The True Dystopia

Brave New World
by Aldous Huxley

The dystopia train did not start with The Hunger Games series, and it certainly didn't end with it either. Like, yeah, I enjoyed Catching Fire just as much as the next person because it was engaging and well-written, but there's a sort of a feeling of safety one gets when reading a scenario that extreme and improbable, that this could never happen, which so many dystopian stories now seem to be adopting, turning them more into a science fantasy novel than anything else.

To me, dystopian novels should be incredibly real despite being fiction; they should make you think, "Will that happen to us?"

I touched on that in my review of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One, which explores the ideas of digital dependency in a fun little 1980s trivia factbook. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is, admittedly, a little less fun to read, but I believe that its ideas are just as important as those expressed in other books that I prefer, such as the aforementioned.

To keep it simple without revealing too much (since if I say one thing I have to explain ten others), the main idea is that humans in this society, all over the world, are no longer born and instead are genetically engineered in mass quantities to fit into different castes that all have different duties to fill: alphas, betas, gammas, deltas, and epsilons. Alphas are the smartest and most individualistic while epsilons are extremely developmentally delayed and expected to complete only menial labor. Bernard Marx, who is introduced as one of the main characters, is an Alpha-Plus: the top of the top... yet, everyone finds him incredibly odd because of his strange stature and tendency to think too hard!  "Odd, odd, odd," people think, "so odd, indeed." (87)

The first of its many slight downfalls that I would like to immediately address is its inherent sexuality. While this book definitely isn't rated R for explicitness, it does regularly touch upon the topic of sex in the context of having multiple casual partners; one mantra that is often repeated throughout the book is "every one belongs to every one else" (43). Not every reader is going to be comfortable with this, mature enough to handle it, or even have in an interest in reading about it. However, I will say that it's sort of refreshing to hear these things discussed in such a nonchalant manner; people now, especially Americans, have such a stigma around intimacy that just sort of worms its way into one's brain, even if one is not particularly disconcerted by discussing such topics.

The plot is a little unclear at first, since quite a bit of the early pages are spent describing the dystopian world (disguised as a utopia by the corrupted in charge) in which Bernard lives, who also do not become the obvious "protagonist" (quotation marks emphasized there) until much later, as several characters are introduced before him and the entire book is not centered around his point-of-view.

To be completely honest, I can't say that I have very strong feelings about this book like I have the past two I've written about. I don't hate it, but I don't love it, either. Despite that, though, I do strongly suggest that any older teenager or adult who does have the opportunity to read this book at least consider doing so. I haven't finished it yet, but I have gotten far enough to form an educated opinion of it; I'm a little over halfway through, because for me, it is slow reading.

This book is a learning experience, not really a 'fun' read. It's about the dangers of a society focused on entertainment, leisure, and luxury (much like Fahrenheit 451!), written in the early 1930s that still applies to life today. However, because it was written in the 1930s, it can be hard for the average teenager to relate to for several reasons: the dialogue can be unnatural in places due to the time and setting in which it was written, all of the characters are adults, and said adult characters are ignorant jerks and a little bit idiotic at times. Not to say that this wasn't done purposefully and is a product of bad writing-- they absolutely should act like they do, given their society-- but it has been incredibly difficult for me to get through certain portions of the book without getting frustrated. One chapter, I relate wholeheartedly to Bernard and his thought process; the next, I wish I had never compared myself to him. However, for the sake of avoiding spoilers, I won't go into the details of what makes him fluctuate between different ends of the likability spectrum so often.

Long story short: a fantastic lesson delivered in a a-little-better-than-mediocre package. Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't argue somebody's ear off about why I think I'm correct in saying that this isn't a great book, because I don't believe it's not. I just think that the moral of Brave New World could have been conveyed in a more engaging way that would make it a bit more "timeless" than it already is.