From the Bookshelf of BBC Big Read 2021…

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

Why we're reading this: read this before a while back, but i greatly enjoyed it and would love to go through it again
[close] read this before a while back, but i greatly enjoyed it and would love to go through it again

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Mar 17, 2021 Daniela rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, dystopia, favorites, mind-blowing, sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A lot of comparisons have been built between Aldous Huxley's dystopia and George Orwell's 1984. At first, I could not understand why. The Orwellian world seemed to be much more about language and politics while Huxley's take on the genre appeared to be about the positivist misusage of science and progress as they were perceived during the last years of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th - a period most dominated by the beginnings of what would become the capitalization of both We A lot of comparisons have been built between Aldous Huxley's dystopia and George Orwell's 1984. At first, I could not understand why. The Orwellian world seemed to be much more about language and politics while Huxley's take on the genre appeared to be about the positivist misusage of science and progress as they were perceived during the last years of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th - a period most dominated by the beginnings of what would become the capitalization of both Western economy and society. Halfway through BNW, I realized how wrongly I had been interpreting it and went back from the start - a decision I do not regret, now that it is finished and I can think about it as a whole. As Neil Postman clarifies:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

If 1984 makes me shiver because of its foretelling possibilities, Brave New World makes me shiver because what it describes is already happening on several fronts. Each of the type characters we meet in this scientocracy and on Malpais represents a portion of human beings that already exist. Whether it be Bernard, the shallow non-conformist, the unaccomplished "academic" Helmholtz, or even the morally strict John, who refuses to go beyond his own naïveté but winds up ostracised by both factions, believing that must purify himself of "sin" - those are parts of human nature, which is multiple and exciting. Even if "Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t"( as stated by the Controller), even if happiness means sacrifice easiness, youth, and stability, even if it means dying painfully of old age. This would give a terrific handful of essays, but I shall stop for now and leave it in John's own words:

‘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.’
‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’
‘All right, then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’

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