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Just Read: Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
[amazon.co.uk]
In the future, everyone is happy, from the highest alpha-plus controller to the lowest epsilon-minus semi-moron labourer. No aging, and all the sex, entertainment and free narcotics anyone could want. A few, however, feel that there's something missing...
I'm going to be predictable and agree with the hoards who think that this is a very good book, not least for the way in which it succeeds in making the world it portrays seem so nearly utopian - how can it be bad if everyone is happy?1
There are a few anachronisms (the choice of Henry Ford as a semi-religious figurehead) and historical futures (the helicopters and massed ranks of workers of Lang's Metropolis) yet despite being written over seventy years ago, BNW mostly still feels surprisingly modern, and some of its messages are still very relevant. The spectre of eugenics may not loom over us in the same way as it did in 1932, but the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre is probably more plausible now than it was then. The thoughts on the symbiotic relationship between consumerism and mass production seem downright prophetic.
Overall, a very thought-provoking read. Kind of a shock to think that this was written 25 years before the last book I read (Double Star, Robert A Heinlein) - the contrast in attitude and political maturity is striking.
1This is a rhetorical question.
In the future, everyone is happy, from the highest alpha-plus controller to the lowest epsilon-minus semi-moron labourer. No aging, and all the sex, entertainment and free narcotics anyone could want. A few, however, feel that there's something missing...
I'm going to be predictable and agree with the hoards who think that this is a very good book, not least for the way in which it succeeds in making the world it portrays seem so nearly utopian - how can it be bad if everyone is happy?1
There are a few anachronisms (the choice of Henry Ford as a semi-religious figurehead) and historical futures (the helicopters and massed ranks of workers of Lang's Metropolis) yet despite being written over seventy years ago, BNW mostly still feels surprisingly modern, and some of its messages are still very relevant. The spectre of eugenics may not loom over us in the same way as it did in 1932, but the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre is probably more plausible now than it was then. The thoughts on the symbiotic relationship between consumerism and mass production seem downright prophetic.
Overall, a very thought-provoking read. Kind of a shock to think that this was written 25 years before the last book I read (Double Star, Robert A Heinlein) - the contrast in attitude and political maturity is striking.
1This is a rhetorical question.