posted
Great read. I highly recommend it to anyone interested.
If you enjoyed the ideas brought up in Brave New World at all, you'll enjoy this. Huxley compares the ideas of that book with the world today(actually, the world of the late fifties, but it's completely relevent), and also predicts the directions he sees things moving into. Huxley is keenly aware of how the world works both on a broad biological level and a more personal, individual level.
I've been randomly thinking about a lot of similar issues recently, so this has been a timely read.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Have you ever read The Island by Huxley? It's another utopian novel that he wrote. I personally liked it a lot better than Brave New World, but I read both about 4 years ago so my opinions may have changed.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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I read Brave New World and liked it, but the inevitable comparisons to my all-time favourite utopia/dystopia, Nineteen Eighty-Four (I know, I'm a bit unoriginal,) left it lacking and me a bit disappointed.
I don't recall, however, ever seeing a copy of Brave New World Revisited anywhere, ever. Though I did read about it, and it sounded interesting. If I stumble across a copy, I will read it, of course.
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I found it in the bookstore in 30th street train station in Philadelphia about 5 years ago. Very good read.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Kojabu, no I haven't read anything else of Huxley's. I actually haven't even read Brave New World in over 7 or 8 years, so I don't have very concrete memories of it. From the way Revisited has been going I'm assuming I'd get a lot more out of it reading it again now.
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digging_holes, interesting you bring 1984 up, Huxley uses the book multiple times in Revisited to make points, as well as contrast two opposing ends of the psychological spectrum of dealing with people(controlling people). Fear based and reward based.
oh, you know, Brave New World was written before 1984, so you're not being very fair to it. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Dag, it's definitely been moved up on my reading list. Which is somewhere in the triple digits I think.
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digging_holes, the Borders near me had a book that combined the two books together (BNW and BNW: Revisited), so you might want to check that.
Strider, Island is very different from Brave New World, it's about a utopia on an island and basically what happens when society intervenes. Pretty cool stuff, in my opinion.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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It has been a few years since I last read the book, so I'm certain that I won't remember each items proper name.
That said, I like to think about the role that the drugs play in the book. The idea that there is some 'thing' readily available to keep the population happy is a timeless one. The Roman circus famously served this role. Huxley takes that concept and calls it what it is, drugs for the masses.
I often wonder what is serving that role our society today. In a humbling NYTimes Op-ed last week, Nicholas Kristof pointed the finger at our obsession with celebrities. Perhaps we spend so much time poring over the details of some movie star's life that we don't have a moment to spare for the incredibly disturbing reality in which we live. Our attention is diverted from war and mass murder by the travails of this week's latest reality TV star.
Granted, we need to reflect on what ordinary life is like in order to appreciate the magnitude of such events as a genocide.
On second thought, I realize as I write this that the two situations are not as alike as I initially thought. The Roman's circuses and Huxley's pills were government sponsored. The media is most certainly not. Whatever the difference between the cases, though, the lesson is the same. Our apathy is ultimately our own fault and no one elses.
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Of course, I realize it's not quite fair, but I read Nineteen Eighty-Four first; and when I read it, it totally blew me away. It's one of the few books that I've read at least five times. So in my my mind it still comes first. Not that I think Huxley was doing a bad imitation, just that it's slightly inferior.
To be specific, I felt that while Huxley's utiopian future was absolutely fascinating, the plot itself was something of an excuse to describe this "what if" scenario. There is of course nothing wrong with that, but it does make it slightly less compelling than Orwell's book, which I appreciated on a number of different levels.
Still, I'll be keeping my eye out for Revisited.
EDIT : And I'll see if I can find that combined volume at my local Chapters. Thanks for letting me know, Kojabu. Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:The Roman's circuses and Huxley's pills were government sponsored. The media is most certainly not. Whatever the difference between the cases, though, the lesson is the same. Our apathy is ultimately our own fault and no one elses.
Indeed. Humans don't really need government-sponsored opiates. If we're not given them, we create them with surprising little. Anything to avoid facing up to reality and our true condition.
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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It's interesting, he talks a lot about technological advancement being well meaning, and in motivation attempting to better the lives of individuals, but ends up hurting the Little Man more, and helping Big Business. That it cuts out a freedom of individuality in a fast paced, automated, big business run society.
But I think the internet has and is changing all that. The little man can now actively mass comunicate as much as big business. The internet gives everybody a place to reach others on a large scale regardless of most any economic or social factors.
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And yet, in this era of more and more unlimited communication, people are spending more and more time alone.
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though it is true that I am physically alone right now, am I really "alone" if I am communicating with others in some sort of medium?
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Does purely written communication, no matter how immediate, truly compensate for face-to-face communication with somone with whom you are sharing a relatively close physical space? On some levels, certainly, but not on all. Like talking on the phone, only less so.
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I think I read revisited..but I have a few questions to make sure....
I read a version where he commented in the forward about the original, but said the biggest thing he missed was Atomic Power...but this "new" version was written before the advent of personal computers. Is this the same version? If so it is the same story, the only thing he changed was adding some of the dialog from the "Savage" that was cut in the original, I think.
Or is Revisited a completely new novel that examines the same issues?
posted
yeah, i agree, just questioning your meaning of "alone".
But what is it about face-to-face interaction that is so important? Does it just stimulate certain areas of the brain or whatever, that we aren't able stimulate non face-to-face? Is it a difference of degree or kind? Would the two mediums be equal if we perfected a form of virtual reality?
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I think there is also a form of communication on the instinctive level where it is comforting, whether consciously or unconsciously, to simply be in the same physical space as another human being. It's the way we are made.
Posts: 1996 | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Slight tangent - has anyone else ever read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin? It's a dystopia that was written before 1984 *and* Brave New World - I believe it was actually an inspiration for both later works. Zamyatin wrote it at the very start of the Communist regime in Russia, but the book was banned there for 70-something years because it was deemed subversive and dangerous - Zamyatin eventually fled the country. It's very interesting; definitely worth a read. There are two different English translations out there; I think I read Mirra Ginsburg's.
I'd never heard of BNW Revisited. Sounds like one I'll have to add to my list. Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Yes, I remember We. It had a strong impact. It reminded me of Ayn Rand's Anthem, too, or vice vera -- can't remember which I read first.
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