A Brave Old World, Indeed

It's been a long time coming, and I have finally read Aldous Huxley's best-known novel, Brave New World. Seriously, can anyone else name another book of his they've heard of, let alone read? As a fan of dystopian and other socially relevant speculative fiction, I had to read this, a classic of the genre. While some of the glaring anachronisms (to the modern mind) are at once funny and frustrating, I did my best to set them aside and evaluate the book in-context. But even with that in mind, I found the book to be less of a novel and more of a weakly woven parody.

The novel opens with a tour of a "hatchery and conditioning center," where children are carefully manufactured and raised to fulfill their duties as defined by their assigned caste. Even though they have time to play (the type of play most often alluded to being "erotic play"), childhood in this world looks like a real drag. And immediately we know that this is going to be a very dry, detached novel. Usually these sorts of novels start out by presenting the protagonist at some point during his daily routine in this weird world. Instead, we get a boatload of exposition. Kudos to not following the formula I guess?

There are several main characters, as well. We meet Lenina first (bet you didn't get that reference right off the bat), a seemingly conventional hatchery worker. Then a bit later we see the world from Bernard Marx's perspective, an Alpha-Plus whose short stature makes him an outcast, and a very bitter one, at that. His only friend is Helmholtz, a lecturer at the university, and who apparently has too much of a good thing going on. All three of these characters become inextricably linked when Lenina, who apparently has a greater proclivity toward monogamy than her peers as well as an attraction to odd men, goes on a trip to a savage reservation with Bernard. While there, they meet a pair of white people living amongst the so-called "squalor": a woman named Linda, who looks way older than your typical 44-year-old would look even then, probably, and her son, John. That last guy is the third main character.

Linda apparently had become separated from the hatchery director while on holiday there, and she was pregnant with their son--an obscenity and an abomination in this civilization. Both of them are outcasts in the reservation, so when Bernard offers John the chance to go back to England with them, he eagerly accepts. However, things aren't so great when they return. Everyone is horrified by Linda's haggard appearance, so she spends the rest of her life on soma (the happiness drug with no side effects--unless you take too much for too long). And John, last name Savage, doesn't find the "Other Place" to be quite as nice as he'd imagined. The infinite sets of twins freaks him out, the promiscuity repulses him, and so does the indulging of "pleasant vices." The only people he can talk to are Bernard and Helmholtz--but since Bernard is petty, John connects more with Helmholtz, who is slightly more thoughtful and understanding. Lenina and John share a mutual attraction to one another, but as she abhors marriage and he, extramarital sex, John drives her away.

After the death of his mother, John incites a riot amongst the hospital workers when he discards their soma ration, and the three men are taken away and dealt with. Bernard and Helmholtz are sent away to an island somewhere, and John is encouraged to stay. However, John wants to be alone (something that civilians are conditioned against doing), and goes to hide in an abandoned lighthouse. However, because he decided to stay in Britain and not, like, go far far away like he should have, he is discovered, and people start flocking to the lighthouse to gawk at him. After a secret "feely" (movies that engage all the senses) is made about him, even more people come, and John is pushed over the edge when Lenina shows up. Enraged, he starts beating her, and the other people beat each other. In the end, he hangs himself.

To give Huxley credit, it's not like all the women are perfectly fine with this society: Lenina does fall in love with John, which other women seem mystified by. However, as it is shown with Lenina and Linda, apparently promiscuity is hard to shake, and perhaps John's undue repulsion at Lenina's advances are a result of his own social conditioning, having seen his mother sleep with a lot of men--and suffer for it. And so of course it is only the men who can defy society. This aspect of the book was a large portion of the outrage expressed when it was first published--and these people obviously missed the point. Sex was one of the distractions to make the people happy and keep them from thinking too much, and monogamy meant committing oneself to a single person--and that could bring all sorts of problems. After all, "everyone belongs to everyone else". And not more to a single person than another person.

I suppose that the blatant references to Soviet leaders, the confusion between Henry Ford and Sigmund Freud, the irony of an American Indian reservation being more civilized than civilization, and the obvious choice of Shakespeare were deliberately satirical--I certainly thought it was funny. (actually the Indian thing wasn't funny--that part's racist). But overall I didn't find the tone very satirical--ridiculous, yes, but not very funny at all. This was in part due to the fact that several chapters are devoted to a few characters merely spouting talking points at each other. In all of chapter 17, the Western Europe controller and John Savage are engaging in a debate about God and unhappiness. And since Bernard and Helmholtz just get sent to an island, the stakes were nonexistent here. Sure, John kills himself, but it was sort of his fault because he stayed in England instead of going to a place where he would be FAR FAR AWAY from people. Yes, this place is horrible because it takes away people's choices, stamps out any capacity for rational thought in the majority of the population, and demonizes nature and biology (making it way more difficult for outcasts to function in society), but, to paraphrase Mustapha Mond, what would there be to gain if they changed now? It's already too late. Everybody's happy, even the Alphas who step out of line. There is no danger.

Perhaps Huxley meant it as more of a cautionary tale, to show the world we could end up living in. Advances in genetic engineering have brought about speculation of "designer babies" becoming our future--though under the free market it would be the rich with perfected genetics and not the lower classes--and thanks to the Internet, we have more ways to distract ourselves than ever. People do have sex more often, and with more sexual partners--however, it's the ignorance of sexuality and slut-shaming that are more pressing problems regarding this topic, not promiscuity itself. More people are also less religious--but as long as they're not worshiping the almighty dollar or a political leader instead, I don't think this is a problem, either. Manipulation of the masses, however, is a problem, and I'll give Huxley credit for that one.

The novel is about as shallow as the world it depicts. Huxley has spent too much time imagining the world, and articulating what is wrong with it, rather than developing the characters struggling in this world. Thus breaking one of the golden rules of writing: show, don't tell. The book was interesting, but I couldn't be moved very much. I finished the book, but I wasn't invested in the characters or the story--though I guess shallow characters make a shallow story. The unhappiest person was John, and of course he would be unhappy, he didn't belong there!

Perhaps, though, that isn't the point. When people talk about this book they talk about the world that Huxley created, not the characters within it. And it has made me think about how happiness can never be guaranteed for everyone all the time, and a guaranteed happiness saps humanity of freedom and meaning (among other musings). A perfect world is impossible. Huxley gets points for thoughtfulness, even with a shallow story.

3 stars out of 5.