Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

In the 26th century, after a destructive war, the world lives in peace, managed by World Controllers who use the principles of assembly-line manufacture and psychology to enforce a ubiquitous, passivist, pansexual, consumerist culture. Raised from cells in a lab (the idea of mothers and fathers characterized as obscene) into castes (Alpha to Epsilon) through hypnopedia and Skinner-like conditioning through pain, people’s mental and physical growth is chosen and accordingly expanded or stunted. To this end, independent art is abolished and pure science is discouraged; all innovations serve only to increase consumerism and the instantaneous gratification of simple desires. Books are not banned per se; people are simply trained not to care for books, instead being satisfied with video “feelies,” somatic drugs, and sexual release. Unlike Orwell’s 1984, there is no evil hypocrisy behind these principles, but a real desire for peace, stability and order. As the World Controller Mustapha Mond remarks, "What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when anthrax bombs are popping all around you?” To this world comes the Savage, a man born on an Indian reservation where there is still alcohol, hunting, religious ritual, and live birth. Fluent in Shakespeare and drawn to natural beauty, he is repelled and baffled by this clinical world in which everything comes easily. His keeper, Bernard Marx, an unusually neurotic Alpha, enjoys the uproar the Savage causes, but does not understand the implications of the upheaval his presence causes.

This is, quite simply, a brilliant book. Quite prescient (the instantaneous nature of YouTube and how quickly a video can become “viral” is just one thing that is foreshadowed here) and based on real principles, this is a world perhaps less frightening, because less violent, than Orwell’s, but a good sight creepier, because everyone is complicit in constructing the culture that limits them. The denigration of individualism, the natural inclination to associate physical size with value and to associate the difficult to process with the uninteresting, the worship of instant gratification and consumerism – these are all human impulses, and it’s easy to see how these can be manipulated in the name of larger principles.

[Read twice: 10/20/07, 5/10/11]  

five stars 

A Short History Of Nearly Everything

by Bill Bryson

Bryson writes with great enthusiasm and helpful clarity on science — from the Big Bang to tectonic plates, from evolution to extinction events. He notes the lives of some of the more eccentric men of learning, particularly in the 19th century, and he examines the ways in which they found out what we know.

Bryson’s a very readable writer: his voice is agreeable and, for the subject, suitably awed. I’m sure that at times he inadvertently sacrificed accuracy for breadth of scope, but that’s to be expected when a layman tackles such a vast array of unfamiliar material. I do think Bryson stumbles a bit in his avowed goal of explaining how we come to know some things, but the tone, and especially the ending — an impassioned plea for knowledge as savior of mankind — more than make up for any deficiencies in the information. 

four stars