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Brave New World
by
Now reissued in a gorgeous hardcover edition: "one of the most prophetic dystopian works of the 20th century" (Wall Street Journal) must be read and understood by anyone concerned with preserving the human spirit in the face of our "brave new world." Huxley's masterpiece has become a bestseller once again after the American election.
Aldous Huxley's profoundly important cla ...more
Aldous Huxley's profoundly important cla ...more
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published
May 9th 2017
by Harper
(first published 1932)
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Start your review of Brave New World
I need to parse my rating of this book into the good (or great), the bad and the very fugly because I thought aspects of it were inspired genius and parts of it were dreggy, boring and living near the border of awful. In the end, the wowness and importance of the novel's ideas as well as the segments that I thoroughly enjoyed carried the book to a strong 3.5 star rating.
THE REALLY GOOD/EXCELLENT - I loved the first third of the book in which the basic outline of the "Brave New World" and it ...more
Warning! The following review contains humor. If you read it and actually think that I'm being critical of Huxley, try reading it again. (Here's a hint. Look for the irony of the italicized parts when compared to the previous statements.) If you post a comment that asserts that I'm wrong/ stupid/ crazy for this and/or try to lecture me on all the points you think I missed then I'm going to assume that you read it literally, missed the joke, didn't read the other comments where I've already answe
...more
Feb 07, 2010
Madeline
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
the-list,
science-fiction
Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932. That's almost eighty years ago, but the book reads like it could have been written yesterday. (especially interesting to me was how Huxley was able to predict the future of both genetic engineering and the action blockbuster. Damn.)
I think I liked this one better than 1984, the book traditionally considered to be this one's counterpart. Not really sure why this is, but it's probably because this one has a clearer outsider character (the Savage) who ca ...more
I think I liked this one better than 1984, the book traditionally considered to be this one's counterpart. Not really sure why this is, but it's probably because this one has a clearer outsider character (the Savage) who ca ...more
Wow, the anger over this rating! My first post for this book was a quote and a gif of Dean from Supernatural rolling his eyes and passing out. And people were pissed. How dare I?
Lol. I'm honestly just so tired of all the dumb comments demanding that I (all caps) "ELABORATE". It's been going on for SIX YEARS now. So I will: This is still one of the most boring emotionless books I have ever read. It seemed like a natural choice after I loved Orwell and Atwood but, my god, Huxley is a dry, dull wri ...more
Lol. I'm honestly just so tired of all the dumb comments demanding that I (all caps) "ELABORATE". It's been going on for SIX YEARS now. So I will: This is still one of the most boring emotionless books I have ever read. It seemed like a natural choice after I loved Orwell and Atwood but, my god, Huxley is a dry, dull wri ...more
Oct 02, 2018
Sean Barrs
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fans of 1984, the Handmaid's Tale and Fahrenheit 451
“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
These are words uttered in the face of tyranny and complete oppression, though they are very rare words to be spoken or even thought of in this world because every human passion and sense of creativity is repressed and eradicated through a long and complex process of conditioning.
And that’s what makes this novel so powerful; it’s not unbelievable. Like Orwell’s 1984 ...more
These are words uttered in the face of tyranny and complete oppression, though they are very rare words to be spoken or even thought of in this world because every human passion and sense of creativity is repressed and eradicated through a long and complex process of conditioning.
And that’s what makes this novel so powerful; it’s not unbelievable. Like Orwell’s 1984 ...more
remember that last semester of english class, senior year, where every class seemed painfully long and excrutiatingly pointless? when everybody sat around secretly thinking of cute and witty things to put in other people's yearbooks? when the teachers realized we were already braindead from filling out three dozen student loan applications and college housing forms? that's when honors english started getting a little lazy.
not that i minded. everybody got a book list. then everybody got split up ...more
not that i minded. everybody got a book list. then everybody got split up ...more
This set the stage about what a dystopian story should be or not be.
“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
First published in 1932, this is timeless and is as relevant today as when it was first written. Sixteen years before Orwell's 1984 but eleven years after We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, this is a high water mark for the genre, many of its themes could be told today. Truth be said, this could be published today and wou ...more
“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
First published in 1932, this is timeless and is as relevant today as when it was first written. Sixteen years before Orwell's 1984 but eleven years after We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, this is a high water mark for the genre, many of its themes could be told today. Truth be said, this could be published today and wou ...more
649. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley. Published in 1932, it propounds that economic chaos and unemployment will cause a radical reaction, in the form of an international scientific empire, that manufactures its citizens in the laboratory on a eugenic basis, without the need for human intercourse.
عنوانها: «دنیای قشنگ نو»؛ «دنیای شگفت انگیز نو»؛ نویسنده: آلدوس هاکسلی؛ (پیام ، نیلوفر) ادبیات؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه آوریل سا ...more
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley. Published in 1932, it propounds that economic chaos and unemployment will cause a radical reaction, in the form of an international scientific empire, that manufactures its citizens in the laboratory on a eugenic basis, without the need for human intercourse.
عنوانها: «دنیای قشنگ نو»؛ «دنیای شگفت انگیز نو»؛ نویسنده: آلدوس هاکسلی؛ (پیام ، نیلوفر) ادبیات؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه آوریل سا ...more
This book presents a futuristic dystopia of an unusual kind. Unlike in Orwell's 1984, Huxley's dystopia is one in which everyone is happy. However, they are happy in only the most trivial sense: they lead lives of simple pleasures, but lives without science, art, philosophy or religion. In short, lives without deeper meaning. Although people are expected to work hard and efficiently during working hours, during off hours people live in an infantile way, never engaging their minds, and satisfying
...more
As a teenager I went through a period of reading a vast number of distopian novels - probably all the teenage angst. This is the one that has continued to haunt me however, long after the my youthful cynicism has died it's death. It's basically a book about the utopian ideal - everyone's happy, everyone has what they want and EVERYTHING is based on logical principles. However, there is something very rotten at the heart. It's about how what we want isn't always what we should get. It looks at ho
...more
Brave New World is a vision of the future where science will (at last) be put full time into the service of our needs. Some of the ideas might seem a little controversial (because of our preconceived ideas) but we must be open minded...!
SEX. Biology teaches that sex is meant to be had. To put restrictions on sex is as silly as putting restrictions on which chair to sit. And like chairs, women are meant to be pneumatic. "Oh, she’s a splendid girl. Wonderfully pneumatic. I’m surprised yo ...more
Back in high school, one of the teachers brought a little sample from this book, and I found it totally captivating. Terrifying but at the same captivating.
So, I went back to it.
“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”
The beginning is totally the strongest part of this book, as it progresses, it goes a bit down. But at the same time, I think that the beginning is the hardest to get over. The world is being introduced to us in a rather raw way which definitely ...more
So, I went back to it.
“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”
The beginning is totally the strongest part of this book, as it progresses, it goes a bit down. But at the same time, I think that the beginning is the hardest to get over. The world is being introduced to us in a rather raw way which definitely ...more
Given that dystopian books are generally not my first choice ‘run-to-books-to-read’.... and I’m sure I didn’t understand the full depths of this book - which was written 21 years before I was born....even I can see Aldous Huxley had a brilliant mind.
I was trying to wrap my thinking around the conspiracies that it looked liked the author was trying to warn us were happening in the world —�trying to visualize the already futuristic setting —( was he thinking of 2017?)....and follow the story its ...more
I was trying to wrap my thinking around the conspiracies that it looked liked the author was trying to warn us were happening in the world —�trying to visualize the already futuristic setting —( was he thinking of 2017?)....and follow the story its ...more
Brave New World is a young man's novel, written in the interwar years. Huxley was then living in a collapsing world: a world where the optimist 19th-century dreams of progress, of improved humanity, of a new and superior man, had been shattered in the trench warfare of World War I and were about to be burned amidst the horrors of the concentration camps.
Huxley seems to be sensing that grave danger is looming on the horizon, and he imagines a utopia where a single superstate is ruling the whole p ...more
Huxley seems to be sensing that grave danger is looming on the horizon, and he imagines a utopia where a single superstate is ruling the whole p ...more
”I feel I could do something much more important. Yes, and more intense, more violent. But what? What is there more important to say? And how can one be violent about the sort of things one’s expected to write about? Words can be like X-rays, if you use them properly--they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
Aldous Huxley was prompted to write this book in the early 1930s because he feared the direction society was heading. The worship of material goods, the embracement of capit ...more
Aldous Huxley was prompted to write this book in the early 1930s because he feared the direction society was heading. The worship of material goods, the embracement of capit ...more
Brave New World says as much about Aldous Huxley as it does about our modern world.
Maybe more.
When he wrote it, Huxley was in the process of losing his inner child. Darling of the Jet Set, he was the literary version of their current idol, Cole Porter.
And in the end, the sophisticated public’s jaundiced taste for quick, fun and outré reads made him disposable - to us all.
And worst of all, to his own deep, dreaming subconscious!
Shy, lanky, shortsighted polymath Huxley was born to a family of Em ...more
Maybe more.
When he wrote it, Huxley was in the process of losing his inner child. Darling of the Jet Set, he was the literary version of their current idol, Cole Porter.
And in the end, the sophisticated public’s jaundiced taste for quick, fun and outré reads made him disposable - to us all.
And worst of all, to his own deep, dreaming subconscious!
Shy, lanky, shortsighted polymath Huxley was born to a family of Em ...more
Brave New World is a classic written to make its readers uncomfortable. It accomplishes its point well. Still, it is only getting 3 stars from me, as I rate books based on my personal level of enjoyment rather than literary value.
The characters of this book were not meant to be likeable - I am fine with that concept. The first few chapters made me want to curl up in the corner and cry - that's how repulsive the design of this universe was (mission accomplished, Mr. Huxley). But as we plunge int ...more
The characters of this book were not meant to be likeable - I am fine with that concept. The first few chapters made me want to curl up in the corner and cry - that's how repulsive the design of this universe was (mission accomplished, Mr. Huxley). But as we plunge int ...more
Jun 25, 2014
Lisa
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-books-to-read-before-you-die
"You all remember," said the Controller, in his strong deep voice, "you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford's: History is bunk. History, " he repeated slowly, "is bunk."
The rhetorical skills of the Controller remind me of the Epsilon Semi-Moron who runs one of the bravest new worlds in our current era in bunk.
As I had forgotten the major plot of this dystopian novel written just when fascism emerged in the 1930s, some fifteen years before the nuclear age, ...more
The rhetorical skills of the Controller remind me of the Epsilon Semi-Moron who runs one of the bravest new worlds in our current era in bunk.
As I had forgotten the major plot of this dystopian novel written just when fascism emerged in the 1930s, some fifteen years before the nuclear age, ...more
Dec 20, 2016
Dan Schwent
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2016,
2016-books
In a dystopian society of genetically engineered consumers pacified by drugs and conditioning, Bernard Marx cannot seem to fit in. When he visits a Savage reservation, his eyes are opened and he brings one of the savages back to England with him...
As I continue my bleak science fiction parade toward the new year, I wonder why I've never read Brave New World before.
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley takes on consumerism, the media, genetic engineering, recreational drugs, religion, herd mentality, ...more
As I continue my bleak science fiction parade toward the new year, I wonder why I've never read Brave New World before.
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley takes on consumerism, the media, genetic engineering, recreational drugs, religion, herd mentality, ...more
I finally managed to finish the dystopian classics triangle - 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Brave new World. For me the winner is Brave New World. Although I find the world imagined is less realistic than the other two it is equally tragic.
I finally got that somewhat lost feeling of total happiness when reading a book, that tingle in the pleasure receptors when you find a great book. Even though I recently read many books that I loved I seem to have lost that feeling of satisfaction when being face ...more
I finally got that somewhat lost feeling of total happiness when reading a book, that tingle in the pleasure receptors when you find a great book. Even though I recently read many books that I loved I seem to have lost that feeling of satisfaction when being face ...more
2nd time reading this
Enjoyed it much more the 2nd time
Enjoyed it much more the 2nd time
In a distant utopian future, society reaches its maximum ideal. Advanced technology, limitless overabundance, poverty disappearance, end of violence. Well-being at the reach of a pill. Everyone is happy. Everyone gets what they want, when and how they want it. Everybody belongs to everyone. "Community, Identity, Stability", the society's motto.
Genetically altered from birth, each person learns to live under certain conditionings. And they are perfectly happy, within those parameters and capacit ...more
Genetically altered from birth, each person learns to live under certain conditionings. And they are perfectly happy, within those parameters and capacit ...more
Sometimes a book just isn’t what you want it to be.
There is little doubt that Brave New World is a genre classic, heavily contributing to defining the dystopian genre. There is just as little doubt that Aldous Huxley was an important influence on some of the writers I respect the most, among them George Orwell and Steven Runciman, both of whom were Huxley’s students at the University of Cambridge.
Unfortunately, I found nothing to appreciate about it.
Maybe my general distaste for dystopia hit me ...more
There is little doubt that Brave New World is a genre classic, heavily contributing to defining the dystopian genre. There is just as little doubt that Aldous Huxley was an important influence on some of the writers I respect the most, among them George Orwell and Steven Runciman, both of whom were Huxley’s students at the University of Cambridge.
Unfortunately, I found nothing to appreciate about it.
Maybe my general distaste for dystopia hit me ...more
😈Who are the Puppet Masters? What are they up to?
Is this paradigm changing? For me and for you😇
Are we dancing to a different song?
On this Earth, do we really belong?
Will we inherit, this beautiful garden of Life, and Love and Compassion?
Are these Puppet Masters, going out of fashion?
Is the game up? The lifting of this Veil
Are we awakening, from an old, fading, weakening Spell? 🐯👍
Am I a Templar? Am I an Assassin? A Lord? A Sir? A Priest? A Monk? A Usurper? A Slaver? A Satanist? A Mystic? A Druid? ...more
Is this paradigm changing? For me and for you😇
Are we dancing to a different song?
On this Earth, do we really belong?
Will we inherit, this beautiful garden of Life, and Love and Compassion?
Are these Puppet Masters, going out of fashion?
Is the game up? The lifting of this Veil
Are we awakening, from an old, fading, weakening Spell? 🐯👍
Am I a Templar? Am I an Assassin? A Lord? A Sir? A Priest? A Monk? A Usurper? A Slaver? A Satanist? A Mystic? A Druid? ...more
DNF @ 50%
I know, I know. I'm a peabrain pleb and this is truly a classic and how dare I?
I understand what it's trying to do. I understand the over-enthusiasm for science and the depersonalization. I understand how showing a thriving world devoid of relationships and emotions feels counterintuitive and wrong. ('That's the point!' I understand that's the part that's supposed to 'make you think!') I understand how the conditioning and predestination of this "utopia" sacrifices individuality for com ...more
I know, I know. I'm a peabrain pleb and this is truly a classic and how dare I?
I understand what it's trying to do. I understand the over-enthusiasm for science and the depersonalization. I understand how showing a thriving world devoid of relationships and emotions feels counterintuitive and wrong. ('That's the point!' I understand that's the part that's supposed to 'make you think!') I understand how the conditioning and predestination of this "utopia" sacrifices individuality for com ...more
about 120 pages, the story becomes very boring, since it is mostly the feelings of the protagonists. However, this attempt to identify me emotionally with the characters did not touch, since it is quite bizarre.
So I felt more like having a classical drama in a modern world in front of me.
Fazit:
quite weak translation into German,
grammar partly catastrophic, so sentences lose their meaning.
So I felt more like having a classical drama in a modern world in front of me.
Fazit:
quite weak translation into German,
grammar partly catastrophic, so sentences lose their meaning.
This book is on many a top 100 reading list. Aldous Huxley has the reputation of being an intellectual giant. His heritage places him in the land of England, the place where all of the great literary giants come. A Brave New World unfortunately does not live up to the credits,pedigree or even the cult following that chases after it.
Summary: In a nutshell this book is a mess. I am assuming that the majority of individuals that rate this book high on a novel list or 5 star it on here on amazon do ...more
Summary: In a nutshell this book is a mess. I am assuming that the majority of individuals that rate this book high on a novel list or 5 star it on here on amazon do ...more
O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
Miranda, The Temptest, William Shakespeare
Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.
My reading of this book has been an adventure in itself, not just in a metaphorical sense but in an incredibly boring physical adventure. I began it in September, but then I was marvellously interrupted by the 2016 Rio Olympics and that ...more
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
Miranda, The Temptest, William Shakespeare
Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.
My reading of this book has been an adventure in itself, not just in a metaphorical sense but in an incredibly boring physical adventure. I began it in September, but then I was marvellously interrupted by the 2016 Rio Olympics and that ...more
Dec 15, 2017
☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
favorites
CAREFUL OF SPOILERS!
This is a 'viviparous mother' of all dystopian worlds! Yes, 'viviparous', 'mother' or 'father' are indecent jokes in the time of 'Our Ford'.
This world is majorly fucked up, just like its 1984 edition. Perhaps even more so! This one is also a cold one. Here, exogenesis, 'Bokanovsky's Process' and 'Podsnap's Technique' have taken over human progenity. Babies are no longer born, instead they are 'decanted'.
Here, you get to undergo an operation to remove your gametes 'voluntar ...more
This is a 'viviparous mother' of all dystopian worlds! Yes, 'viviparous', 'mother' or 'father' are indecent jokes in the time of 'Our Ford'.
This world is majorly fucked up, just like its 1984 edition. Perhaps even more so! This one is also a cold one. Here, exogenesis, 'Bokanovsky's Process' and 'Podsnap's Technique' have taken over human progenity. Babies are no longer born, instead they are 'decanted'.
Here, you get to undergo an operation to remove your gametes 'voluntar ...more
In the beginning there was Henry Ford.
The Ford factory system designed vehicles that were fit for specific purposes, and this book starts off as a satire on applying that model to humanity. The problem then with traditional socialisation through the family and traditional education through schools is that it is haphazard. Hit and miss. As such it produces an unstable society with irregular, inconvenient needs, booms and busts, Wall Street Crashes and unemployment.
The initially unserious answer t ...more
The Ford factory system designed vehicles that were fit for specific purposes, and this book starts off as a satire on applying that model to humanity. The problem then with traditional socialisation through the family and traditional education through schools is that it is haphazard. Hit and miss. As such it produces an unstable society with irregular, inconvenient needs, booms and busts, Wall Street Crashes and unemployment.
The initially unserious answer t ...more
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Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. Through his novels and es
...more
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Pulitzer Prize–winning literary critic Michiko Kakutani, the former chief book critic of The New York Times, is the author of the newly...
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“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
—
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“But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
—
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