Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Sometimes I think that, for someone with an A level in English literature, I'm not very well read. Unfortunately I spent a lot of my time reading politics and philosophy books, so rarely get round to reading fiction for leisure. We did do Orwell's Animal Farm for GCSE and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in Sixth Form but, despite their relevance to someone studying political ideas, the likes of 1984 and Brave New World had sat too long on my Amazon wishlist. This summer, I decided to try to put that right. Perhaps part of the reason for my delay was the feeling already familiar with the societies described in each, though it occurred to me I was almost ...

The term ?Dystopia? has evolved as a synonym for anti-Utopia; a Utopia referring to a theoretical ?perfect society? often portrayed in the science fiction genre. The novels Brave New World, (Aldous Huxley) We (Yevgeny Zamyatin) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell) pioneered this sub-genre of a futuristic society that appears Utopian in principle but in which a totalitarian government controls the population, whose freedom and thoughts are inhibited. A Dystopia novel explores the author?s nightmare vision of a possible future, in the event of aspects of contemporary society becoming ...

It is a rare occasion when a novel goes beyond the restraints of the science fiction genre. Often these boundaries consist of monsters or the monotonous presence of aliens; it was only when I read the fantastic new novel by Aldous Huxley that I truly appreciated what the genre of science fiction had to offer. Brave New World, rather than offering the token mythological tale of aliens or extraordinary beings, takes a realistic look at science fiction and poses the daunting question, what if? The genius of Aldous Huxley lies with in the actual storyline of Brave New World. Aldous Huxley not only examines the social structures in society today, but he then ...