Six hundred years into the future... through genetic engineering, mental conditioning and chemical manipulation, mankind has successfully abolished disease, old age, war, and many other unwanted aspects of life. Everybody is happy and society functions like a well-oiled machine. It sounds good, yet also abolished are some of the staples of our present day world... like parenthood, love, families and individuality. This is the story of Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson, misfits in this future world, who feel that something is not right, but can't quite grasp what it is. This classic Utopian tale is probably even more pertinent and thought provoking today than it was in 1932 when it is was written.
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Quotes from the book - part of the Book Venue quotations collection.
Huxley Hot Links - links to all kinds of Huxley related sites, read "a defense of paradise engineering" ... what do YOU think?
Soma Web - Brave New World Links, and more

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Discussion (Let us know what you think at the discussion board):

Topic 1 I found the idea of "social conditioning" to be quite intriguing. Although we have no named "controllers", what signs are there in the nearly 70 years since the publication of Brave New World that our population is being "conditioned" by society and/or our government?

Topic 2 Reread the last chapter of the book. There are two interpretations of what happens in this chapter. Did the savage do what he did because he ended up having sex with Lenina and was disgusted with himself? Or was it that he actually had killed Lenina during his violent outburst?

Topic 3 Do you think it possible for mankind to achieve a Utopian state? Is it necessary to sacrifice our individuality and freedom to do so?

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Reader Reviews:

Submitted by AlienFX007 (February 2002) I read BNW as required for my advance placement English class--of course I was expecting it to be better than the average novel. I greatly enjoyed it(up until the last chapter); I found it very interesting how Huxley was able to foresee the future of technology so very well, considering how long ago the book was written (granted, we're not all clones, but we're not that far away from our own Brave New World!) Anyway, the novel was going very smoothly--exciting, interesting, compelling--and the character development was almost flawless (thanks to Huxley psychology training) and then I read the last chapter; what a huge disappointment! It seems as though, by that time, Huxley was fed up, and I've heard that he wanted to end the novel at the previous chapter, but his publishers forced him to continue. The last chapter left the reader with far too many loose ends to deal with, and was very much un-Huxley-ish in the way that the character development seemed very forced an unnatural. Without that last chapter, though, the book was one of my personal faves, and I'd recommend it to my friends. Overall, I found it enjoyable.

Sharon (November 2000) I think this book was worth reading simply for the ideas it puts forth. The characters seem a bit two-dimensional, and the plot is not exactly riveting... even contrived at times, but I think some of this is quite intentional on the author's part. I don't think this is a book that was written to entertain but rather to make one think about things around us, and inside of us, that we don't normally take much time to examine.