crazy classics: Brave New World

Huxley, Aldous- Brave New World

audio narrated by Michael York

I've always meant to read this book, but at the same time, I thought I knew all about it. It's referenced so often that I think everyone knows that it's about a futuristic society in which everyone is drugged up and has to be entertained all the time. But there's alot more to it than that. This book is almost a hundred years old, and I had ahold of my pearls the entire time I was listening to the audiobook.

I'm not going to get into the details or write a summary; like I said, there were surprises, but it's familiar. I will say, it's worth a read. The recommendations for it and references to it seem to have picked up in the last few years with our ubiquitous and sometimes addictive digital media, and now with AI and autocracy, we'd better read this while we can. It's been banned before.

What surprised me (this is all spoilers):

There were a few passages that were heartbreaking. Really, the whole thing is sad- any story in which people have had their ability and freedom to think taken away would be. But one of the early things that got me was a character who only comes up once, but who was literally made for menial work- they're all designer babies- he operated the elevator and was treated like a machine. They'd give some embryos fetal alcohol syndrome; I haven't looked up to see what people knew about that back then.

Another horrifying thing was how the "controllers" took over- a Nine Year's War- anthrax bombs, and I'm pretty sure it said that they put cholera in the water supply. (That's the downside of audiobooks- not so easy to go back over a passage.)

And then, in the end, the poor Savage.

Did the tech hold up:

They all had helicopters and rode in rockets, but there's no digital media or cell phones. The innovation that they like best is their ubiquitous drug that apparently has no bad effects when coming off. But also, they never seem to come off it.

They learn by listening to repetitions in their sleep. Facts and aphorisms. No literature, not much history of time before their new order. It made me think of the podcast I listen to when I'm having trouble sleeping- even before listening to Brave New World, I was loathe to have someone whispering in my ear as I slept. But now, I've had such bad insomnia so many times that I have listened to several episodes all the way through, and I only play it for up to two hours.

I'm pretty sure that the sleep conditioning that people listen to works with paper on scrolls or something like that; it didn't really get into it. I imagined while I was listening, a large closet with stacks and stacks of these things, labeled by caste. (They had a very strict caste system).

The adaptation (more spoilers!):

I didn't watch much of the adaptation, but it was available in Peacock. There's alot that they had to update, and I"m not sorry that the word "savage" isn't being used so often. The "reservation" is treated like an amusement park in the adaptation, and there's a rebellion brewing. In the book, the rebellion is just two people, and one outsider who is kind of involved. Also, they're on some kind of network in the movie instead of being sleep-conditioned. The sex scenes are something- and all the time.

I thought often while listening that I wish online reviews existed back then, because I'd love to read what everyday people thought about it back then. I've got to look up some real reviews from the time.

This book made me think about Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, another book from the past that felt very modern. They don't really have much in common but that they didn't feel like reading old books. Brave New World is wild- it's nearly one hundred years old, and I could barely believe what I was hearing half the time. It was sad and interesting, and sometimes funny. I couldn't start another audiobook for a few days after it was over. I had to decompress.