I will start off by admitting that I did not actually finish this book. I tried to read it with an open mind, but about three quarters of the way through, I couldn’t take it anymore. While I recognize its influence and revolutionary ideas of the time, it went too far for me. The book sets out to describe a dystopia of the future (a response to H.G. Well’s utopian novel “Men Like Gods”) where the ‘flaws’ of the developed world work against society, devaluing real love and beauty and honesty. For example, people do not reproduce sexually anymore, the process is done in a sanitary laboratory with no human contact necessary. Young people are encouraged to take as many partners as possible, as “Everyone belongs to everyone else” a mockery of the budding 20th century idea that held that one should not simply mate with the fist eligible partner that comes along, but spend time finding one’s soul mate. Henry Ford is their God, because people are now in such awe of mass production and lucrative capabilities that they worship “homogeneity, predictability, and consumption,” rather than an ancient Christian God. Modern pharmaceuticals are attacked, with Huxley painting a picture of a world where doctors hypnotize children from an early age to indoctrinate them with the values of society. Anti-depressants are consumed like candy. I remember a Vonnegut story where something like this happened, but for some reason Huxley describes it in such an unrealistic way that I can only roll my eyes, whereas Vonnegut really makes me think about how much we, as humans, really should control things.
To me, the novel seemed to hastily attack the things that have made society, for the most part, work better in the last century, generalizing the ‘evil effects’ of birth control, capitalism, individualism, and optimism. I really have no idea of Huxley’s religious beliefs, but I can’t help thinking it was his outrage over non-Christian values that were the driving force behind this novel. Or, more likely, it is a critic of the post-industrial revolutionary ideals that are heavily laden in individualism and democratic rights. And although I have never gotten around to reading the Ayn Rand collecting dust on my bookshelf, I have a feeling a non-Christian reading Brave New World experiences the same kind of frustration a socialist would reading Ayn Rand. It just kind of leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
Maybe one day when I’m a little more mature and able to swallow his ridiculous, over the top doom vision of the future, or “warning,” I’ll get around to finishing the book.
Or maybe we are turning into unconscious machines and this future isn’t so far off? Oh man, now I'm not so sure :/
I love all these covers
