Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More & More Prescient, 22 Dec 2006
BNW while not perhaps truly great in a literary sense, is most certainly extraordinary in a prophetic one, and in its way a deeper book than 1984, displaying Huxley's subtler understanding of totalitarian's potential wiles, and also his wry and absurdist sense of humour...the Epsilon Semi-Morons and their newspapers of no more than one syllable comes to mind. Now what could that be lampooning in the modern world? Huxley once described it as perhaps fraudulent to pretend to be a novelist, but that he was more of an essayist who with much pleasure used the novel form to embody his ideas. Having said that though, I think he could write works that are fine works of art, with special mention to Eyeless in Gaza and also Those Barren Leaves.
Anyway to get back on track, BNW Revisited is a work that deserves as wide a readership as its more famous younger brother, and displays Huxley's remarkably incisive, elegant and clear thinking about issues of great importance, which can be broadly grouped together as the ever present threat to man's freedom from those in power. As Huxley wrote, "A democracy is a society dedicated to the proposition that power is often abused, and should be entrusted to officials in limited amounts only." This is especially important now as particularly in modern US and Britain, civil liberties are eroded by centralising governments promising us that these increased powers are for own good. Revisited contains amongst much else very elightening thoughts on propaganda in a supposedly free society. Anyway these two books can hardly be more highly recommended, and despite the heavy subject matter, somehow manage to lighten rather than deaden one's mood and worldview due to the self-evident uplifting sense of Huxley's own self. Those impressed with BNW should probably check out Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov as Huxley said that he gained much of the inspiration from its magnificent book within a book, The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Such a Profound Read, 28 Nov 2007
Aldous Huxley's classic book, "Brave New World," is very interesting and such a profound read. This book should be strongly recommended.
In a way, this book is prophetic. While it is considered a science fiction, it remarkably parallel to that of today's world. Projecting suggestions through our sleeps are one of modes of mind control.
Today, we are all been subject constantly to 'suggestions' to one form or another, including a controlled media. And, we are ignoring the madness and believing in the lies brought forth by our so-called 'leaders' through the media. They can even seep the 'suggestions' through education, through televisions, through strobe lights, and through any media of sorts. And, we do not have a strong psychological resistance to these suggestions.
There is very important quote from this book that speaks of mind control:
"Till at last the child's mind is these suggestions and the sum of the suggestions is the child's mind. And not the child's mind only. The adult's mind too - all his life long. The mind that judges and desires and decides is made up of these suggestions. But these suggestions are our suggestions...suggestions from the State."
Brave New World is similar to George Orwell's "1984" in term of bureaucratized society where one lost self-identity and under a complete control of the state. Both "1984" and Brave New World do indeed had an impact on me as well anyone else in reading them.
Huxley's book is strongly recommended and receive more than five stars because it holds the real warning...
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51 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Current even today, essential, provoking, reading., 8 Jun 1999
By A Customer
Aldous Huxleys', 'Brave New World,' is a grim look into a future where science controls all. Human beings are, 'conditioned,' to create a stable society where free thought is corrupted from birth. Huxleys' political wit and vivid characterisation sustain the novel at a pace that doesn't dazzle but allows the reader time to contemplate the many issues the text cannot fail to provoke. If you take on, 'Brave New World,' you have to be prepared to spend hours reconsidering your own views on science, religion, freedom and the multitude of other issues that the novel provokes, just remember to stir the soup while your lost in thought. Huxley never hands you the answers on a plate; the novel is entirely two-sided, perhaps written with a slight sense of ambivalence by Huxley toward his subject. Huxley has created a novel which decades after it's first edition is still essential reading and current, it tackles issues of genetic modification, cloning and totalitarianism, while managing to avoid the pitfall of being too scientific or political. If, like me, you enjoyed, Orwells' 1984 you must, must read this, it's far better. Afterwards read, ' The Island,' which gives a contrasting account of Huxleys' vision of a true Utopia, and 'The Doors of Perception.' The only reason I can't call the novel inspirational is because that's what everybody says about it. I shall call it genius.
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