Brave New World
Description
Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress... Huxley's ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.
My Thoughts
Brave New World is a classic of the futuristic novel, already more than 40 years old, but whose questions are still relevant today.
Huxley presents us with a dystopia, an apparently perfect world whose inhabitants are prisoners, without freedom or choice.
It deals mainly with bioethics and the study of biodiversity, highly contemporary debates. Man never ceases to wonder about his origins, and now that he knows a little more, starts to play with biology by attempting to artificially reproduce the mechanisms of natural selection and reproduction.
He also deals with a more complex subject: happiness. Huxley shows us that even if our world is not perfect, it is a world that allows us to be happy. However, this vision is not shared by the World Controllers, at the helm of this supposedly perfect world.
"You can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're well off; they're safe; they're never ill; they're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagued with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave."
The narrative is sympathetic and this book is not a philosophical book, it's a novel. In other words, the plot is well thought out, the characters have their own identity, even if they follow archetypes, etc.
In short, this book is visionary and, above all, frightening. The credibility of the scenario makes it easy to imagine yourself in the place of the characters, in this tasteless, soulless world.
To Read or Not to Read
I loved this book and the reflection it provoked. If you're interested in the themes I mentioned above, I recommend this book.
Related Notes
META
Status:: #wiki/references/book
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Author:: Aldous Huxley
Year:: 2004
Priority:: 3
Consumed:: true
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Rating:: 7
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