Brave New World Blurb
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, inhabited by genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by only a single individual: the story’s protagonist.
First Impression
I have a confession. I read this book in college. I wanted to review it now because it’s still one of my favorite books and I think everyone should read it. Can you tell from the blurb that it’s influenced my writing? Yeah. I’m a big fan.
Brave New World is a little more of a thinker than most of the books I review. It’s high concept and the world building is done through full immersion with little to no exposition. Basically, there’s a lot to be intuited by the reader. I think of it as an ideal example of the Death of the Author philosophy.
I reread this so that it was fresh in my mind while writing this review, but of course there’s no way to recreate that first experience. I’ll do my best. The Goodreads blurb talks more about the concepts discussed in the novel than the plot. The story follows a man who is starting to question his social conditioning and his attempts to likewise awaken his love interest.
Woah. Where do I start? This is like catnip for Amanda. I can’t get enough of it. First, I’m a sucker for anything that talks about social conditioning. Well, but that is because of this book. Let me put it this way instead: Brave New World explained why I felt the way I felt as a young adult. It directly discusses the struggle to feel like you’re looking in at your own culture from the outside. The confusion, the isolation, the inability to assimilate, the sense of being torn between two conflicting purposes. It’s all there.
Character
Our characters are all what you might call logical. Now, that doesn’t mean they are logical, just that they fit the paradigm of unemotional reasoning that many Americans associate with logic. I have a #soapbox I’m working on about that, so I won’t go into it here. Basically, the conditioning every character is raised with has removed love and the emotional closeness you get from loving relationships with family, friends, and romantic partners from the social normative and made it taboo.
Add to that watery broth a character who has had an intellectual awakening and wants to explore that taboo and you have a surprising soup. Throw in a vacation to the barbaric New World and a love interest that doesn’t awaken in the way our MC wants her to and you get a rich, meaty stew.
World
This book is its world. The characters and plot function to illuminate the critique that this world was designed to offer of our own world. I wrote about the mirror in my post about archetypes and this is a very good example of it being used in setting. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a world that’s a “the way we’re headed” cautionary dystopia like 1984, The Hunger Games, or The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s a more perfect mirror in that we see a similar social structure established around different agendas.
Or at least that’s my interpretation. Like I said, it’s a great example of the Death of the Author from a critical perspective.
The way I see this world’s social structure and especially the social conditioning is that it’s functionally the same as our world, but a little more honest about it. There are two types of conditioning at play in our culture (or, at least that I can see): moral and story. Moral conditioning gives us right and wrong. Story conditioning gives us our expectations for life. Those conditions are then reinforced by normative social influence.
Yes, we are just as brainwashed as the characters in this novel. Everything you think you know about the world is a narrative, not a fact. Even Newton’s laws of gravity only apply to our ability to experience the world and have been disproven by astrophysics. Basically, everything you think is true is a lie and that’s what this book is all about.
Storytelling
I think I was 19 when I first read this book, so I was rooting for the romance. I was still toiling under all the toxic romantic expectations I was conditioned with and didn’t care about the sentience of love interests yet. Well, now I get an extra layer of enrichment with this second read. OK I’ll stop gushing, fine. Critical thinking. Whatever.
The story isn’t that exciting and for good reason: It would distract from the conceptual and thematic elements buried in the world and character design if the plot was action-packed. Just like a fast-paced story will hide flaws in characterization or world-building, it will also hide the achievements in those categories.
That said, I have a very short attention span–I am bored by even things some of my friends find captivating–and that’s mostly because I find most stories predictable and formulaic. Rereading this book, I already knew what was going to happen, but I was still captivated. That’s good storytelling.
As I mentioned before, it’s using full immersion storytelling, which can leave questions unanswered. It’s a style of writing meant to challenge the reader to intuit and infer–to think critically and independently. That isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It’s like punk rock: It embodies a concept, rather than expressing it directly.
Final Thoughts
Firm 5/5. This is on my Must Read list. It’s an intellectual classic especially good for understanding cultural conditioning and the existential crisis. If you want characters experiencing huge emotional and intellectual mind-fucking growth, this is your pick. If you want a setting that offers a critical perspective of our culture? Yup, got that, too. Looking for a fun, action-packed thrill ride? Hm . . . well, OK I guess there’s one box it doesn’t check.
If you want a thrill ride, go watch a movie. Well, obviously that’s an opinion and I doubt it’s a popular one, but I don’t really care. If our tastes are that far out of alignment, you probably shouldn’t be reading my reviews. This was one of my most transformative books. As in, I would not be who I am today without it–you’re missing out if you skip it.
Recommended Reading
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
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