Customer Reviews

Brave New World B Format

5 star:		(278)
4 star:		(128)
3 star:		(45)
2 star:		(34)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

I read this book in university and it was one of my favorites. It is such a warped look a utopian society but it is everything we want....isn't it. Casual sex is the norm and the introduction of soma, a drug with no side effects makes the future and adults playground. There is no families, babies are not born, but decanted test tubes. People are born into a specific class, and intellegence is altered. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll just say that I highly recomend reading it if you like dystopic fiction or sience fiction.

I have read this book before but wanted a vintage copy for my book collection. It's basically about a society so organized to the point of control that is crippling to individuals that want live naturally. Sometimes too much order is chaos. The Un's "anti-human" Agenda 21 comes to mind. [...] has other things that we Canadians should be aware of.

Huxley knew way ahead of time where our consumerist society was going and boy, was he spot on. Hard to believe this was published before WW2

With its vivid description of everyday activities such as the "feelie" movies and classification of every human into one of five letter and color groups, Huxley's Brave New World is a fun read for young adults and teens.

The Brave New World is a sort of Utopia, where humans are not born to mothers; they are bred in bottles and slowly travel by way of a huge conveyor belt through various machines during the gestational period. Those babies who will become astronauts spend a majority of time upside-down in the bottles, and those who will work in the jungles are submitted to a higher than normal temperature throughout the process. The embryos which are destined to be in one of the lower classes (Epsilons or Deltas) are purposefully deprived of oxygen so that they will not be "born" too intelligent for their class. In light of the current progressions that we have made with cloning and genetic alteration, it seems that Huxley has shown us one distinctly possible direction that society could wind up taking...

The book begins with a tour through the "decanting" factory.. recently fertilized eggs are artificially multiplied in the "Bokanovsky Process", which can create almost 100 identical embryos from a single egg. The lower classes will be multiplied to the highest degree, while the Alphas (the upper administrative class) will be individuals. The tour continues up to the nurseries where the children are conditioned every day to enjoy their lot in life. Some of this conditioning is done through aversion therapy, while some of it is drilled into the childrens' heads while they sleep. This sort of conditioning is what leads to a perfectly controlled world. (The controlled drug called Soma which is distributed faithfully to the masses doesn't hurt, either).

It is easy to determine which caste one person is in by the color they are wearing; each class wears a different color. The classes range from Alpha (highest) down to Beta, Gamma, Delta, and finally Epsilon. Deltas, for example, wear only khaki and are conditioned to hate books so that they will not waste their time reading. Betas, by contrast, are conditioned to be glad they're smart, but not as smart as Alphas because Alphas work too hard.

The older folks are so ingrained with these thoughts that they know nothing but happiness with their lives, regardless of whether they are the hard labor force or in one of the upper classes. However, the people in charge, as a result of knowing what is actually going on, can become a little bit jaded. When one "Alpha" decides to take a holiday, he sneaks off to a reservation of "savages" (folks who don't want any part of the Brave New World's society) and sees his illegitimate son. This is soon discovered, and he is brought forth before a committee which is shocked because they consider natural birth to be downright barbaric. The mother and son are brought into the "civilized" society, and everything quickly falls apart.

This book is fascinating in every way, from the colorful images that Huxley paints for the reader, to the parallels it draws to our current society. Brave New World is absolutely a must-read for anyone who is old enough to understand the implications, but try it for yourself! Pick up a copy! Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to the science fiction, but very much on my mind since I purchased a "used" copy off Amazon is "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, a fun, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about.

I shouldn't fault Huxley for the fact that this book is so often classified with George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" -- but I can't conceal my disappointment. "Nineteen Eighty-Four" was a frighteningly convincing Dystopian nightmare and a damn good story; "Brave New World" is a vaguely sketched fable with far too little background or character development (and far too many self-conscious references to Shakespeare). Huxley devises a potentially fascinating world which could be used as a setting for any number of engaging, thought-provoking plot lines -- and then fails to deliver one. The ending (which I won't reveal) could be foreseen well in advance; it seemed like little more than a last-ditch attempt to make the story interesting.

It's fashionable and, I think, considered "deep" to read a book like this and say "how prophetic" or "look, it's actually happening!" It's also disingenuous. Many reviewers have said something like "see, people today take drugs and watch silly movies for escapist entertainment -- Huxley's Utopia is just around the corner!" But people in Huxley's day also took drugs (he specifically mentions cocaine and alcohol abuse) and partook of the escapist entertainment of their day. The crux of Huxley's dystopian vision wasn't free love or happiness through chemicals -- these were just enablers, like Roman bread and circuses -- but the conditioning, since before birth, of each person to fill a pre-ordained role in society; in effect, the elimination of free will regarding one's lot in life. Thankfully, this nightmare is no closer today than it was in Huxley's time -- indeed, with Communism and the attendant evils of Stalinist-era collectivization all but dead, it's more remote than ever.

I like books that show the corruption of society: You know the ones I’m talking about—“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” or McCrae’s “Katzenjammer” which exposes corporate greed and New York City’s strageness. So I gravitated naturally to “Brave New World.” A sex-crazed world who thinks it's animal-like to have children naturally. I love the idea of a class system from the super-human double alpha plus to the grovelling Epsilon-Minus. And Soma, "a gramme is better than a damn." The freaky part about that drug is that something very similar to that now. And it doesn't make you happy, but sort of clueless, like an infant curious about the world. My favourite quote is from Benard Marx, as he refers to the way men talk about women, "As if they were a piece of meat."---showing just how bad society has gotten---and it has. And this is why I like Brave New World, even more so than 1984. Whereas Orwell warns of a totalitaranism based on perpetual war causing the poverty of a ration economy at home, Huxley examines a social control built on plenty or an illusion of plenty. One might then say that the works of these two men are opposite sides of the same coin in that Orwell's work is a warning against communist totalitarianism and Huxley's work warns us of a capitalist variant that is just as dangerous and certainly more relevant, at least to our own society.

Must also recommend: Jackson T. McCrae’s “Katzenjammer” which is VERY well-written, funny, disturbing, and informative.

Aldous Huxley's classic book, "Brave New World," is very interesting and such a profound read. This book should be strongly recommended.

In a way, this book is prophetic. While it is considered a science fiction, it remarkably parallel to that of today's world. Projecting suggestions through our sleeps are one of modes of mind control.

Today, we are all been subject constantly to 'suggestions' to one form or another, including a controlled media. And, we are ignoring the madness and believing in the lies brought forth by our so-called 'leaders' through the media. They can even seep the 'suggestions' through education, through televisions, through strobe lights, and through any media of sorts. And, we do not have a strong psychological resistance to these suggestions.

There is very important quote from this book that speaks of mind control:

"Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too - all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides is made up of these suggestions. But these suggestions are our suggestions...suggestions from the State."

Brave New World is similar to George Orwell's "1984" in term of bureaucratized society where one lost self-identity and under a complete control of the state. Both "1984" and Brave New World do indeed had an impact on me as well anyone else in reading them.

Huxley's book is strongly recommended and receive more than five stars because it holds the real warning...

It's difficult to believe that Aldous Huxley penned this book at some point prior to its publication year of 1932, because so many issues raised in Brave New World are hot-button topics today (genetic engineering, sex and relationships, individual versus society and so on). Although the reading may seem laborious to some, by the time John the Savage enters the fray surely anyone who enjoys literature will be fascinated by the juxtaposition of two quite different societies, and the hilarious satire that results -- sometimes subtle, other times quite overt! If you haven't read this one yet, please do so. Sometimes it's a bit challenging, but well worth the effort in the end.

I read this because it was assigned reading during a high-school English class. It was the first of many distopian novels that remember reading in my late teens / early twenties. I believe this novel still has so much to teach and its themes are very important for all of us to consider.

While this personally did not have the impact on me that '1984' nor 'The Handmaiden's Tale' did, it is a quality allegory that should be read by everyone who is concerned about the future of mankind. Huxley presents a series of characters who change in their level of importance as the story progresses but, in the end, we are left with a sobering message about the potential outcome of any political/social/religious extreme if it is lived out to its ultimate limit. The world of complete ease, sexuality and consumerism leads to a life without inner meaning and emptiness. The world of totalitarianism and dogmatic religiosity leads to a life of self-guilt and suffering that goes on without end. The other key message that the author brings out is the fact that there is a great deal of difference between thinking and pondering personal and social change and the actual mechanism of acting on these thoughts and bringing this change about.