A Brave New World – Review
I have procrastinated my February break reading quite a bit this vacation, but I did finish the main book I set out to complete, A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Before I read the book I’d heard a variety of things from, “oh, you’ll really like it, you should read it” as well as, “It’s like 1984… but worse.” (Worse here referring to a worse book rather than worse dystopia, something I interpreted long after the comment.)
A Brave New World was not a long or overly complex read, but I found that many of the book’s negative reviews were too judgmental and didn’t take into account a lot of the interesting philosophical discussions that Huxley presented that are as relevant today as they were in the early 1900s when this book was written. Questions about the ethics of scientific advancement as well as how this progress affects society are important questions to be considered and Huxley does this in a clever way.
His characters are complex and realistic. The main character is a deviant from his societal conditioning, yet Huxley realistically maintains this character’s connection to the society he wants to abandon. Huxley realizes the complexity of human nature; it is not simple to throw away your connection to a conditioned way of life if that is all you really know.
A Brave New World is more than a dystopian proclamation of doom but a book that examines complexities moving forward in society and how difficult it is for an individual to change his/herself as well as the world they live in.
I recommend A Brave New World if for no other reason than to jump-start your own thoughts about society.
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