Why did Huxely have to write this as a novel? That format doesn’t work. 99% of it is conservation or more like series of monologues. It is packed with interesting ideas about what an ideal society would look like, including its education, health, economy, religions, sexual practices and so on. But the dialogue format is confusing it. It would have been a nice philosophical essay. There are so many ideas in it that it is impossible to summarize. Just a few points that were interesting enough to pick out: – Children are brought up by a community of parents. They can escape to other than their biological parents to live for a while, but they cannot escape responsibilities.

Wow!! I'm dismayed by the negative tone of the other reviews posted here. I thought this was an incredible book. It was pretty obvious to me that there was not supposed to be a strong plot as that was not the point of the book. Huxley was offering a vision, a possible solution to the question of how we might want to live on this planet. The book was a vehicle. It was a book to be judged by its ideas not its technical aspects. It was the result of a lifetime of culture-watching, experience and thought. Pala serves as a worthy template for "intentional communities", alternatives to mainstream submission to corporate overlords ideas of how we should live. I read "Walden Two" by B. F. Skinner around the same time and Huxleys' was far more engaging and beautifully written!!

This reminds me a lot of Brave New World: oh let's explain our society to this stranger + yay hallucinogenic drugs + yay population control, only with even less actual plot (which surprised me, since this was published much later than BNW). Also the society is a lot less dystopian, which for me made it a little less gripping. It was an interesting and relaxing read, though. ( )

A quick read, this book is really less a novel and more a utopian fable. Perhaps Huxley had found Buddhism and LSD to relieve a great deal of suffering near the end of his life, but this work slips from being an enlightening critique of Western materialism and ends up an overly simple escapist fairy tale. While I as a reader was already inclined to believe there was some truth behind some of the points he was making, his thoughts were expressed in such childish thinly-veiled fashion that I couldn't take them seriously.

I have to admit that I didn't find this novel as transformative as some readers did, but I'm quite glad to have read it. Truthfully, it's not much of a story, but it sure will give you food for thought and I expect Huxley's ideas will stick with me for a long, long time.

The protagonist of Island is British journalist Will Farnaby. Will isn't an entirely likeable character as the novel opens--as is so often the case in these tales of redemption. In an attempt to escape his troubles, or possibly to escape himself, Will takes a day off from a Southeast Asian business trip to go sailing. A sudden storm sweeps in, and in the novel's opening pages Will realizes he's shipwrecked and injured. Luckily, Will has washed up on the exotic and little-visited island of Pala. This island-nation is a modern (or the 1960s version of it) Utopia.

Will is discovered by some children who promptly go for help. It arrives in the form of Dr. Robert MacPhail, one of the island's most respected citizens. Dr. Robert patches Will up, and he and other islanders indulge Will's curiosity about their home. Over the course of just a few days, they introduce Will to every aspect of their most extraordinary society. From family life, medicine, education, and rites of passage, Will learns about Palanese life from birth to death.

He meets many islanders, including the future Raja who is about to come of age, and his mother, the Rani. These two members of the ruling class have some very different ideas about how things should be on Pala. And their agenda may just tie in with a secret agenda of Will's own... It is this loose storyline that the plot consists of, but it's actually a very minor part of the novel--just a thread that runs through a lot of philosophy and sociology. Personally, I had a very limited interest in and tolerance for a lot of Eastern religious (mostly Buddhist) philosophy. But I really loved the sociological ideas Huxley put forth in his Utopia. Really, really interesting stuff! For another reader, it might be the reverse. One way or another, I really have to believe the novel would be of interest to any thinking person. ( )