This post is coming in quite late because August and September are really busy months for me at work. Its the start of the new semester and both Jane and I work in the same office, so we were B.U.S.Y.
August's Book Club choice was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932) and I was the only one in the club who hadn't read it before! Everyone else had read it in high school or sometime around then, but not me. This one was completely new to me. And even though it is consider a classic novel, I didn't know anything about it nor was I familiar with the themes of the plot.
In Huxley's New London everyone belongs to everyone else, babies are produced in test tubes and every action is to be performed in the duty of the social body. Maintaining the stability of society is the primary goal of the residents of New London, yet individual private thoughts, desires and actions begin to creep in and select individuals question their place in the world order.
Our ratings for Brave New World were all over the board, from the lowest rating of 3 all the way to an 8. It proves how each member can react to a book quite differently and we are not always on the same page. However, this disparity in ratings made for a fantastic discussion and as I look over my notes from the meeting, its hard express them in a logical order but I will do my best. So buckle in, there is a lot to unpack about this novel.
The main thread of our the discussion revolved around the commentary of the society within the book. Each main character had certain thoughts on how the world worked, but so did the narrator it seemed. I feel the overall objective was for the reader to NOT feel comfortable with the way the society within Brave New World operated. Encouraging that feeling of uncomfortable-ness with what was written forces the reader to engage with what felt strange and why it didn't sit right. The "Preface to the 1946 Edition" even talks about how the future, to be plausible, must look probable. This is true in the case of Huxley's utopia: everything looks and feels probable even if it makes us uncomfortable.
When we began to talk about the characters and their relationships to each other and the society, we soon came to the conclusion that they were all written in the same mold; with one exception. Jane pointed out that Helmholtz's character and the way he interacts with society and the other inhabitants is the only healthy response to the dissatisfaction of the society. He is brilliant, and knows it, thus he uses his intelligence to try and help the society come to terms, and not just feed into it. Whereas everybody else is pretentious, self-serving, focused on their own pleasure and only concerned about not getting in trouble for not doing "their duty." There wasn't much development of the characters in the story - other than John - and the more we talked about them, the more we realized our discussions were actually building up the characters' story arcs more than the novel provided.
"Happiness" was a main theme throughout the whole narrative, from the characters, to the society, to the new world as a whole. The idea of happiness as the 'ultimate good' was a great point of discourse. Elissa noted that none of the characters experience true or real happiness because everything is artificially induced. The value of their so-called 'happiness' is decreased because there is no negative in their lives with which they are forced to overcome in order to achieve said happiness. The society of Brave New World has only two values: efficiency and productivity and if you as a member of that society check both those boxes then you must be happy because you are fulfilling your duty to the social body. And, as an added, twisted bonus, because everyone is conditioned to believe their duty to the social body is of the utmost importance, they cannot even feel or recognize real happiness if it happens.
This leads into one of the themes of the book that I had a real issue with: the drug use. The drug of choice in New London is Soma. It has all the effects of hard-core mind-numbing drugs without any of the negative effects and is popped like candy into the mouths of all the society if they start to feel anything mildly like unhappiness or uncomfortable-ness. Based on the events of Soma use in the novel by all of the characters, it equates to me as they don't have to have any accountability whatsoever. Some examples: get in trouble for not performing social duty, take Soma; get angry at a friend or they get angry at you, take Soma and forget about it; witness something that is unconventional in the social order, take Soma and move on with your life; any sort of disruption in ANY form, take the Soma! The use of Soma and its detriment to the society is very key in the plots of Bernard and John. Bernard refuses to take Soma a lot of the time and thus tends to think very negatively and be very private. This negativity and privacy makes others around him uncomfortable, which then prompts them to take Soma and to badger him about not taking Soma, resulting in him become more withdrawn. For John, he doesn't take the Soma because he is new to New London and because he is new he questions things. The other members of society don't like these questions so he is considered 'maladaptive' and pushed and pressured to take the Soma and stop asking questions. The whole cycle of Soma usage is highly problematic.
The second last point I want to make is about the women, or very significant lack of them there are in this book. None of the Alpha Plus characters or side characters mentioned are women, nor are any of the people in charge of the society women. However, the book can still be considered borderline feminist because of the empowerment the women have over their bodies. They can pleasure themselves with whomever they want to, whenever they want to, however many times they want to. BUT, and there is a big but coming, that is only because that is how they are conditioned as children, through into adulthood, on how to behave as part of the social order. "Everybody belongs to everyone else." While female sexual empowerment is great, there are still no women IN power in the novel and they hardly actually make their own decisions. To drive it home: out of all of the characters that feature heavily in the novel, one three are women, and only one of them is a main character.
Most of our discussion focused on the psychological and philosophical aspects of the book and less on the actual plot or characters. I think it was the only direction the meeting could go because there was so little to the characters on the page without in-depth discussion. We also discussed the racism in the book towards Black people and the significant overuse of the word 'savage'. There was also the topic of all the characters being raised as perpetual children and as Jane put it "the tyranny of the other." You cannot be alone, there is always someone there, and being alone reflects negatively on you and your duty to the society. You can only be individual as part of the whole, there is no individual of the self.
There is so much complexity to this book that it kind of makes my head hurt, but it is a classic and for good reason. I have not yet read the extended part to the book called Brave New World Revisited. It goes into more depth about some of the major themes: over-population, quantity, quality, morality, over-organization, propaganda, brainwashing, chemical and subconscious persuasion, and education as a form of freedom. This novel is either loved or hated and I personally didn't like it, but as a story to study with such poignant key themes, I highly recommend it.
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Brave New World has had some adaptations in the past, mostly movies, but 2020 has offered up a new limited series adaptation that appears to provide viewers with the sleek, clean future that the novel itself promises. I was able to get an advanced digital copy of the series and watched it with zealous after I was done the novel and our book club meeting had taken place. With modern filming techniques, technology and advanced visual effects, the world in this new adaptation sure reflects what was described on the page, to an extent. New London's tech, the cleanly styled buildings, the flying machines and rockets and even the clothing all look and feel as futuristic as Huxley wrote them to be. Personally, it felt more science fiction than the book ever did.
When it came to adapting the characters, I think the series did the novel justice and went one step further by making a few of the main characters women, in addition to Lenina - and it worked! Making Helmholtz's character a woman, Wilhelmina, did not take away from the basis of the character, it actually made the character better and added to the dimension of Helm within the group of main characters and in the society of New London as a whole. Another big change, which I feel 100% made the adaptation bearable was that some of the traits Bernard had in the book were transferred to Lenina. This rounded out her character more and made Bernard more likable than in the book, even though he's still not that likable, but he's not supposed to be.
The series adaptation also made massive changes to the Savage Reservation, John and his story arc, but I think it really worked. It took the Reservation and updated it for a modern audience, which was likely necessary. Changing it to a literal theme park also removed a bunch of the blatant racism that was present in the book, which sounds counter-intuitive, but it actually worked really well. John is also not a prude like he is in the book and his story arc takes a couple of other different turns that it doesn't in the book but again, it worked well within the adaptation and still felt true to the major themes of the novel. A lot of John and his background were updated so that a modern audience could relate, but it didn't lose any of the impact that was there in the book either. Its really hard to explain this point: all the changes to John are still relevant and the core of John's plight was not lost.
A few other additions/changes were made that were obviously more updates for the modern audience. Again, I still think they worked really well and didn't take away from the idea that the content is supposed to make us uncomfortable. Two major plots were added to run alongside the main story that enriched the world that extra couple points. One was an artificial intelligence program that was kind of like the over-lord to the whole society. That added a really wicked and uncomfortable element to the series and the other was a rebellion/revolution plot that took place within the lower caste ranks of the New London society. I really want to write more on both theses elements because I thought they were superb editions to the adaptation, but I also don't want to give away massive spoilers either. So, if you're curious, you'll just have to watch it!
The ending to the series was very curious, and just as unsatisfactory as the book ending, but I think that was intentional. I think if the ending was satisfying that would have taken me out of the whole experience and I would not have enjoyed the adaptation as much as I did. The added AI over-lord plays a big role in the conclusion of the series and I can't stop thinking "WHAT WAS IN THE GOLD BOX?!" The adapted ending left some story lines up in the air, but then so did the book, and it also left itself open to some interpretation and questioning, but again, that works in its favour. I really need some other people to watch this series so I can talk about it more and rant about all the ways it was a GOOD adaptation.
