"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beautious mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!"
Aldous Huxley's masterpiece Brave New World opens up the idea of an utopian society complete with your wildest dreams come true but the question is at what cost?
Could I forgo the right to be depressed, my right to feel hurt and be feel completely dreadful for eternal happiness?
What is continual happiness after all? Its a state of complacency, a state where in everything I am is dormant. Where every day is exactly the same as the next. Where there really is nothing to look forward to, where all your wishes are simply answered, no strings attached , no terrific fight with one's conscience or with the world. Imagine a world devoid of violent passions! Oh! death is better than to live like that? Would you have peace sacrificing science and art?
Humans are a blood thirsty race. We cannot be pigeon holed to a concept called peace. When things go very calm, it itches an un-itchable region! You cannot propagate harmony to the entire population, there will inadvertently be someone somewhere glorifying terror. How can there be innovation and those passionate art works if there are no dark shades.
The whole book is littered with some amazing punch lines that takes my breathe away. Like the moment Bernard has with Lenina alone hovering above the ocean floor under a pale moon and says that he felt they would belong to each other more truly here than in a crowd. Conversation between John the Savage and Mustafa Mond.
Not to mention the amazing world he has created. The idea of social conditioning. The idea of free love with no strings attached. To have an infant attitude socially and an external body observing your every move (scary!) , manifestation of God by absence (that really is a killer line!). Death conditioning. The division of society into Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon by decanting the fetus in a manner that each one is happy to be in the self-same state. Everything is thought so precisely and put into being, a great mind indeed.
I am yet to watch the movie version of this novel. Hopefully it is able to capture a part of the spirit of the book!
Overall I rate this book 10 on 10. A must read.
