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Brave New World ()


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:)

Grade: (A)


Websites:

Aldous Huxley Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Aldous Huxley
    -ESSAY: Whose Nightmare Are We Living In: Orwell’s or Huxley’s?: Andrew Keen Investigates Dual Literary Visions of Society’s Collapse (Andrew Keen, June 24, 2022, LitHub)
    -REVIEW ESSAY: Brave New World: Revisited (Francis X. Maier, July 30, 2020, First Things)
    -REVIEW: of Brave New World (HERAA HASHMI AND BHARATH H., Traversing Tradition)
    -
   
-REVIEW: of Aldous Huxley: A Biography by Sybille Bedford (Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic Monthly)
    -REVIEW: of ALDOUS HUXLEY by Jake Poller (Gerri Kimber, TLS))
    -

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:

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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