Brave New World........meh (spoilers)
I saw Spider-Man and it was awesome and I have many things to say about it. However, prior to that I decided to finish reading Brave New World and I need to get my thoughts on the internetz before I forget.
Short version: It left me completely underwhelmed.
Long version: This was probably a case where I had unrealistic expectations, but in all honesty I think the writing was mediocre. Huxley did make a few good points and I'll give him that, especially considering that this was published eighty years ago. I still find myself having a hard time understanding all the hype for this book though.
I'm not saying that Huxley's view of the future is completely impossible but I don't see how it could possibly be accurate. Overpopulation is a huge obstacle to global human prosperity. In fact, it would make a world like this unattainable without some sort of calamity on a scale that the world has never seen. The book makes it sound like the world population has magically shrunk down to a manageable size without some sort of massive bloodshed or fiercely enforced policy regarding reproduction. This strikes me as an extremely Western-biased view of prosperity. Yes, it would be possible for some people to live in a controlled society based around constant happiness. It would never happen in the Third World though without a concentrated campaign of extermination. This is a problematic viewpoint held by many people in addition to Huxley, but he's still wrong about a fundamental building block of his chosen dystopia.
I probably shouldn't even bring feminism into this because the rights of women were so thoroughly ignored at the time Brave New World was written but it has to be said that his female characters are terrible. Lenina in particular is simply atrocious. She exists to provide two things- first, she drives the plot where necessary by being stupid and impulsive. Supposedly everyone in the society is like this, yet of the major characters none really are. Bernard, John, Helmholtz, and Mustapha are all able to see beyond their circumstances in order to grasp the greater picture of the world in which they live. Not Lenina! Which brings me to the second role that she fulfills- to be the object (quite literally) of desire for everyone else and to occasionally decide that she wants to fuck people. That is all that she does of importance. The only way in which she moves the plot forward is by either wanting to have sex with someone or for someone else to want to have sex with her.
(I'm impressed that I made it this far without citing 1984 by George Orwell over three hundred times. That streak is about the be destroyed.)
Julia from 1984 is by no means a hero of feminism. When Winston tells her that she is only a rebel "from the waist down" he's largely correct. However, at the very least she is capable and intelligent. She successfully eludes the Party for years and even signs up to fight them knowing full well that she may die in the process. She is never a thoughtful commentator on Winston's level, but proves more than capable of surviving in a world vastly more brutal than that of Brave New World.
Lenina just sucks. Oh and then some dude beats her to death. Awesome.
Also, yeah it was published in 1932 but I could write a book on the racial problems in this book. Apparently it's cool to keep Native Americans locked up and refer to them as "savages" throughout the book. They provide absolutely no intellectual substance throughout the book with the sole exception of John who IS NOT EVEN NATIVE AMERICAN. Huxley couldn't have a non-white character be the representative of repressed humanity so he had a (presumably) white person be born into Neo-Native American society only to be transplanted out. I also don't recall any mention of any non-white person being listed as an Alpha or Beta despite descriptions of lower castes having black members.
Additionally, I find it funny that Huxley apparently disparaged H.G. Wells for having unrealistic expectations in his utopian fiction when Huxley's own approach to government in Brave New World is so ludicrous. The main (male) characters directly challenge the system and are rewarded by getting to choose where they want to live after that. Bullshit. Give me Room 101 with O'Brien in 1984. That's what happens when you challenge authority. Oh Huxley, there was a message for you while you were out. The Little Mermaid wanted you to know that your approach to societal discipline was silly. She had to have Sebastian deliver it though because King Triton had grounded her.
Yet people love this book. It's true that it was perhaps ahead of its time and that it speaks to very real risks of an overindulgent, materialistic culture. I just think that those lessons could be told in a realistic world with an interesting plot and meaningful characters.
Perhaps I'm being unnecessarily harsh. If so, it's because I've heard so many people compare Brave New World to 1984 and I find the former to be vastly inferior to the latter. I actually enjoyed the section of the book where John and the others were talking to Mustafa Mond about the makeup of this utopia as well as the philosophy behind it. It's just that the events before and after that ruined it for me. I didn't hate the book (and I haven't hated any book in quite a while with the exception of Atlas Shrugged) but it just wasn't that great.
There, done with that.
Also, life is good (given the circumstances) and I love my girlfriend. I might have something to say about Spider-Man within the next couple of days.
Short version: It left me completely underwhelmed.
Long version: This was probably a case where I had unrealistic expectations, but in all honesty I think the writing was mediocre. Huxley did make a few good points and I'll give him that, especially considering that this was published eighty years ago. I still find myself having a hard time understanding all the hype for this book though.
I'm not saying that Huxley's view of the future is completely impossible but I don't see how it could possibly be accurate. Overpopulation is a huge obstacle to global human prosperity. In fact, it would make a world like this unattainable without some sort of calamity on a scale that the world has never seen. The book makes it sound like the world population has magically shrunk down to a manageable size without some sort of massive bloodshed or fiercely enforced policy regarding reproduction. This strikes me as an extremely Western-biased view of prosperity. Yes, it would be possible for some people to live in a controlled society based around constant happiness. It would never happen in the Third World though without a concentrated campaign of extermination. This is a problematic viewpoint held by many people in addition to Huxley, but he's still wrong about a fundamental building block of his chosen dystopia.
I probably shouldn't even bring feminism into this because the rights of women were so thoroughly ignored at the time Brave New World was written but it has to be said that his female characters are terrible. Lenina in particular is simply atrocious. She exists to provide two things- first, she drives the plot where necessary by being stupid and impulsive. Supposedly everyone in the society is like this, yet of the major characters none really are. Bernard, John, Helmholtz, and Mustapha are all able to see beyond their circumstances in order to grasp the greater picture of the world in which they live. Not Lenina! Which brings me to the second role that she fulfills- to be the object (quite literally) of desire for everyone else and to occasionally decide that she wants to fuck people. That is all that she does of importance. The only way in which she moves the plot forward is by either wanting to have sex with someone or for someone else to want to have sex with her.
(I'm impressed that I made it this far without citing 1984 by George Orwell over three hundred times. That streak is about the be destroyed.)
Julia from 1984 is by no means a hero of feminism. When Winston tells her that she is only a rebel "from the waist down" he's largely correct. However, at the very least she is capable and intelligent. She successfully eludes the Party for years and even signs up to fight them knowing full well that she may die in the process. She is never a thoughtful commentator on Winston's level, but proves more than capable of surviving in a world vastly more brutal than that of Brave New World.
Lenina just sucks. Oh and then some dude beats her to death. Awesome.
Also, yeah it was published in 1932 but I could write a book on the racial problems in this book. Apparently it's cool to keep Native Americans locked up and refer to them as "savages" throughout the book. They provide absolutely no intellectual substance throughout the book with the sole exception of John who IS NOT EVEN NATIVE AMERICAN. Huxley couldn't have a non-white character be the representative of repressed humanity so he had a (presumably) white person be born into Neo-Native American society only to be transplanted out. I also don't recall any mention of any non-white person being listed as an Alpha or Beta despite descriptions of lower castes having black members.
Additionally, I find it funny that Huxley apparently disparaged H.G. Wells for having unrealistic expectations in his utopian fiction when Huxley's own approach to government in Brave New World is so ludicrous. The main (male) characters directly challenge the system and are rewarded by getting to choose where they want to live after that. Bullshit. Give me Room 101 with O'Brien in 1984. That's what happens when you challenge authority. Oh Huxley, there was a message for you while you were out. The Little Mermaid wanted you to know that your approach to societal discipline was silly. She had to have Sebastian deliver it though because King Triton had grounded her.
Yet people love this book. It's true that it was perhaps ahead of its time and that it speaks to very real risks of an overindulgent, materialistic culture. I just think that those lessons could be told in a realistic world with an interesting plot and meaningful characters.
Perhaps I'm being unnecessarily harsh. If so, it's because I've heard so many people compare Brave New World to 1984 and I find the former to be vastly inferior to the latter. I actually enjoyed the section of the book where John and the others were talking to Mustafa Mond about the makeup of this utopia as well as the philosophy behind it. It's just that the events before and after that ruined it for me. I didn't hate the book (and I haven't hated any book in quite a while with the exception of Atlas Shrugged) but it just wasn't that great.
There, done with that.
Also, life is good (given the circumstances) and I love my girlfriend. I might have something to say about Spider-Man within the next couple of days.