From the Bookshelf of The Reading Challenge Group…

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

Start date: June 1, 2014

Finish date: June 30, 2014

Discussion: Group Read Archive 2014-16

Why we're reading this: Classic Group Read - June 2014
[close] Classic Group Read - June 2014

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Group Read Archive 2014-16

Genre Group Read (Humour) - December 2016 - You Are Not So Smart
By Allison , Quest Hound · 11 posts · 30 views

last updated Dec 28, 2016 04:05PM

Alternate Group Read (Classics) - December 2016 - Mansfield Park
By Allison , Quest Hound · 5 posts · 18 views

last updated Dec 04, 2016 09:34AM

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What Members Thought

Mar 27, 2013 Alexia rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

This is an odd book mostly because of the flactuating quality.

The first 25% is fantastic. The gist of the novel is that we are in futuristic London where sexual reproduction, parenting and monogomy are essentially things of the past where genetic manipulation, cloning and mood enhancing drugs are used by the government for control. And where government control in a futuristic setting comes in, one invariably thinks of 1984. This is pretty much the opposite identical scenario, although one needs This is an odd book mostly because of the flactuating quality.

The first 25% is fantastic. The gist of the novel is that we are in futuristic London where sexual reproduction, parenting and monogomy are essentially things of the past where genetic manipulation, cloning and mood enhancing drugs are used by the government for control. And where government control in a futuristic setting comes in, one invariably thinks of 1984. This is pretty much the opposite identical scenario, although one needs to keep in mind this was written in 1931, not the 50s.

The first quarter of the book is so brilliant because the way things are described so nonchallantly, the horror of it all just drips through the pages. After that the novel sadly dips and is not as captivating.

The author does the right kind of scifi, nonetheless. He is less interested in all the fancy machinery but it's about it being a thought experiment. The theme on consumerism is sadly what we're living today. The whole bit of truth vs happiness I admittedly found a bit trite. It reminded me too much of an uninspiring newspaper article. The book wanted to highlight how humanity prefers happiness to truth - how is that a novel idea?

It is interesting how sex, sexuality and women are seen in this novel. Sadly, this in another books were women are not seen in any particularly positive light. The women are basically seen as sex objects, shallow and stupid. Superficially, you would think it progressive that both men and women are treated in the same ways for their sexual relations, although we only see men showing off about how many women they've had. Nonetheless women's sexuality is still the one being controlled, as women not men are made sterile and made to have oral contraceptives. And you get the impression that the only reason that women are encouraged to have lots of partners is for the men's pleasure and for them to gain some secondary advantages. Of course this was written a while ago and the 20/30 years that 1984 had on it gave the world a more rounded perspective of women, which is nicer to see.

I found the ending a bit banal. I think the author wanted to show how different the 2 societies were. For me it highlighted how both of them were similar - they just used different methods of delusion.

As a reading experience, it was average - but it is definitely enjoyable to discuss and analyse. I would recommend it, but it is not for everyone. ...more

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