Paperback, 310 pages
English language
Published Nov. 7, 1956 by Modern Library.
Originally published in 1932, this outstanding work of literature is more crucial and relevant today than ever before. Cloning, feel-good drugs, antiaging programs, and total social control through politics, programming, and media -- has Aldous Huxley accurately predicted our future? With a storyteller's genius, he weaves these ethical controversies in a compelling narrative that dawns in the year 632 AF (After Ford, the deity). When Lenina and Bernard visit a savage reservation, we experience how Utopia can destroy humanity. A powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations, Brave New World is both a warning to be heeded and thought-provoking yet satisfying entertainment.
I guess it might be the point of the book, but I couldn't feel that any character was real, everything felt stereotypical; while at the same time that "prediction" of the future does not seem plausible to me.
And I repeat, it might be the point of the book, so, if that is the case, then great job. I just did not enjoy it or gained any interesting insight.
I read Brave New World many years ago and decided to re-read it this year. I'd remembered the general storyline but most of the details so it felt fresh, and I'm glad I chose to go back to it because the perspective I have now in my life makes this book even more fascinating. There are layers of meaning in a book that is at once a commentary on our collective past and a disturbingly clear portend of our future. The peace-built-upon-rampant-consumerism setting is chilling in its likeness to where we already are (and where we seem to be headed) as a global society. It's well worth a re-read if you've not picked it up in a while.
It's fun to read futuristic books written a long time ago and see how the conception of the future has changed. A lot of Huxley's world seems quaint, but some of the consumerist bread-and-circuses material is still chillingly accurate.
