Sometimes a book just isn’t what you want it to be.

There is little doubt that Brave New World is a genre classic, heavily contributing to defining the dystopian genre. There is just as little doubt that Aldous Huxley was an important influence on some of the writers I respect the most, among them George Orwell and Steven Runciman, both of whom were Huxley’s students at the University of Cambridge.

Unfortunately, I found nothing to appreciate about it.

Maybe my general distaste for dystopia hit me like a wave. That is certainly a possible explanation. Maybe I was too stunned by the elegance and the hauntingly powerful message sent by 1984, which, in my humble opinion, is a far better book than this.

To me, this was a very slow book containing completely uninteresting characters, an unrealistic dystopian scenario, and writing that was neither engaging nor enchanting. I would have stopped reading long ago were it not for the fact that this book is such a classic.

That is also why I am giving it a higher rating than what I feel it deserves. Because it was an important book when it was first released, because it has remained so through the years, and because it contributed to building the foundation that so many later books of considerably higher quality now stand on.

“Un mundo feliz” es una de las tres distopías más conocidas que uno pueda leer junto con 1984 y Fahrenheit 451, y para mí, más allá del mundo futurista que Aldous Huxley creó, y anticipó en ¡1931!, es de todas la que menos me atrajo.
Tal vez será porque la sociedad que muestra Huxley en este libro no es tan opresiva y violenta como la de 1984 ni tan persecutoria como la de Fahrenheit. De todo modos, es increíble descubrir como el autor adelanta con tanta precisión los avances tecnológicos de nuestros tiempos. Por citar un caso: los bebés son concebidos “in vitro”, agregando el detalle fantástico de que se producen a escala industrial, pero con esto Huxley anticipó brillantemente un progreso científico de nuestros días: la clonación. Ya no existe más la condición biológica natural en las figuras de "madre" y "padre".
Luego de una guerra cataclísmica el viejo mundo desaparece para darle vida a este otro mundo “feliz”, borrando las creencias religiosas y a Dios como principio de toda fe. Ahora es Ford quien se erige como ser supremo, aunque nunca sabemos quién es Ford fehacientemente, uno lo imagina como un Gran Hermano más suave, elevado un nivel de gurú espiritual y fundador de una nueva religión, pero no queda claro si es eso o unas especie de gobernante supremo de un mundo en paz, puesto que ya no hay más guerras.
Lo que sí sabemos es que sustituye a Dios ante exclamaciones como ¡Por Ford!, por ejemplo.
Esta distopía no es tan negativa como en los otros libros, aunque lo negativo surge al ver cómo está ordenadas las distintas castas sociales, que va de gestar científicamente y clasificar a los seres humanos de de los de clase alta, los Alfa (y as su vez en sub-categorías Más y Menos), hasta los Epsilon, abandonados a creados a tareas propias de la servidumbre y cierta especie de esclavitud (de hecho son seres a los que les falta incluso parte de la cara o miembros).
La vida fácil que llevan, se ve en Lenina, está hecha para no tener sobresaltos ni emociones violenta, salvo cuando se las auto imponen a través de drogas sintéticas, ni que hablar del “soma”, esa especie de “painkiller” que necesitan consumir constantemente para evitar sentimientos depresivos o melancólicos.
Esta droga se basa en un planta, también denominada soma, que utilizaban los bráhmanes de la época védica en la India (dato tomado de Wikipedia). En la novela se dice que "un gramo de soma cura diez sentimientos melancólicos y que tiene todas las ventajas del cristianismo y del alcohol, sin ninguno de sus efectos secundarios". Hasta ese punto han rebajado sus necesidades de satisfacción.
Y claro, como en toda distopía, hay personajes que no concuerdan o se salen del patrón establecido y este es el caso de Bernard Marx (con ese apellido era lógico que iba a trascender en la historia), todo por culpa de algo de alcohol derramado en el sucedáneo en vez de sangre. Él es una anomalía, un ser "mestizo" dentro de tanta perfección sintética y ello le acarreará problemas.
Como sucede con Winston Smith en 1984 y Guy Montag en Fahrenheit, su interacción con el poder y el orden establecido será contradictoria, complicada y desafiante.
Otro personaje totalmente opuesto a todo lo que leemos en la primera mitad es el que surge de la visita de Lenina y Bernard a Malpaís, que es un sector olvidado, una reserva india de la época previa a la revolución y en el que viven personas como en la antigüedad, olvidadas a la buena de Dios. Allí conocerán a John, el "salvaje", a su madre "Linda" y este descubrimiento los llevará a más de una peripecia en la historia que no pienso ni debo develar.
En resumidas cuentas, como toda novela distópica, nos encontramos con sociedades no deseadas, gobiernos totalmente opuestos a lo que conocemos y sociedades inmersas en una serie de condiciones adversas, ya que en este caso, por más confort y comodidades que posean, por más perfectos que hayan sido "producidos", la mayoría de los personajes, con excepción de Bernard, John y Linda, desde su concepción fallan en la parte más importante que tenemos todos: la de ser humanos.

I finally managed to finish the dystopian classics triangle - 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Brave new World. For me the winner is Brave New World. Although I find the world imagined is less realistic than the other two it is equally tragic.

I finally got that somewhat lost feeling of total happiness when reading a book, that tingle in the pleasure receptors when you find a great book. Even though I recently read many books that I loved I seem to have lost that feeling of satisfaction when being face to face with an IT book. I thought the reason was that I started to read more, a lot more. Before Goodreads I used to read 10-15 book/year max so I had more time to enjoy a book, to get lost in it. Although I was happy that I read more and that I managed to finish books that I wanted to read for a long time the intensity of the feelings that reading stir in me had diminished. I am so elated that I can still get immersed in a book with all my being. I am so happy that I realized the problem is not how many books I read but what I read and the relationship I build with that book/author. I’ll keep reading when/what/how much I want to knowing that from time to time (probably once-twice/year) I will find that book that will make me remember why I read.

When I started BNW I thought that it was going to be another one of those books that you know they are a work of art an appreciate them but in the same time are not very pleasant to read. Something like the Hunger by Hamsun or The Stranger by Camus. The beginning was really uncomfortable, especially the descriptions of the embryos and the erotic child games. Brrr. My hair stood up reading that. However, I quickly got absorbed and loved every second spent reading.

As a teenager I went through a period of reading a vast number of distopian novels - probably all the teenage angst. This is the one that has continued to haunt me however, long after the my youthful cynicism has died it's death. It's basically a book about the utopian ideal - everyone's happy, everyone has what they want and EVERYTHING is based on logical principles. However, there is something very rotten at the heart. It's about how what we want isn't always what we should get. It looks at how state sponsered "happiness" can entirely miss the point. Perhaps, most importantly, it makes the case for individual freedom rather than authoritarian diktat. It should be read hand in hand with Mill's Utilitarianism to get a good idea of the philosophy that inspired it.

Incidentally, I gave this book to my boyfriend as a present for his 18th birthday ( a rather depressing gift I know). At the time he wasn't particularly freaked out by it and said that it didn't hold the same level of dread as say, 1984 or "The Handmaid's Tale". As he's got older however, he's found the idea more and more frightening. Six years later it has more of a sting in the tail for him. I don't know why this should be but I'll hazard a guess that as you get older you're idea of "happiness" becomes perhaps more complex, making the ideal of "Brave New World" even more disturbing.

عالم جديد.. بائس وتعيس
صورة للمستقبل في عالم يطبع البشر في نسخ متشابهة
ولا يعترف بالإرادة والرغبات الفردية والعلاقات الانسانية
الرفاهية والمتعة والعلم في مقابل الحرمان من الحرية والفكر والمشاعر
فكرة ممتازة لرواية نُشرت عام 1932

This book is on many a top 100 reading list. Aldous Huxley has the reputation of being an intellectual giant. His heritage places him in the land of England, the place where all of the great literary giants come. A Brave New World unfortunately does not live up to the credits,pedigree or even the cult following that chases after it.

Summary: In a nutshell this book is a mess. I am assuming that the majority of individuals that rate this book high on a novel list or 5 star it on here on amazon do so simply because A Brave New World is filled with satire in a dystopian society. Unfortunately for me that is not enough to warrant a five star rating.
Inconsistent plot line runs through this book. The main character "Savage" does not show up until half way through the book. All of the character names are a play on words. The book takes as many shots as it can at the American Capitalist engine.

The big negative for me is that it is just unbelievable. Savage, essentially an uneducated or "home schooled" Indian has a high level intellectual conversation with the main antaganist Mustaph Mond.
Breakdown Review:
Storyline: I give 1 out of 5 stars due to unbelievability.

Writing style: 3 out of 5 stars. The satire somewhat works and the writing style itself doesn't fit into the genious category.

Depth/Inspiration: 4 out of 5 stars. Despite the flaws this book is bound to inspire the creative gene in others. Unfortunately the humanistic undertones will lead many an individual down slippery slopes

Entertainment/Education value: 1 out of 5 stars. Not as entertaining as the hype behind the book and the writer. I do not see any education value in this book aside from how to write satire or how to write a novel to inspire a nation of conspiracy theorists.

I keep thinking about this book. So, I decided to update my review.

Edit (1/26/23):

Brave New World is most haunting in it's prophetic vision of the progressive world, considering that it was written nearly a century ago. A lot of the themes are more relevant than ever as we are dealing with them in our time more directly. As we become our own gods through technological advancement with the ability to mold nature to our will, can we use it to also change our very own nature? What are the ramifications of that? Does the sexualization of our society through the move toward casual sex and pornography (sexuality in general in a more public sphere) outside of a patriarchal relationship remove any transcendent significance that sex held in that framework? Sex in Brave New World is a merely pleasant biological function, it has no connection to something transcendental like love. Are we headed in that direction? I think that leads to the heart of the matter for Huxley. Progressive ideals rob humanity of any transcendent meaning by exchanging the transcendent in favor of the unremarkable. This quote from Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind colorfully illustrates how these themes of Huxley's are relative to us today (even more so to us today this book was written in the 80s).

“Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones and watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy."

Whether in work, leisure, life, or death, the goal is to maintain the highest level of pleasure as possible in our humanist and self-absorbed lives which we think to be happiness, and in our society happiness has been made the end goal. Happiness equated most often to the pleasure by which it is achieved. When there is no transcendent principle or external cause to the world, and when the process of life production is contained in life itself we lose any and all purpose except to simply pursue our own happiness and bask in pleasure. This is also very well illustrated in what and who our culture makes out to be it's heroes. In the past humanity has always lifted up the exceptional, whether in art, deed, thought or spirituality. We looked to those who could help us to be better people, we looked to those who helped us perfect our souls, and that was reflected in the ones we made out to be the greats. Now our heroes have descended into the mundane where purely biological pleasure has made the most famous people of our time unremarkable women endowed in their backsides.

(Book 649 From 1001 Books) - Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley. Published in 1932.

The novel opens in the World State city of London in AF (After Ford) 632 (AD 2540 in the Gregorian calendar), where citizens are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes (or castes) based on intelligence and labor.

Lenina Crowne, a hatchery worker, is popular and sexually desirable, but Bernard Marx, a psychologist, is not.

He is shorter in stature than the average member of his high caste, which gives him an inferiority complex.

His work with sleep-learning allows him to understand, and disapprove of, his society's methods of keeping its citizens peaceful, which includes their constant consumption of a soothing, happiness-producing drug called Soma.

Courting disaster, Bernard is vocal and arrogant about his criticisms, and his boss contemplates exiling him to Iceland because of his nonconformity. His only friend is Helmholtz Watson, a gifted writer who finds it difficult to use his talents creatively in their pain-free society. ...

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «دنیای قشنگ نو»؛ «دنیای شگفت انگیز نو»؛ نویسنده: آلدوس هاکسلی؛ (پیام ، نیلوفر) ادبیات؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز سوم ماه آوریل سال 2000میلادی

عنوان: دنیای قشنگ نو؛ نویسنده: آلدوس هاکسلی؛ مترجم: سعید حمیدیان؛ تهران، پیام، 1352؛ در 268ص؛ چاپ دیگر: تهران، نشر واژه، 1368، در 267ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، نیلوفر، 1378، در 295ص؛ شابک: 9644480686؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان انگلیسی - سده ی 20م

عنوان: دنیای شگفت انگیز نو؛ نویسنده: آلدوس هاکسلی؛ مترجم: حشمت الله صباغی؛ حسن کاویار؛ تهران، کارگاه هنر، 1366؛ در 281ص؛

عنوان: دنیای شگفت انگیز نو؛ نویسنده: آلدوس هاکسلی؛ مترجم: رضا فاطمی؛ تهران، سمیر، 1390؛ در 312ص؛

رمانی علمی تخیلیِ است، که در سال 1932میلادی، به قلم «آلدوس هاکسلی»، نویسنده «انگلیسی» منتشر شده‌؛ داستانی خیالی، درباره ی اینکه در سال 2540میلادی، انسانها را کارخانه ها تولید، و اوضاع دنیا ثابت است، و مردمان خوشبخت هستند، از پیری خبری نیست، ...، و در بخشهای پایانی، «هاکسلی» با دیالوگهایی که از نمایشنامه های «شکسپیر»، بازنگاری کرده (عنوان رمان را نیز از نمایشنامه «طوفان» اثر «ویلیام شکسپیر» برگرفته)، و ...؛ انگار هنوز داستان ادامه دارد.؛

نویسنده با شیوه‌ ای سرشار از طنز، و آفرینشهای ادبی، سیر تمدن، و فرهنگ مغرب زمین را، به باد نقد می‌گیرند، و جهات منفی و زیانمند آن را برای جامعه بشری، و کرامت انسانی با واژه های خویش می‌آرایند؛ «هاکسلی» داستان را در ظرف زمانی چند صد سال پس از امروز در خیال خویش می‌پرورد، تا جنبه ی پیش‌گویی، در باب سرشت، و سرنوشت انسان آینده را، به خود گیرد؛ چنانکه مبدا تاریخ را نیز از راه طنز «ب.ف = بعد از فورد» برمیگزینند، زیرا، در جامعه ی مورد اشاره ی ایشان، همه چیز بر مدار کژراهه ی علم‌زدگی، و سلطه ی ماشین قرار دارد، و بی‌تردید در چنان جامعه‌ ای، نقش پیشگامان راه سعادت و رستگاری بشر، در رتبه ی کسانی همچون «هنری فورد» آرفینشگر اتوموبیل، فرو کاسته شده، و انسان‌ها نیز با همه ی بزرگواری‌های خویش، به آدمک‌هایی بدل می‌گردند، و در چند گروه «آلفا»، «بتا»، «گاما» و «اپسیلون» بر حسب ویژگی‌های سازمانی و نوع استفاده‌ ای که از هر گروه انتظار می‌رود، هستند؛ در نظامی از این دست، به‌ رغم اینکه همگی آدمک‌ها، در حقارت اشتراک دارند، گروه های گوناگون، بر اساس قوانین سخت‌گیرانه، و تغییرناپذیر، از هم جدا گشته، و با نگرش طبقاتی شدید، به صورت «کاست» و «آپارتاید» اداره می‌شوند؛ تغذیه ی آنان از راه گوش، و به یاری دستگاه‌هایی صوتی است، که از همان ابتدای تولید، و در شیرخوارگاه، بر روی بالش تعبیه شده، تا در زمان خواب، تلقینات بزرگان را، در گوششان فرو خواند، و چنان ملکه ی ذهن آنان شود، که آن آموزه‌ها را، همچون دستگاه پخش صوت، بی‌اراده بازگو کنند؛ در یک چنین جامعه‌ ای، انسان طبیعی، و برخوردار از مکارم بشری، و انگیزه‌های طبیعی، محکوم به فناست؛ منتقدان برآنند، که «هاکسلی» با طنز تلخ، و بدبینانه ی خویش، هم نظام‌های سرمایه‌ داری، و هم حکومت‌های «کمونیستی»، و به طور کلی نظام‌های توتالیتر را، یکجا آماج انتقاد خویش قرار داده اند؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 24/05/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 06/05/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

First published in 1932, this modern classic, although not the first dystopian novel, probably had the biggest impact? First, via a tour of the Central Hatchery and Conditioning centre Huxley gives you the core of the this supposed utopia - laboratory egg fertilisation, fetal development and conditioning, including pre-ordained societal status from 'Alphas' down to 'Epsilons'. One of the more powerful things about this work, is although we can see it's terrible from our world viewpoint, we can also see how for the majority living in this reality, it really is a utopia!

Huxley goes on to tell the stories of a few characters who are not fulfilled as a way to further share the nature of this reality and more explicitly, detail its failings. A society by the way, where mass cloning of genetically engineered and conditioned lesser beings are used to produce and contain the worker classes.

How did the book make me feel?
For a book written in 1932 the detail in which Huxley built this dystopia is breathtaking; although not to dissimilar in many cases to what was about to happen in NAZI Germany! I also liked the building of the era's earlier history and development; and how it also showed that not all people adhered to enforced status quo. The only sleight I have on this book, is the language and behaviour of main protagonist 'John', whose behaviour I feel didn't really make sense in light of how and where he was born and 'educated'. Overall the book still stands up today, I dearly wanted to see what would happen next and where would the individual naysayers end up. 8 out of 12, up a point from my previous read.

Back in high school, one of the teachers brought a little sample from this book, and I found it totally captivating. Terrifying but at the same captivating.

So, I went back to it.

n  “One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”
n

The beginning is totally the strongest part of this book, as it progresses, it goes a bit down. But at the same time, I think that the beginning is the hardest to get over. The world is being introduced to us in a rather raw way which definitely has the potential to make people uneasy. And while it was hard to read but it was also fascinating in a way. You do not like what you see, but you cannot look away.

However, the book gave me chills; it's definitely not a "summer-read", it's quite a bit to unpack and get over what's happening.

Side note, I just hope that no one ever looks at this book and thinks that it's a great idea. THAT would be terrifying.

DNF 40%
Kiedyś do niej wrócę

Update: Wróciłam i w ogóle nie czuje tej książki. Zamysł świetny, ale styl nie mój.
Bez oceny, bo nie czuję się do tego kompetentna.

I first read Brave New World many years (decades) ago in high school, and I remember thinking it was really interesting at the time. Well, I must have been a doofus back then because this reread just didn't live up to expectations. To be honest, my impression now is that it's all a bit of a mess.

First, who exactly are the main characters here? We start following a few people, but end up focusing on someone else entirely. None of the characters are particularly sympathetic, not even the supposedly enlightened "savage" man from outside this world. And this savage man, even though he had a bit of homeschooling in the middle of nowhere, can converse on a superior level with the Controller of Western Europe upon meeting him. (Cue eye-rolling.)

The story relies heavily on Shakespeare quotes to make its point, often devolving into random ramblings for pages at a time. In a whole chapter devoted to discussions on religion, it clearly implies that turning one's back on religion causes a society to melt down into dystopia. (More eye-rolling.)

And on top of that, the part that annoys me the most is its treatment of the female main character. The "savage" calls her a whore every time he feels attracted to her and goes so far as to physically attack her, since it's obviously her fault for tempting him. I know this was written in the 1930s, so maybe this sort of rape-culture thinking was the norm back then, but it doesn't make reading it now any less offensive.

I'll be generous and give it 3 stars for being a classic with some interesting ideas about dystopian society. But if I were to rank it against books out there today, it's not worth more than 2 stars. Womp womp.