Rating: 4/5
Review:
A classic, but feels dated now
I first read Brave New World when I was 16 in 1970. At the time it was still saying things which
were less well explored and I was young and flexing my hippyish ideals, so it
made a deep impression then. I have
recently tried re-reading it and it hasn't aged well. (Although, to be fair, neither have I.) It still contains good, important ideas which
were pretty original and revolutionary for their time but I found the writing
very mannered and hard to read now.
In the end, I couldn’t face reading the whole thing again,
but I do still like the exchange between Mustapha Mond and the Savage which
ends:
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.
"Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. 'You're welcome,' he said."
I think one of the book's strengths is that it's not just a simplistic anti-authoritarian, liberty-cheering polemic, because Mustapha Mond isn't a cruel or self-aggrandizing man, and Huxley's world is very different from, say, Orwell's 1984 or T.H. White's depiction of an ant colony in The Sword In The Stone. There's a genuine discourse here which recognises the moral and practical problems in both views, not just the nightmare of an imposed "Utopia," even if it is a frightful prospect.
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.
"Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. 'You're welcome,' he said."
I think one of the book's strengths is that it's not just a simplistic anti-authoritarian, liberty-cheering polemic, because Mustapha Mond isn't a cruel or self-aggrandizing man, and Huxley's world is very different from, say, Orwell's 1984 or T.H. White's depiction of an ant colony in The Sword In The Stone. There's a genuine discourse here which recognises the moral and practical problems in both views, not just the nightmare of an imposed "Utopia," even if it is a frightful prospect.
Sadly, though, I hadn't the strength to wade through a load
of Huxley's writing to experience that discourse again. I found it very hard to rate the book; in the
end I've given it four stars because I thought it was brilliant first time
around and it has some very important content, but I can't recommend it as a
good present-day read.
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