Fertilize and Bokanovskify (Brave New World - Aldous Huxley)

Member Name: themoomin

Product:	Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
Date:	08/02/01 (1347 review reads)
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Written in 1932, this novel by Englishman Aldous Huxley is a true classic. It is in turn amusing, horrifying and grim. In Brave New World Huxley tells of a society in which humans are graded from Alpha-plus (highest ) to Epsilon-minus (lowest) and brought up by means of sleep-teaching from a very young age to accept their social destiny as fact. The Alphas are bred to be highly intelligent and skilled, the Epsilons are bred to be manual workers. All live together in a world of genetic modification and apparent social harmony. Uninhibited sex is considered universally constructive and positively encouraged, however, the concept of love and lasting relationships leading to natural procreation is unacceptable and almost obscene. Everything is artificially engineered, from the foetus to the funeral. Universal happiness is facilitated by the consuming of mass-produced goods, games such as Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy, cinema shows known as 'feelies', and the wonder-drug Soma.

A brief summary of the story:

The plot centres around Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne, both designated Alpha-plus. Bernard knows he is feels differently about things than the others - in fact he is persistently taunted by the rumour that 'somebody made a mistake while he was still in the bottle . . . . put alcohol into his blood-surrogate.' He thinks that he loves Lenina, and is not happy with her promiscuity. She doesn't see anything wrong with her actions, conditioned as she has been to uphold the maxim 'everyone belongs to everyone else'.

A visit by Bernard and Lenina to a 'Savage Reservation' brings the startling revelation that the Director of Hatcheries has actually fathered a son, who has been living in the Reservation with his mother Linda (a Beta, accidentally left in the Reservation) since birth. They are brought from the Reservation to London, whereupon Linda immediately goes on 'Soma-holiday' and leaves her son John
to cope with his new reality. At first fascinated by the entire concept behind the civilisation of this new world, he quickly comes to regard the whole ethos of the community totally incomprehensible, and rebels - after Linda's death taking himself off into the country to live the life of a hermit. He is not left alone even there, and hounded by photographers and reporters, soon brings the story to its final, predictable in its inevitability, conclusion.

My opinion:

The book itself is incredibly well-written - Huxley was educated at Eton and then read English at Oxford - and his prose is easy to read and often witty. The nursery rhymes that Linda sings to John in the Reservation for example - remnants of our own age - 'Bye Baby Banting, soon you'll need decanting'. He takes care to describe in great detail processes carried out at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, such as the activities in the Fertilizing Room and the Bottling Room. His vision of this future state of affairs is presented in a down-to-earth, entirely believable manner.

Littered with quotations from Shakespeare, song lyrics, and vivid descriptions of the effects of Soma, this is a totally absorbing read. Every aspect of the lives of the characters has been carefully thought-out - from how they cope with contraception to how they travel, what they wear, and what they do for recreation. Everything is easily imaginable - not like many Sci-Fi novels where the reader struggles to produce an image in their mind. Perhaps it is all too easily imaginable, and, with the current explosion of genetic modification and cloning experiments, may be not that far removed from a future reality.

To the later edition of the book, published in 1946, Huxley added his own foreword. This is included in all further editions, and shows him to be a highly intelligent person as well as making very interesting reading. I quote:

'All things
considered, it looks as though Utopia were far closer to us than anyone, only fifteen years ago, could have imagined. Then, I predicted it six hundred years into the future. Today it seems quite possible that the horror may be upon us within a single century. That is, if we refrain from blowing ourselves into smithereens in the interval.'

I would recommend this book to everyone. It can be interpreted on many levels, as nowhere in it does Huxley condemn or outrightly commend his Utopia. He leaves it up to the individual reader to form thier own conclusions. Plainly and simply a good story ? A satirical stab at what the future could hold? Or a grim look towards our next reality? However you choose to look at it, this remains a great work. I wonder what Huxley would predict for the future now, if he was alive today.

Oh brave new world, that has such people in it.

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