Brave New World was published in 1931 and set in 2540. Huxley's picture of the future is a grim one - but only if you value freedom. In the London of 2540, everyone is happy (and way too many of them are genetically identical). Through conditioning both before and after you are born, you are guaranteed to be content with your life, even if you are the lowest of the low. You're trained to find that that satisfies you and you want nothing different. And if you do start to feel dissatisfied, then there's always soma (some sort of futuristic drug) to make everything better.
Bernard Marx feels dissatisfied. As an Alpha Plus, his critical thinking works a bit better than most. But he ends up being much more attached to the society than he thinks. I figured he would start to rebel and try to take down the society, as in George Orwell's 1984. But he gets caught up in everyone's approval (which is really quite superficial) when he brings home a "Savage". That's certainly a sign of today's times - how often do we swallow our own thoughts or beliefs because they wouldn't be popular? Or because we're afraid of being mocked?
As a commentary on society and where it is heading, this book is quite powerful. As a work of fiction, though, I found the plot to be rather unsatisfying. It could have been more coherent, especially when the main focus switched to the Savage. You really couldn't read it for the plot or characters anymore. The point was the commentary, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just wasn't entirely what I was expecting.
Scientifically, I'm not too worried about this book coming true in the near future. I don't think we've found out how to create 72 identical babies out of one egg, nor discovered how precisely conditions in pregnancy affect the outcome of the child. But in other ways, I think we're a bit closer. The breakdown of families, the disregard of God and religion, the controlling of the information we get through the media. . . Yes, in other ways, we are scarily close.
Bernard Marx feels dissatisfied. As an Alpha Plus, his critical thinking works a bit better than most. But he ends up being much more attached to the society than he thinks. I figured he would start to rebel and try to take down the society, as in George Orwell's 1984. But he gets caught up in everyone's approval (which is really quite superficial) when he brings home a "Savage". That's certainly a sign of today's times - how often do we swallow our own thoughts or beliefs because they wouldn't be popular? Or because we're afraid of being mocked?
As a commentary on society and where it is heading, this book is quite powerful. As a work of fiction, though, I found the plot to be rather unsatisfying. It could have been more coherent, especially when the main focus switched to the Savage. You really couldn't read it for the plot or characters anymore. The point was the commentary, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just wasn't entirely what I was expecting.
Scientifically, I'm not too worried about this book coming true in the near future. I don't think we've found out how to create 72 identical babies out of one egg, nor discovered how precisely conditions in pregnancy affect the outcome of the child. But in other ways, I think we're a bit closer. The breakdown of families, the disregard of God and religion, the controlling of the information we get through the media. . . Yes, in other ways, we are scarily close.
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