From the Bookshelf of Reading the Classics…

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

Start date: January 1, 2012

Finish date: January 31, 2012

Discussion: Past Group Reads

Discussion leader: Jenn

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* Washington Square - Reading Schedule
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Feb 12, 2017 Lee rated it it was ok

It isn't uncommon to see journalists and other commentators claim that trends in contemporary Western society are proving that Brave New World, not 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, accurately predicted the horrors that the future would bring us. Having read these other high school core dystopias but never Brave New World, I always thought these commentators were on to something. From their characterizations of the novel, I had the impression that Brave New World was all about placating the masses through It isn't uncommon to see journalists and other commentators claim that trends in contemporary Western society are proving that Brave New World, not 1984 or Fahrenheit 451, accurately predicted the horrors that the future would bring us. Having read these other high school core dystopias but never Brave New World, I always thought these commentators were on to something. From their characterizations of the novel, I had the impression that Brave New World was all about placating the masses through distraction, consumerism, and instant gratification, in contrast to the violent oppression of 1984. No doubt, we live in a consumerist society filled with distractions and frivolity, but now that I have read Brave New World myself, I'm tempted to ridicule anyone who sees it as a remotely accurate depiction of our modern world or its problems--or, for that matter, as decent literature or insightful social commentary whatsoever.

The first time I picked up Brave New World was in my 7th grade Biology class. I found the book lying abandoned in a dusty cupboard, the cover torn off and pages sun-damaged. As I read about subservient nurses and ambitious young male students eagerly scribbling notes from the powerful male lecturers introducing them to the ins and outs of mass technological reproduction, Huxley's vision of the future instantly struck me as outdated and unrealistic, even at twelve years old. Why were the women all subordinate to the men? Wouldn't the students have technology to take notes, not just pencils and paper (I imagined something akin to today's tablets, which had yet to be invented). I guess as a twelve year old in 2002, I had more foresight about the future of women's rights and personal technology than Huxley could have had in the early 30s. Disinterested, I put the book back where I found it.

Now, fourteen years later, I can say twelve year old me was on to something. The sexism and lack of foresight in Brave New World runs INCREDIBLY deep. Huxley seems delimited by the problematic norms of his society and times more than he seems critical of them. I'm supposed to cringe in horror that women have readily available contraceptives, abortions and sexual freedom when I live in a society where women regularly are barred from these and reviled for engaging in them. I'm supposed to sympathize with male characters who look down on, and even physically assault Lenina, the central female character, for being sexually promiscuous. I'm supposed to find it realistic that all women in Huxley's world can ever think or talk about is men and being "passed around" or "had by them" passively, while men run around satisfied but corrupted by the fact they "use" women as a distracting vice. Not surprisingly the book doesn't pass the Bechdel Test: Lenina's friend only exists as a soundboard for Lenina's hookups with men.

It's not just women Huxley doesn't have any remote understanding of--but arguably human nature and society whatsoever. Huxley, apparently, is such a stick in the mud, he imagines that people must be forced by a totalitarian society into doing fun things like playing tennis or going to his equivalent of raves where they get high on drugs and dance the night away. A central character named Bernard is supposed to be on the right track when he questions activities like sports as a total waste of time and craves complete solitude in a society that enforces sociability. Funnily enough, a major social problem we actually have is that we are increasingly isolated and home-bound, escaping to our personal devices and self-absorption. We aren't forced to engage in the distractions of technology and media nor to be obsessed with instant gratification--yet we are. In Fahrenheit 451, people continually occupy themselves and speed around in cars and keep little earbuds in their ears, cut off from their own feelings and other people--of their own free will. Sounds a lot more like today's society than Brave New World's dystopia does.

In fact, some aspects of Huxley's world are so antithetical to our current social values as to seem laughably impossible: trying to imagine an America or Britain where women are actively encouraged to be promiscuous, where monogamy is fiercely condemned, and where Christianity is banned and has no influence in our politics or society is next to impossible. Given that satirical science fiction is supposed to criticize current social issues or predict future ones, Huxley's world fails on that front.

There's also the fact the book is quite obviously a product of its time. The continual reference to "Ford" instead of "Lord" became ham-fisted after the third, let alone the tenth and eleventh time. The society's commitment to eliminating sexual repression and Oedipal resentment among the public was reflective of the cultural influence Freud's theories had at the time, which is laughably irrelevant now. John is a picture of Oedipal rage and sexual stuntedness as a result of "uncivilized" society before Huxley's dystopia where everyone else is blissfully free from these hang ups. Nowadays, all of it just seems antiquated.

The book also doesn't feel nearly as cohesive as other dystopias I have read. The society's reverence for Ford and the world controller's discourse about controlling labor read as criticism of capitalism, but the characters being named after Lenin, Marx and Trotsky, as well as the government control of everything imply criticism of communism. And, at first, the book seems to focus on Bernard's coming to consciousness about how messed up the society he lives in is. But the story shifts focus from him to John, a white man raised on a Native American reservation outside of the pristine, controlled dystopia, clumsily doing away with Bernard by exiling him to an island. Not only is the book's depiction of Native Americans deeply inaccurate and racist, but the story's treatment of John is odd: he becomes obsessed with atonement and suffering after accidentally killing his mother and almost having sex with Lenina. The story thus shifts focus from an exploration of the horrors of Huxley's dystopia to mulling over the false dilemma between living in filth, ignorance and misery without any scientific advancement or contentment, or in a totalitarian society enforced through technology, mind control, and sedation. This shift occurs so late into the book as to make the story fail to read as a cohesive cautionary tale OR a worthwhile exploration of a philosophical dilemma.

Then there's the quality of the writing. At times, Brave New World starts to show glimmers of insight or even literary beauty. There's the description of the storm below Lenina and Bernard as they overhead in a helicopter and Lenina just wants to escape to the blue skies of a SOMA drug high. There's a passage about the escapist hedonism of a Huxley dystopia take on a rave which is bizarrely prescient for a book written in the 1930s before electronic music even existed. There's a debate between a controller in the society and a character who reviles everything about the dystopia. But every time the story shows a bit of insight, something laughably hackneyed, absurd or antiquated happens, like a silly moment that reads like slapstick when Bernard runs in to save the day, then stops short, then goes in to help, then stops short again out of cowardice, or a paragraph devoted to describing a reporter stepping out to take an assortment of gadgets from his tin hat just to record an interview.

To be sure, Brave New World is impressive in that it foresees so many advancements all the way back in 1931, from the invention of television to the popularity of insipid blockbuster movies, from test-tube babies to the pervasiveness of vaccinations and sterility. Further, it's obvious many current science fiction borrows from Brave New World, from the divisions of color-coded castes of society to the use of medication to control the masses. Certainly, the book is inventive and groundbreaking in this regard, especially in how the author considers the horrors of technologically-controlled mass reproduction. What is less impressive is Huxley's understanding of people and society. His central characters act less like fully dimensional human beings and more like two dimensional figures in a philosophical thought experiment or fable. Maybe that's the point, but at least in today's society, much of what Huxley has to say isn't incredibly relevant.

Brave New World may have been influential in terms of predicting certain technological advances, as well as providing many of the tropes and foundation for later science fiction, but in my opinion, it is only worth reading in terms of appreciating its place in science fiction canon, not for any social commentary or literary merit it has on its own. ...more

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