Modern Library Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century (5)
Welcome to a future where everybody's happy. Independent thought
and feelings have been banished and genetic engineering, brain washing
and drugs keep the population docile and comfortable. But several
characters dare to ask the question, "Wouldn't you like to be free to be
happy in your own way?"
Huxley has isolated the fundamental conflict in Human History--the conflicting
impulses towards Security and Freedom. In the Brave New World, the
impulse towards Security has won and there is no Freedom.
The problem for advocates of Freedom is that it includes the freedom
to be unhappy. For this reason, many find it unattractive and the
fight for Freedom is always an uphill struggle. At the time
that Huxley and George Orwell were writing, it seemed entirely possible
that Socialism, Communism & Fascism and all of the ism's that
promise Security would vanquish Freedom. We are fortunate to live
at a time when Freedom is resurgent, but Brave New World is a cautionary
tale about what's at stake in the struggle.
(Reviewed:01-Nov-98)
Grade: (A)
Websites:
Aldous Huxley Links:
-REVIEW: of Aldous Huxley: A Biography by Sybille Bedford (Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic Monthly)
Book-related and General Links:
-Aldous
(Leonard) Huxley (1894-1963)(kirjasto)
-ENCYCLOPAEDIA
BRITANNICA: Your search: "aldous huxley"
-ENCYCLOPAEDIA
BRITANNICA: Huxley, Aldous Leonard
-Aldous
Huxley - soma web
-ALDOUS
HUXLEY (Perennial Philosopjy)
-Spiritwalk
Teachers: Aldous Huxley
-KNOWLEDGE
NETWORK: Great Writers: Aldous Huxley
-Aldous
Huxley (1894-1963) (Bohemian Ink)
-Aldous
Huxley's Island
-BRAVE NEW
WORLD
-Literary
Research Guide: Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963)
-ONLINE
STUDYGUIDE: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (SparkNote by Selena Ward)
-STUDY
GUIDE: Brave New World (Classic Notes, Grade Saver)
-Plot
Summary : Ape and Essence & Brave New World (Keith Mason)
-ESSAY
: Which are the most overrated authors, or books, of the past 1,000 years?
Continuing our series, the critic and author John Sutherland nominates
Aldous Huxleyís Brave New World (booksonline uk)
-ESSAY:
Themes in Aldous Huxley's Life and Literature (Brock Bakke)
-ESSAY:
Science and the Story that We Need (Neil Postman, First Things)
-ESSAY:
Big Sister : Orwell and Huxley foretell late-20th-century sexual mores
(JOHN O'SULLIVAN, National Review)
-ESSAY:
Fatalists and Utopians (John O'Sullivan, Hudson Institute)
-ESSAY
: Did these books foretell? Was Aldous Huxley a visionary? (GAIL H.
WEISS, Charlotte Sun Herald)
-ESSAY:
Five and a Hal Utopias : Despite its dismal record, the utopian impulse
is by no means extinct. An eminent physicist looks at several of the guises
in which utopian thinking is likely to appear during the century ahead
- and at the perils that lurk behind each one (Steven Weinberg, The
Atlantic)
-ESSAY
: Uplift and Suspicion : How Aldous Huxley Managed to Avoid the
Temptations
of His Time (CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, LA Times)
-ESSAY
: Darwin's Brave New World (Roberto Rivera , Touchstone)
-ARCHIVES
: "aldous huxley" (NY Review of Books)
-REVIEW
: of Brave New World (John Chamberlain, NY Times, February 7, 1932)
-REVIEW:
of Aldous Huxley Brave New World Ý(1932) (Leon R. Kass, First Things)
-REVIEW
: of JACOB'S HANDS By Aldous Huxley and Christopher Isherwood (William
Ferguson, NY times Book Review)
-REVIEW
: of Huxley in Hollywood By David King Dunaway (Herbert Mitgang, NY
Times)
-REVIEW
: of Huxley in Hollywood By David King Dunaway (Kathleen Quinn,
NY Times Book Review)
-REVIEW:
Aldous Huxley: A Biography by Sybille Bedford Huxley at Home (Robert
Craft, NY Review of Books)
-REVIEW
: of Aldous Huxley: Complete Essays Volume I: 1920-25 and Volume II: 1926-29
(Richard Buell, Boston Globe)
-BOOK
LIST : Modern Novels, the 99 Best (Anthony Burgess, NY Times
Book Review, February 5, 1984)
FILMS :
-FILMOGRAPHY
: Aldous Huxley (Imdb)
If you liked Brave New World, try:
Chambers, Whittaker
-Witness
Clavell, James
-The
Children's Story
Min, Anchee
-Red
Azalea
Orwell, George
-1984
-Animal
Farm
Pipes, Richard
-The
Russian Revolution
Power, Richard Gid
-Not
Without Honor : The History of American Anticommunism
Seymour, Gerald
-Archangel
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
-One
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
-The
Gulag Archipelago1918-1956 : An Experiment in Literary Investigation
Comments:
Orrin welcomes reader comments on his reviews.
Add yours here.
No, we are insufficiently repressed.
- oj
- Apr-23-2004, 11:14
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I find it curious that you should find the current situation of the United States so alien to Huxleys Brave New World. In my opinion it is even closer than communism was. Under Communism you knew that you were being repressed, but under the modern social system of neoliberalism, most individuals are kept so ignorant that they do not realise that they are being repressed, and indead seek out activities that will keep them ignorant. Does this not seem more like the Brave New World than Huxleys proposal?
Huxleys world seems less of a warning and more of a prophesy every day.
- Camilo Diaz Pino
- Apr-23-2004, 11:06
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