Review of Brave New World

There is a possibility that nothing can be said, that has not already been said, about a novel published in 1932. However, I got to experience Brave New World just this past weekend. 

Taking into consideration I am late to the party of this text, I'd like to explain how my reading of it came to be.  I have always been facinated with dystopian settings. The setting has been what is most important to me, more than the actual story. My imagination likes to run free in the settings, asking questions and picking apart images.

Brave New World is a great example of how a story can make a dystopian setting come to life in ways my imagination never could. 

My favorite aspect of the novel is the writing style. When I attempted to read this in the past, the writing style put me off as being too "doom and gloom." After looking at it so more the writing style really conveys some great imagery of this civilization. Very sterile and systematic.  Early on, the book has a section where there are four individual scenes simultaneously playing out, jumping from one to the other  after short sentences. It requires some reading endurance and I did get confused once or twice but overall the effect was priceless.

Like I mentioned before, the story was quite a suprising treat. Originally my impression was the entire novel would be just a visual tour of the civilized world. The characters really started to shine after the first couple of chapters. Not that they are entirely likeable characters but they made the story seem fresh. The conflict changes from Bernard's desire of acceptance to John-The-Savage learning to accept the reality of civilization. A world that is not the dreamy utopia he had imagined as a child. The Savage is not introduced until about halfway through the story. Thus, the novel (from my limited education on dramatic structure) is unorthodox in story telling. It was done nicely but makes some of the other character's purpose as trivial as life before Ford is perceived by the Controller. Especially Lenina. 

The meat of meaning and philosophy shines best with John and Mustapha. I really enjoyed reading their opposing view points up until the discussion of religion. It just did not seem to fit the rest of the story. It's my opinion that Huxley included it because he had created characters that could debate the subject matter, standing on their own feet. He really proved how capable of a writer he was. Nevertheless, the religion explanation I think could have been sacrificed in order to have a discussion of other ideas left unexplained. What were the islands like that Bernard and Helmholtz being sent to? What governmental power sat over the Controller? 

Brave New World aged wonderfully. I am not put off by its predictions nearly as much others might have been when it was published for the simple fact much of these ideas of genetic engineering and population control already seem to be in place (i.e. http://tinyurl.com/lykvyx). However, the honesty in the language and the story structure itself surpass some recent stories by a landslide. 

I suggest if you have not read this novel, you do so. If you have already read it, like many of my friends, reread it and discuss it with me.