Island

BRAVE New World is one of my all time favourite books so when I bought this one it seemed like a no-brainer. Island is a really interesting and thought-provoking book. A word of warning to anyone considering reading this though... this isn't your typical story; there is no real complication, it is a series of philosophical ponderings surrounding the main character. I loved it but I know it is not for everyone. I found that the story got me thinking a lot and I often had to pause to consider what I had read. This book took me a long time to get through because I could never sit down and read a hundred pages- I had to have breaks. It's a really great book and whilst it is not as good as Brave New World (in my eyes at least) I would recommend it to any Huxley fans.

The Island is supposed to be a classic – not on the same playing field as A Brave New World – but nevertheless, one of Huxley’s more established works. So, it was with anticipation that I began reading this book, after having read and been wowed by A Brave New World. 20 pages into the book, I realized this was in no way near the excitement I had anticipated, 40 pages into the book and I realized how bored I was and I started doing something I rarely ever do when reading a novel – skipping lines. 60 pages into the book, I thought if the writing became any stiffer than this, I’d snap in two. Well, I persevered to a 100 pages before quitting. The writing was dry and overly intellectual. At no point did I feel that the author was engaging me as a reader and taking me along on this journey. If anything, I’d think Huxley didn’t give a damn where the reader stood. A shame.

The story, what little I got of it, has to do with a journalist who is also engaged in a business deal against rivals for an oil deal in the unknown utopia called Pala. Huxley gives his vision of an island utopia and how foreign powers are suddenly interested in this new place because of its potential for oil. Naturally, the people and the leaders are divided between preserving tradition versus the desire for untold wealth from oil drilling. Academically, with all its explanations and medical analogies, this book would make for a great essay or lecture; fictionally, though, Huxley has a long way to go to convince me of the narrative quality here and the expository dialog.

All about Soma which is like all about this totally cool combo of prozac and more psychoactively intense "medications" . . . read it in the passenger seat of a VW Golf driving back east from California after high-school graduation during the First Bush's reign of terror. Think I finished it by Cheyenne. Way enjoyable.

This is a book to read and re-read for the philosophical and spiritual issues that it examines. The utopia of Pala is examined by an outsider, much like ourselves. Will has been brought up through the typical patriarchal pedagogy, which resents and demeans anything different.

He learns to embrace a parallel if not complementary way of living. The Palanese integrate teachings across philosophies (not just religions) of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity and accept the spectrum of individuals (muscle men, peter pans) but find ways to allow peaceful interaction. There is no monopolistic forcing of one's ways on others but continuously appropriate and attentive choices made by an intellectually and humanely informed population, all the way from children to adults.

This book gets at an essential that many of us have not taken the time to absorb - but that is evident in the background should we choose to make the effort to observe it - like the saying the democracy depends on a well informed electorate and Albert Einstein's quote: "peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding."

I choose to believe that the ending is just the future truth being revealed by the moksha-medicine, and that Will wakes up and takes actions that allow the little heaven on earth to still be in existence, resilient to the ever-present outside forces trying to get in and corrupt/conquer. It harks to the daily fight each of us undergoes since we were born. That is the beauty of the ending - you can make up your own!

Let me open the review with a bold but defensible statement: This work has no literary merit. This "sci-fi" (Huxley couple were not happy that this work was considered a science fiction) utopian novel is a vehicle to deliver what Huxley believed to be The answer to one of the most critical questions of our existence - we know the present value systems are fucked up but what is the alternative? The Island, Pala, is where Huxley materializes in words his vision, relying and borrowing heavily from Eastern religious philosophies, particularly those of Buddhism and Hinduism.
The systems suggested are ingenious as such (even while they are derivative) and thought provoking, if the book is an initiation to the alternate world-views presented here (and the book did serve as an introduction for much of the western audience at that time). I was extremely skeptical of the book's promise after being disappointed by the overenthusiam of Huxley in The Doors of Perception, but here, Huxley shows he is not just an enthusiast but a true intellectual, that his understanding of the spiritual philosophies is not a mere fascination of its promises and mysteries and the rich metaphysics. Thus, what could have been a ridiculous/didactic/dull work, becomes a serious suggestion for the reader's consideration. Add to that Huxley's insights into the Western man's (or at least the Western-man-of-that-time's - the Hero's) innate dilemmas and insecurities and their root causes. To profess a final answer to any question one must first have a deep understanding of the question itself. This Huxley exhibits with careful sensitivity, as much as an exhibition of careful sensitivity is permitted by the novel's form/genre.
Also, while the book may not be read for fun alone it is a lot of fun. Some of the side characters are caricatured, the dialogues are often witty and the hero has a self-acerbic humor. This helps while the reader is being educated.

Reading this will remind you of Avatar, of Dances with the Wolves, of Razor's Edge. It will also remind you very much of the movie Mindwalk, provided you have seen it (chances are you haven't and I highly recommend it if you haven't). So, if you know what you are going for and are still curious/open-minded, go for it.

The book was a dying man's earnest attempt to show the troubled world what he thought was a glimmer of hope.
I believe in this hope.

Whatever the precise definition of the “novel” concept might be, it certainly does not hold “Island” as its epitome. It is comprehensible.

After the release of the acclaimed dystopia known as “Brave New World”, Huxley’s name became forever imprinted into the respectable hall of fame of science fiction writing, which might have hindered his prospects into finding other ways to convey his own opinions. In “Island”, the reader is overcome with the feeling that he might have been coerced into masquerading the book’s message as a “novel”. Despite it, the book reveals tremendous intellectual achievement, and it is efficient in attaining its ultimate goal: to cogently spread an alternative approach to the entire scheme of contemporary life.

In order to accomplish this monstrous task, Huxley utilizes his immense knowledge on the fields of oriental philosophy. He creates the character of Wll Farnaby, a journalist from an England newspaper, and sends him on his way to Pala, an isolated island over the coast of Asia, on a journey is one of discovery and enlightenment. Once in there, he finds the natives friendly and surprisingly hospitable. Their purpose is to edify his perceptions, and change his true nature. Together, the palanese (Huxley himself) attempt to imprint within his mind their own interpretation of reality.

Huxley’s tale about a utopian society based in oriental philosophy is not a fictional narrative in its traditional sense. It is, instead, a brilliant, creative, and mind warping essay about the current state of occidental civilization.

"Attention!" This is exactly the kind of book the world needs right now, perhaps more relevant today than it was upon its publication in 1962.

Looking out the window, at the smoke-filled skies, the streets full of protesters, the degradation of social and democratic norms, one can't help but feel we're on a precipice of sorts. Every day seems to bring with it more horrors than the last. Who can help but look ahead and grimace at the thought of what is still to come?

Imagine that last year at this time you got a glimpse into the world of today, a view onto the marches and the masks, at the division tearing at us all. It would be horrifying, to say the least. It's perhaps even more horrifying that today, we're almost used to it. We've become exhausted by it all, desensitized. We can't move but are paralyzed and rubbed so raw by the actions taking place all around us that we can only sprawl, exhausted and immobile, at the damage being done.

I saw a gif the other day of a woman stepping out of her house only to see government buildings exploding in front of her in a scene out of the 1996 film "Independence Day." She nonchalantly waves it off and goes back inside.

You'll see a lot of criticism of "Island" based on the fact that many believe it to not be a "novel" at all. But how would they know? What is a novel, anyway? Is Elena Ferrante's "Neapolitan Quartet" novels? Is Karl Ove Knausgaard's largely autobiographical "My Struggle" series novels?

The concept of the novel has been evolving as long as the novel itself has existed. You can find valid arguments that the works of Homer really aren't novels, that Cervantes' "Don Quixote" isn't a novel, and so on.

Is "Island" really a philosophical treatise masquerading as a novel? So what if it is? What is a "novel" if not something needing to be said packaged as something else? I don't think "Island" should be judged harshly on that account. Rather, the general definition of a novel is that of an at least vaguely fictional premise and/or fictional characters. By that standard, "Island" more than fits.

Throw in the fact that "Island" is as captivating as anything you might find on the "Fiction" shelf at your local bookstore, and I'd say that "Island" is a successful "novel," all the more so because it leaves you changed, or at least gives you something to think about.

Here, Aldous Huxley imagines a utopian society and the threat that encroachment from the outside world presents to it. To my mind, Huxley diagnoses what ills modern society perfectly. Largely, materialism and dogmatism, particularly as it concerns religion.

There are so many absolutely brilliant exchanges throughout the book, but one of my favorites comes in the form of children in a field who are controlling scarecrows in an effort to protect the land. The scarecrows have all been created in the likenesses of various deities.

Will Farnaby, our shipwrecked capitalist who's washed ashore on this strange utopian landscape asks his hosts what the purpose of such a display is.

We "wanted to make the children understand that all gods are homemade, and that it’s we who pull their strings and so give them the power to pull ours.”

In another exchange, corporal punishment is criticized as destroying children's creativity.

“Major premise: God is wholly other. Minor premise: man is totally depraved. Conclusion: Do to your children’s bottoms what was done to yours, what your Heavenly Father has been doing to the collective bottom of humanity ever since the fall: whip, whip, whip!"

In short, "A people’s theology reflects the state of its children’s bottoms.”

I could quote this book all day, there is so very much to take away. But perhaps nothing more so than that which is repeated ad infinitum by Pala's mynah birds.

"Attention! Attention! Here and now, boys!"

It may be that, right now, we're on the precipice of something great, or something horrible. It may be that, years from now, we'll have the ability to look back and say that we had already tipped over the edge of that precipice and that today, September 25, 2020, we were already falling fast down the other side.

Regardless of which side of the divide we may be on, looking ahead or looking back is futile.

The only thing we can do is take action and pay attention to the here and now.

I'm not even finished with this and already it has had a profound effect on me. I resonate with this book like Cat's Cradle or Stranger in a Strange Land. It will take me two or three more reads—at least—to grok it in fullness, but it already feels as if some of the thoughts were for me, some of me. It's been a very long time since I fell so profoundly in love with a book, and it's a delicious, delightful, very spiritual experience.