Minireview: Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Brave New World is another entry in the long list of “classics” that I hadn’t previously read. It was both surprisingly good and surprisingly modern… for a book written in 1931, that is. In fact, it contains so many modern concepts and social dilemmas that it must have been way ahead of its time when it was originally written. Sure, there are lots of retro touches here and there – the people revere Ford (of Model-T fame) as a near-deity hero, and there are (naturally enough) no traces of computers yet in what is supposed to be a far-future society. The social engineering methods used do not include genetic engineering, since DNA was still an unknown mystery when the book was written. In addition, the language used is of course a bit old-fashioned in places. But those are details. What is amazing is how relevant this book still is… or maybe this book is more relevant today than it ever was. Partly this is due to the compulsory comparison to another classic “dystopia” book, 1984.
As Neil Postman writes:
“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. … In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us.”
Orwell’s 1984 is the more familiar book to most people, since it presents a direct, oppressive “jackboot stamping on the face of humanity” dystopia, in Stalinist totalitarism style. There are direct historical reference points for that, and many exist even today: North Korea, and many others. Thankfully, that’s a future that most of the planet seems to have avoided. At least for now.
Brave New World is more subtle. It’s written more as a parody of certain visions of utopia, and manages to show that the difference between “utopia” and “dystopia” can be in the eye of the beholder. At first glance, the future shown in the book is near-utopia. Everyone is happy, free sex (with everyone) is near-compulsory for everyone wanting to seem polite, massive amounts of entertainment and sports are easily available everywhere, and people eat drugs on a continual basis to fight off any possible hints of unhappiness. A bright and shiny future….
…except that it has been bought at the expense of individualism and (to a large extent) freedom. History has been rewritten, books are nowhere to be found (and nobody misses them), people are grown via test tubes to conform to social castes (“workers” are grown and conditioned to be truly happy only while doing certain jobs), and nonconformity is heavily frowned upon. Entertainment is everywhere, truth and facts about “serious” things are more elusive.
Looking at the world today, Brave New World is perhaps now more than ever a warning of possible trends. It shows a future where people are happy slaves to conformity and easy contentment. Where entertainment overrules most “real” issues, and where people have exchanged most personal freedoms for snug, drug-supported safety.
It’s a satire, but it’s scary in places because it hits a bit too close to home.
I don’t wonder at all that this book has been heavily banned in various parts of the world, even fairly recently (in some less enlightened U.S. schools, for instance). […]
Minireview: The Sheep Look Up, by John Brunner
John Brunner was never exactly known for his shiny happy stories, most of his best-known books are quite grim affairs and often feature warnings of future doom. In the case of Stand on Zanzibar it was overpopulation (among other things), in The Sheep Look Up it’s ecological collapse. While a common theme nowadays, it was more of a prophetic warning when this book was written in 1972.
Though it does feature his trademark pitch-black humor in places, it’s a fairly grim book. The Earth’s ecosystem has broken down under strain from pollution, most animal species have died off, and things are spiraling out of control. The population routinely uses breathing masks to filter out the pollution (breathing unfiltered air is extremely unhealthy), drinking tap water is a sure way to catch any of a dozen dangerous diseases, and getting anything even remotely healthy to eat is becoming difficult. Even the rich are slowly feeling the strain, while the poor have been dying off from the poisons for a long while.
In this eco-disaster dystopia some voices of sanity have been heard now and then – one Austin Train tried to raise awareness of the impending disaster when he was younger, then watched as his call to arms was taken up by a new generation and slowly twisted. When the story begins, Train has disappeared underground and scores of “Trainites” practice near-terrorism, sometimes with limited understanding of why they are doing what they do. Austin himself has more or less given up.
It’s a book with an ensemble cast, and told in Brunner’s trademark style of stacatto switches in viewpoints. There is no protagonist as such and the story is somewhat confusing in the beginning – but as usual with Brunner, out of the seeming chaos emerges a very coherent story.
It’s not a shiny happy book, quite the opposite in fact. But it is very topical today and a reminder of where we don’t want to go. Even though some eco-fanatics can take things a bit too far nowadays, it’s good to keep in mind that their base cause is a good one. This book is a warning, and if anything more relevant now than when it was originally written. […]
