Brave New World

2.75 stars “Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery”

Wow. I still don't know what to feel about this book. So many complex emotions but one thing for sure: it could have been better. It was just too erratic and feels too unplanned in some places. So many parts could have been better and that ending was so underwhelming. Objectively, the first half was better than the other half.
Also the “debate” with the controller was so obviously one sided. There was no actual argument. The debate felt built on emotions and they weren't actually making opposing points. Each person was talking a totally different thing.
The characters were ALL unlikable. There were no grey areas, just caricatures of people you know would never exist. The dystopia was actually very appealing anyway because there was no solid argument made against it and carried through till the end. Pointing out the lack of something is not argument in favour of its existence.
My two stars are for the first 100 pages, the writing style and in general, how the story progressed.

Not to mention the unnecessary racism. The time it was written in is not an excuse. The book was progressive in many other issues, but calling darker skinned people “dog-skinned” outside of narration, outside of character dialogue or thoughts... so unnecessary.
That racism actually was part of the lower rating, not only on principles, but it literally created a plot hole. It was no longer this world in my head of these principles, but something that invaded the construction of this world and weakened it because it didn't make sense.

Почему-то я долгое время путал «Дивный новый мир» с «Утопией» Томаса Мора и от того не хотел читать (старая фантастика). Но со второй попытки мне понравилось и я даже дочитал.

Также я думал (много думаю), что эта книга похожа на «1984-й», но оказалось, что нет :-)

Эта книга скорее философское размышление на тему альтернативного общества. Очень напоминает коммунистов.

Как часто бывает с такими книгами (поэтому меня оценка 4/5): классных идей дофига, но текст и сюжет сравнительно унылые. До Тургенева или Гоголя Хаксли как до Луны.

Поэтому, хочется многое отмечать, цитировать, размышлять над этим, но восхищаться слогом не приходится.

Мне понравилась фраза: «Пылесосить? Зачем пылесосить, если для этого есть Эпсилон-полукретины?..»

En mi opinión "Un Mundo Feliz" es un libro excepcional y totalmente adelantado a su época. Si bien tiene muchas similitudes con 1984 de Orwell, y es claro el porqué, ambos se sitúan en distopías en las que la especie humana pierde gran parte de sus libertades. Difieren en algo muy importante, que es el cómo se llega a esto:

En 1984 nos situamos en un totalitarismo dirigido por el "Gran Hermano". Y la forma en la que este gobernador controla a los ciudadanos es mediante la represión. En 1984 se limita el lenguaje y se espía a todos los ciudadanos para encontrar desertores y desaparecerlos, la Policía del Pensamiento. Este es un sistema no muy alejado de nosotros en Latinoamérica ya que suena similar a lo que se vivió en las dictaduras o golpes de estado militares, que operaban de una manera similar.

En cambio, en "Un Mundo Feliz" los ciudadanos son adoctrinados desde el nacimiento, primero que nada se elimina la esencia del ser humano, el amor. Nadie tiene padres, hermanos o pareja. Esto se logra mediante el control del sueño y el suministro de una droga tranquilizadora y liberadora de estrés llamada "Soma", la felicidad en pastilla. Además se eliminan las artes y se limita la cantidad de información escrita de acceso público.

Esto consigue algo mucho más grave que lo que pasa en 1984, en Un Mundo Feliz la gente no es reprimida, si no que son condicionados para ni siquiera tener la necesidad, ni la información necesaria, ni la capacidad de pensamiento crítico para revelarse. No les interesa, no lo necesitan, viven en la felicidad de la ignorancia. Por eso cuando nuestro protagonista muestra un poco de interés en cuestionar el sistema nadie está preparado para casos así, es un caso muy aislado. Ya no es necesaria una fuerza que reprima a los desertores, porque no existen.

Mientras leía "Un Mundo Feliz" no podía evitar hacer una relación entre el Soma y los Celulares y las redes sociales. Cada vez me parece más acertada y me da miedo la cantidad de similitudes que terminé encontrando entre nuestro mundo, nuestro día a día, y lo que pasa en el libro. Tenemos toda la información recabada por la especie humana en nuestros bolsillos pero, no nos interesa investigar. Y capaz el hecho de que esté disponible tan fácilmente es lo que genera esto, al tenerlo siempre a la mano se elimina nuestra curiosidad, las ganas de investigar por el simple hecho de hacerlo. Preferimos ver TikTok o Instagram, perdernos en ese caudal infinito de videos digeribles en 30 segundos que a la mínima que nos aburran pasamos al siguiente. Perdemos la noción del tiempo, pero no sólo eso, perdemos la capacidad de leer un libro, incluso de ver una película sin estar con el celular en la mano. Es incluso peor que el Soma, porque conscientemente lo consumimos, conscientemente dejamos que nuestra vida se someta al scroll infinito.

¿Porqué lo hacemos?

Porque nos da una instantánea ilusión de felicidad.

No es loco pensar que nos dirigimos a una variante de lo que escrito por Huxley, a nuestro propio Mundo Feliz.

A classic, and for good reasons, but with every reread I find myself feeling more and more that it’s a thought experiment more than a novel, if that makes sense.

I did not like this book. It is, from my understanding of it, one of the most self-important and ideologically confused books I've ever encountered. It's funny at times, maybe thought-provoking, but ultimately doomsaying. Certainly, aspects of this book mimic aspects of our world (especially the near-worship of capitalism and the men who make it work (Ford bless us)), but overall much of it just feels silly. Maybe I'm not smart enough; or maybe I'm just too young and liberal. Here's hoping 1984 is better.

This is one of the most confusing books I've ever read. Maybe because I listened to the audiobook? Idk. But I felt completely lost through most of this fucking thing. Maybe I'm just not intelligent enough to understand all the symbolism or whatever. But this is precisely why I don't read classics. The only reason I picked up this book is because they teach it at the school I work at (I'm the librarian) and students have asked me if it's good. I'd heard from past students that they enjoyed it. But tbh I think they were lying to seem like they actually read it

1984 better

Last 3 or 4 chapters were great. The rest of the book was not.

Crazy! A baffling look at human emotions and one way that Huxley came up with to address life and “balance” things out. The person that they referred to as “the savage”, is the only “real” human. People are expected and raised to take any erotic behavior and play as acceptable, even for children. Some of this book is quite shocking, but I believe that is its' goal!

3.5 stars

The message of the book is a good one, but I only liked it. I thought it was over sexualized, and there wasn't one character that was a good person.

As a lover of dystopian novels, this has been on my list of shame for a while now so I was pleased that it didn't disappoint. A different but no less frightening view of the future than that given in Orwell's 1984, much of the world depicted here is reflected in our current culture. This is definitely a book that still holds great relevance and that deserves its place as a true classic.

Un gran tema tratado en un relato llevado al extremo/exageración... o probablemente no.
Por la forma extrema/exagerada que se usa para llamar la atención (subrayar) algo (probable para no pasarlo desapercibido), debo confesar que por ese detalle, en momento me parecía un relato demasiado “exagerado”, pero ya una vez que termine el libro, me tome mi tiempo para digerirlo y ponerlo en perspectiva (año en que se escribió, etc) y pude apreciar matices (o hechos) que se aplican de forma particular o incluso como un todo a nuestra sociedad actual.

2.5/3

Thanks to Youtube's algorithm, I stumbled across the audiobook narrated by Aldous Huxley himself. It's quite short yet mind-blowingly clairvoyant, representing a world devoid of all human-ness... a world that seems quite familiar while still being appallingly outrageous.

“Hoy día todo el mundo es feliz... Pero ¿No te gustaría tener la libertad de ser feliz (...) de otra manera? A tu modo, por ejemplo; no a la manera de todos”.

I don't think i like dystopian novels a lot.. I like how this novel in particular explores a different kind of society and life, but I was more shocked about how they went about it rather than it making me think about society/life.

I had not read this old classic before, but I think my expectations were a bit too high.

Innovative ideas for that time.

Brave New World was first published in 1932 by a man who was nominated for a Nobel Prize on nine separate occasions, so you can imagine that much of what can be said about Brave New World has already been said. It is used as set texts in school curricula and has had innumerable books, articles and research papers written about it. In context, this review is but a drop in the ocean. Nevertheless, I'll do my best to express my thoughts on this, one of the top three dystopian classics.

I am always wary around titles that have been deemed ‘classics' as history has taught me that I usually find them quite disappointing. There is an element of that here as my immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were to wonder if it were really a dystopian novel or just a philosophical thought-experiment from the 1930s. I found the treatment and portrayal of women in the book to be quite frustrating and very misogynistic. Huxley seems scared stiff of women and their potential for sexual liberation and so paints them in an damning light and punishes them terribly. 

Huxley's misogyny has been criticised and acknowledged on a much wider scale, for example, Higdon wrote that it plagued much of Huxley's work pre-1931 and continues on to summarise exactly what I was feeling: 

A careful consideration of Lenina's attitudes, decisions, and actions shows that the overlay of misogyny careened Huxley into contradicting his ideas, into failing to see that Lenina is more heroic in her resistance to the Fordian world than are the men his narrative praises, and into taking an unearned and mean-spirited revenge on Lenina. In brief, Lenina's resistance goes unnoticed in the novel because of the novel's misogyny. (Higdon, 2002)

...in an enlightening general discussion of misogyny in dystopias, Deanna Madden concludes that the men in Brave New World “have a spiritual dimension that the women lack ... mired in the physical, the women interfere with or prevent the men from achieving spiritually” and that “Huxley's misogyny has its obvious roots in a more general inability to accept the body.” (ibid.)

Great quick read and has some captivating moments but I wanted more character development and didn't take away as much as everyone else seems to.

I enjoyed it. It's not as well written as the other famous dystopias it's compared to, but I think its themes are more relevant.

The characters are usually pretty annoying (which is 100% understandable given the setting), but I really like John. He's one of my favorite characters I've read recently.

I struggled with this one. I jumped between audio and print but just couldn't get into it. Admittedly I looked at a sparknotes video to help it sink in better. The overall message of the book is prophetic, and I can see myself returning to this at another time with a less hectic mind.

A re-read of this very prescient genre classic. I don't think there's much to be said about Brave New World that hasn't been said already, apart from that I enjoyed it a lot less this time around, though Huxley's ideas on death conditioning are bang on, and something that western society has still not done enough to deal with.

“Death conditioning begins at eighteen months. Every tot spends two mornings a week in a Hospital for the Dying. All the best toys are kept there, and they get chocolate cream on death days. They learn to take dying as a matter of course.”

Let's do it.

6 anos depois de lê-lo pela primeira vez, reecontro a obra de Huxley com grande interesse. Tantos pontos e perspectivas novas ficaram evidentes, em especial nos últimos capítulos!
Huxley conseguiu prever (ou talvez influenciar seja mais cabível) grandes avanços da engenharia e da genética, construindo em sua obra um mundo que não parece mais tão distante daquele em que vivemos hoje, e definitivamente se provando um pioneiro em muitas questões que vão desde questionamentos sobre a natureza do homem até a liberdade sexual que era impensável em 1932.