Tuesday, November 3, 2009

O brave new world.. A grammes better than a damn

If you haven't read any Huxley the a good one to start with is Brave New World. This isn't my first reading of it, but I pickup more understanding each time through.

The book was written in the 30's but is still very timely. While it is Sci-Fi, the technology is most likely already in place to make it a reality.

The most disturbing bit of this book is the "inculturation" that is used in their cast system. It rings true with much of what we see in todays society. While the reality is a bit more subtle, we can see that the consumerism, better living through chemistry, and making you life your life tied to corporate america. Scary !!

I'm reading the sequel "brave new world revisited" which talks about what projections made in the book have come to pass.. It also goes into the aspect of population explosion, which wasn't obviously clear in the original. The original had the feel, to me at least, that population wasn't the issue that BNW was concerned with, it was more about stability of the various "caste" systems.

I found it laughable how they viewed traditional birth and mother/fatherhood as "smutty".. Even taking it to the level of zoology with use of terms such as viviparous (look it up).

The view of sexuality in the book, I'm sure, was controversial at the time; And to some it remains so. Some comments did strike me as sexist, however one must remember the time period it was written in. Not to say this makes it right, but we must remember that we are viewing history through a modern lens.

Absolutely a classic worth the day or two it takes to read.


No comments:

Post a Comment