Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

[sir archely]

So, we're past due on the discussion to start about this one...

I, for one, last read this over a decade ago, and my copy is currently in storage at my parents house. I had no intention of getting out to do a reread for this. So... go nuts, if you want. i'm curious what people thought if they read it for the first time, if there is anyone out there who did.

[Eyreplenh]

Whoahey, this nifty thread-thing completely slipped my attention I read the book, kind of for the first time; I did a very bad read of it when I were thirteen, all in patches and spanning several weeks...Didn't remember much of it, and it was as reading it for the first time. Sort of. Errr

Anyway, I love the book! Amazing how he so accurately could depict such a future already in the early thirties. I mean, our society isn't quite as messed up as Huxleys version (yet, haha), but all the biological, gene-tech mumbo jumbo (scientific terms, not my cup of coke, but with a little good will you'll know what I mean. There *pat pat*) he describes isn't that far away from what is possible today, is it? I seem to remember hearing about "tailoring" babies and suchthings...

I unfortunately read the book in the wanky language norwegian, something that probably was a bad move, seeing as the book originally is filled with numerous Shakespearian terms, hints, puns and fun. Think I'll get it in english soon.

Picked up Doors of perception saturday, and read it, and in conclusion I'd say Huxley was definitive a fine man. If raving mad.

[dark fuschia]

hmmm I haven't read it since highschool, and was hoping to come across it second hand at the markets, but didn't. What I remember of it is the description of his mother after she had been to the dystopian realm where aging occurs naturally. It was a positively hideous description, yet it was that of many middle aged women, whom most here (I imagine?) look upon with fondness. Anyway since reading that description its kind of had this lasting affect upon my psyche: in my mind it drew attention away from the kind warmth, the loving protectiveness of many middle aged women, and painted them instead as the slightly ridiculous mother figure of stretch marks, jowls and bovine eyes, and ridiculous over cluckiness, and vacant dumbed down minds, it strikes a sort of disgust in me, just as it did in the brave new worldians. And now when I see women like that, there's an inner horror. The life giver, the nurterer, as the vessel and source, but not as the reason, running round in circles, her purpose served, she chases her tail, the most pitiable and laughable figure on the planet. He taps into something very very dark and intrinsic in human response you know? I think I better read it again cos I can make no conclusions here, just stress that his imagery of the middle aged woman truly never ever left me. It is the dark opposite of the life giving earth mother figure that was once worshipped by ancient civilisations. Which is true? In the modern day and age, we certainly no longer worship the earth mother.