recommends it for: Everybody!
recommends it for: Everybody!
OH MY FORD! I say that all the time now, it's just so fantastic. When I first started reading Brave New World, it was a little too far out for me. It was weird to read about how children were bred for specific purposes in society, and how all the experiments effected the outcome of their personalities. That's so bad. It was depressing to think about how families didn't even exist, and everyone was just created and bred in a lab beaker. The entire concept of sex and parenting actually disgu...more
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Read in January, 2008
I never read Brave New World in high school; I was never given an academic reason to, and had I been I probably still wouldn't have read it. My knowledge of the book has been of not the text itself but rather of its cultural privilege, of its dystopian foreboding. I don't know how many times I heard dissenters in the effort to get stem cell research funded in California screech above the "Yeas": "Brave New World! Brave New World!" Between this book and its thematic partn...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to Julien by:
my fatherrecommends it for: people who are into 1984 type books
"For the love of Ford!"
Does something sound wrong in this quote? Not if you live in the world of "Brave New World". In this novel we find ourselves plunged into a society of extreme capitalism, where their God (Ford) is dominant. This society takes place in the year 256 A.F. meaning: 256 After Ford. In this world, the Ford Corporation owns everything as people are brainwashed into believing everything the company says or does. In this society family does not exist, the conc...more
Does something sound wrong in this quote? Not if you live in the world of "Brave New World". In this novel we find ourselves plunged into a society of extreme capitalism, where their God (Ford) is dominant. This society takes place in the year 256 A.F. meaning: 256 After Ford. In this world, the Ford Corporation owns everything as people are brainwashed into believing everything the company says or does. In this society family does not exist, the conc...more
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Though definitely not an all-time favorite of mine, Brave New World had resonance for me in its prophetic projections of a world governed by social determination. Huxley presents to us the aftermath of a world in which the social purging and cleansing of Communism or Aryanism has succeeded to completion.
The Savage is the disastrous byproduct of the social crossroads that is his legacy. As such, he is afflicted by an acute loneliness that is a consequence of his unbelonging. But Huxley render...more
The Savage is the disastrous byproduct of the social crossroads that is his legacy. As such, he is afflicted by an acute loneliness that is a consequence of his unbelonging. But Huxley render...more
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Read in March, 2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
advanced english students
Honestly, this book kinda scared me when I read it in Adv. English in 10th grade. The person who wrote it was predicting how our world would be in the future. It's basically an exaggeration of how our world could be with technology taking over to the extremes.
It's about a man who questions the meaning of the life he lives, and why it has to be the way it is.
It's not how we would think life is today. Honestly, people are born in test tubes in this book, and having regular families are somet...more
It's about a man who questions the meaning of the life he lives, and why it has to be the way it is.
It's not how we would think life is today. Honestly, people are born in test tubes in this book, and having regular families are somet...more
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A happy story about a happy world where everyone is genetically and subliminally tailored to be happy in work, in play, in sex, in everything. The only thing missing is hoards of people committing suicide from being so damn happy all the time. But of course, there's soma to stop that...
Huxley's story was something I read as a class assignment in high school. Best assignment ever. It's a classic novel, and one that'll probably be taught in English Literature classes forever, but it's also the s...more
Huxley's story was something I read as a class assignment in high school. Best assignment ever. It's a classic novel, and one that'll probably be taught in English Literature classes forever, but it's also the s...more
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Read in December, 2005
I grew up with two main dystopian societies possibly looming in my future, that of 1984 and that of Brave New World. While, obviously, there's a lot more to worry about now than just society going wrong, which leads to a lot more interesting dystopias, these two still seem to me to represent benchmarks in our understanding of humanity.
Brave New World is scary for the same reason that 1984 is and the Communist Manifesto appeals to idealistic college students: They're all right in a few ways ...more
Brave New World is scary for the same reason that 1984 is and the Communist Manifesto appeals to idealistic college students: They're all right in a few ways ...more
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Read in January, 1965
recommended to erik by:
no onerecommends it for: everyone
I read both of these books, one after the other, under separate covers either at the end of junior high or at the beginning of high school, then went on to pick up other cheap paperbacks of Huxley's writings none of which I could relate to much until encountering Doors of Perception in college.
Brave New World is so much commented upon that I can think of little to add except to note that it, particularly the stuff about sex, eugenics and outlawry, was fascinating to me as an early adolescent...more
Brave New World is so much commented upon that I can think of little to add except to note that it, particularly the stuff about sex, eugenics and outlawry, was fascinating to me as an early adolescent...more
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Read in April, 2008
This was on my list of make-ups; books that many people read in high school or college for class, but I never had to. In an attempt to see what I was missing, I read this novel and was pleasantly surprised that the topics Huxley wrote about in 1932 are still excedingly relevant today. Although the overall subject of a despotic, totalitarian government is of course a subject for discussing, I found more interest in the concept of genetic engineering and nature vs. nurture, as well as the governme...more
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What can i say about this book that hasn't already been said? I read it at about the same time i was reading all these 'question authority', 'dont-trust-the-gov't', 'anti-establishment' type books (i.e. "1984", "A Clockwork Orange", etc.") and listening to a lot of pink floyd and the doors and smoking a lot of pot and taking acid...hey, i was a teenager. the world was my oyster and i wanted to crack it open and eat it with a little lime juice and then smash the shell on...more
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Read in April, 2008
I gave this a lower rating than it maybe deserved, probably because I'm comparing it to the other utopic/dystopic sociatal books I've been reading lately (with more to be read still). As they go, I didn't think that it added that many new ideas to the genre. However, that said, Huxley seems to have an uncanny knack for knowing what will really happen in the future, even if the extent of the damage is overstated (so far). Although it was really interesting, it didn't leave me with a pleasant f...more
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Read in May, 2007
I never read this book in high school (it seems to be that most of my friends read this book in HS) and I happened to purchase this book 2 years ago, picked it up for a minute and put it down almost immediately. I found this book again among my belongings and I was almost immediately drawn to it. It became a book I could not put down! The vision of Aldous Huxley is amazing and his essay "Brave New World Revisited" added even greater insight into his frightening vision of the future. I ...more
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Read in July, 2007
i first tried reading this after reading "we" and "1984." for some reason i could never get passed the first couple of chapters. now i'm determined to finish it. i think i just feel some pressure to like this one since i loved those other two distopias.
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okay, i liked "brave new world," however, i could've done without the "revisited" part of the book. it's still creepy in that way that 1984 was creepy, but the whole mind control seems to be taken...more
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okay, i liked "brave new world," however, i could've done without the "revisited" part of the book. it's still creepy in that way that 1984 was creepy, but the whole mind control seems to be taken...more
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recommends it for:
the Moral Majority
This is the sort of "family values" moral-panic I'd expect from Pat Robertson if he actually possessed the forebrain necessary for real language. Huxley's work is not a critical insight into our present and future so much as a desparate nostalgia for the past -- for the comforting, solid answers provided by the Enlightenment. His conveniently white Noble Savage, who should be providing such cutting critique, looks strangely like an English aristocrat.
If you're a neo-Imperialist ass...more
If you're a neo-Imperialist ass...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
grown-ups who loved "The Giver" as kids
Wow. I had a great time reading this and then discussing it at a book talk Socratic seminar. Yes, it was often disturbing, but it was definitely a fascinating look at a potential distopian world. It's amazing how many things Huxley can close to in 1932. His "Boskanovsy's Process" is startlingly like cloning. As one person in my discussion group said, "It also gives a look into what could happen with the continuation of moral degradation in society." I think, as a satire...more
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Read in December, 2007
I found this book in a coffee shop downtown. It was a cold day and I pour through it in a couple sittings. It is a surreal read. Adolphus Huxley creates a world which is not much beyond a scientific reality that could come from cloning. The problem is that the world has decided to nurture a race of people that cannot feel emotions deeply if at all. This is something that Huxley uses to create an ironic twist pit 'the savage' that feels emotion against a world that find it an odd novelty. A...more
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Read in March, 2008
While this book has a lot of good ideas, I agree with most of its contemporary (1932) criticism in that its writing style is extremely boring and self-important. The scenes involving "sports", orgies, and political discussions are particularly hyperbolic and silly. Glad I read it... It just seems a little immature for how famous it is. I also don't like how Huxley describes it again and again as "prophetic". Then again, a huge number of its predictions have come true for bein
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Admittedly, an initial reading of this book was difficult, but once I became more familiar with the works of Neil Postman, Ellul, and Marshall McLuhan with regard to media studies, the McDonaldization/commodification experience of a modern American in American culture made infinitely more sense. This book is deeply frightening and disturbing once the purpose of it is realized: that we inhabit a culture that closely resembles what Aldous Huxley wrote. A prophetic work.
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Read in March, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone who's read george orwell's 1984
This book is almost like a counter part to 1984, though in an opposing way (oxymoronish, i know). It's the flip side of the story. What would happen if the totalitarian government reigned not by shear terror, but by pure bliss (and obliviousness)? I found it quite an easy, pleasant read compared to 1984... perhaps I just find it more easily relatable to the life I'm living right now. Anyhow, a fantastic book, well worth the read. Best served accompanied with Orwell.
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