O brave new world, That has such people in't!

Well its done.  I know I said I was going to try and post while in the process of reading, but I kinda got lazy, busy, and also decided I shouldn't really say what I think about a work until I have finished it.  In this case, I'm glad it went that way since while reading "Brave New Word" my views on the book, characters, and whole idea were changing throughout so instead of going through all that I can just look back and sum up what I thought.  Now, there is just so much I want to say, so without further ado lets get started.

I have to say as kind of a first and final thought on the book, it makes me scared.  What I mean is, its eerie how I can see some of the not so pleasant themes evident in this book in our world today, such as ethical or social programming by media and popular opinion, social dichotomies between people/populations that do not fit expected levels of progressiveness in society, as well as novelty in entertainment derived from exploitation of others, just to name a few.

Though many of Huxley's predictions hold true in an intrinsically social sense, his technological forecasts do not yet seem to hold true.  He dreams of a world where a humans entire nature can be controlled by precise and exact biological and behavioral parameters from prenatal through adult development.  Though the the science of Psychology and efforts such as the Human Genome Project has found a lot about what makes us who we are, neither has even begun scratched the surface to what Huxley dreams possible in the Brave New World.  On the same point, one social forecast of which Huxley dreams possible is that of an almost socialist (everything/everybody for everyone) caste system super imposed onto a still very strong capitalistic free market society where people are not only in competition, but are conditioned to want to climb social ladders and buy new products, as long as they don't even dream of leaving there caste of course.

Another idea is that of consumption, not the disease, but consuming goods and services at a specified rate in order to keep the industry and economy sufficiently stimulated.  Games and sports are even required to be complicated with elaborate apparatuses so as to make sure that even in leisure time, people are still contributing to industrial development.  Another idea on this idea is the all important magic drug "Soma."  The wonder drug that is so perfectly engineered that it renders no side effects, comes in such perfect doses that its effects can even be given an exact duration, and has such a great affect that its influence is not refereed to as a "high" but a "holiday" quoted as having "All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects."   Something so powerful, that John the Savage throwing a supply of it out the window, is the only event in the entire book which caused a large conditioned population to completely act against their conditioned nature.  This I think is a very interesting idea as Huxley suggests that this idea of the perfect getaway, what we would call a day at the beach and what they would call "half a gramme for a half-holiday, a gramme for a week-end, two grammes for a trip to the gorgeous East, three for a dark eternity on the moon...", is such an important idea to our nature that even in the perfect conditioned society of the Brave New World, escape from reality from time to time is a necessity to our mental and physical well being.  The very reason why labor laws require certain amounts of daily break time, vacation time, and why we still have weekends between work weeks.  Soma also raises one of the strongest ideas of all in the novel, that the perfect society functions on the concept of ignorance is bliss.  This is probably best summed up by the hypnopaedia sleep conditioning phrase, “Was and will make me ill, I take a gram and only am."  Ignorance is so important to the society that they are conditioned to not only not have individual thought, but if one should ever arise, one should hammer it back from whence it came with pills.


Well , I know it looks like I've already written an essay on this already, but there is so much more to say, an I have to get to class.  I just want to finish up with the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to discussing it with anyone who wants to.

P.S. I also want to make a point that although I normally would move onto another book on the list, I am waiting to read "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" when my roommate has it assigned in November in his science fiction lit class so we can read it at the same time to discuss, so between now and then, I am going to read the first in the recently popular Hunger Games series which comes very highly recommended for me by my friend Cassie and from what I've read, seems really interesting.  I might make a post or two about it so that might happen, and if I finish with plenty of time to spare before November, the next book I think I'll read from the list is 1984 to explore more social engineering.






As always, if anyone took the time to read this, tell me what you think!!

Into the Wild Blue Yonder

To start it off I am going to read "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley.


I know it probably seems silly to mostly any one reading this that anyone  has yet to pick this up, but unlike most people this was never in any of my classes nor have I heard much about it other than the great criticism of my neglect in reading it.  It comes highly recommended as a launching point for this project and will help lay the foundation for exploring the ideas behind Utopian/Distopian Science Fiction which will definitely play a big roll in other books on the list.

I bought the 1969 edition of the book as seen here:
http://www.amazon.com/Brave-Aldous-Huxley-Perennial-Classic/dp/B0016RNX8C/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311722132&sr=1-10

However, I found it used on Half.com for around $2 so  obviously as the cheap college student I am, I went with this one.  If I had known, my good friend Cassie said she would have offered to lend me the book if I had asked, however I think its good this way and I will actually try to buy my own physical copies of each book I read for the project to help grow my library.

Well, instead of talking about it I should probably get started so the minute I push publish I will start reading the forward.

Thanks for reading and wish me luck!


P.S. If anyone actually happens to stumble across and read this blog, please let me know what you think, be it about the project as a whole, or any information or feedback on the books I'm reading.  Also, if anyone can think of any more of the "Great" Science Fiction novels that I am missing on the list please let me know, and I will try and add them.