Brave New World

 

 Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

What a way to start! As someone who's recently discovered a love of distopic fiction, Brave New World ticked all the right boxes for me. Published in 1931, in London, and set primarily in the same city, only 609 years in the future, it was sometimes hard for me find the lines between satire and a rather creepy breed of science fiction. 

Written after the Industrial Revolution, when mass production was becoming a major part of the consumer market, Huxley extrapolates from the events of his time, letting them unfold into a single 'World State', where social classes are biological altered and predestined from birth, conditioned to buy what they want and and 'need', to accept their place and to cultivate an intensely social society where 'everyone belongs to everyone'. 

Predicting modern technology such as contraceptive and mood altering drugs, he uses this to criticize American culture at the time hyperbolic exaggerations of these devices, as well as norms such as increasing promiscuity to subvert contemporary (and, certainly, modern) values to such as degree that, within the novel, the characters and their society are almost as alien as if they were from another planet. 

However, despite this, the deep sense of unease created by the complete cultural turnaround results in a somewhat morbid fascination with their society, and their belief in it's perfection. This is furthered when Huxley allows us glimpses into their lives, through intimate conversations not unlike any young woman might have with her friend, whilst also dissimilar in nearly every way.

I really loved the book, the sense of unease it created and, in the first half, the almost sublime writing and fantastic metaphors used to create the World State, and London of 2540. The characters, in most cases, were a little too two-dimensional for my liking, but I'm more than happy to forgive it because the purely awesome world-building through dialogue and description it brilliant. 

However, I did find the unending a little unsatisfying - something characteristic of dystopias, I know. However, I think that it ended to fast and a bit weirdly, given the rest of the book. However, that being said, it did successfully epitomize everything that was wrong with the society it illustrated. 

Overall, it's definitely a good read, particularly when you consider that it's pretty much a cultural icon of British science fiction and distopic, even more interesting given how accurately it predicted some elements of future society (being today).

Let me know what you think. 

xKath

Next up: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby