Heerlijke nieuwe wereld (original 1932; edition 1982)

My son's English teacher gives out 2 grades for every writing assignment, one for content and one for mechanics. I wish I could have 2 ratings for Brave New World - one for the scope of how the ideas in this book challenge conventional society and one for the way it was executed. In Huxley's dystopian world, the overall happiness of society is paramount. One of the issues we have today is that not everyone can be happy. There are always jobs that are more arduous or distasteful. People who hold these jobs are at the bottom of the social pyramid and not only have to work at these jobs, but know that they are the lowest of the low. In Huxley's world, people are no longer born, but hatched from embryos that are manipulated through their entire development. Embryos targeted for lower caste jobs are stunted through a lack of nutrition or chemical interference. These people will be physically smaller, less intelligent and will be programmed through hypnotic suggestion to accept and enjoy their fate in life. Problems arise in this ideal world when a savage from a reservation filled with people living the old imperfect society comes in contact with this new world. Huxley raises so many good philosophical questions about the tradeoff between individual choice and the benefit of the collective, freedom vs. happiness, and even whether or not the belief in a god is inherent in human nature. This book seems to live on the Most Banned Book list and even made it to the top 10 in 2011. My guess is that people are objecting to the portrayal of sexual promiscuity as an advancement in culture. Another great discussion point - is monogamy an advanced behavior or a result of our more base feelings of jealousy and ownership? This book is really an amazing one to discuss and covers such a broad range of topics. For content - 5 big stars.

Now for mechanics, or in this case execution. This book reads more like a philosophical essay that is trying to squeeze itself into the form of a novel. The characters are flat and predictable. And way too often, characters like the Director, will have long winded speeches about why society changed, making the book feel more like a philosophy lecture than a story. I would give this book 2 stars for execution.

I listened to the audiobook which was performed by actor Michael York. He was fantastic and did an amazing variety of voices. If anything, his narration made the characters more complex and believable.

Overall, this book deserves it's high praise and placement on all those lists of influential books that everyone should read. It raises excellent questions that make you rethink many of our basic assumptions in society. But, if I were a teacher, I'd send it back for a rewrite to get that well deserved 'A'. ( )

Frankly, I have forgotten what I thought of this book when I read it. Does that say something about it, or just about me? ( )

No point in rehashing a book we are all familiar with but at this point (in all of my godly and infinite wisdom) I'd really advise removing this from the "canon" as there's probably some better recent works to replace it. It's astoundingly accurate in its prophecy for our times but by chapter 9, the worth of the story is spent and the rest merely becomes an effort in perverted perseverance, with nothing of value to add to mind or soul (or good literature for that matter). ( )