I picked up Aldous Huxley’s classic Brave New World with knowledge of its dystopian themes, but with no real awareness of its story; vague recollections of soma and babies being created mechanically, but nothing really beyond that. It’s amazing how in a culture in which we are continually spoiled or assumed to have a certain level of knowledge about canonical texts, somehow, basic information about Brave New World had passed me by. Set in the distant future, civilized society has taken technology and the methods of mechanical reproduction to every aspect of human life – the physical birthing process and concept of mothers are abhorred in favour of chemically differentiated humans assigned to castes according to tasks that need to be performed within society, work is performed in exchange for the perfect drug soma, promiscuity and carnality are encouraged, and above all the collective social order is more important than the individual. Within this system, Bernard Marx finds himself feeling “different” but it isn’t until he returns from a savage reservation with the naturally birthed son of Bernard’s Director that the social order can be examined from an outsiders perspective.

‘But people never are alone now,’ said Mustapha Mond. ‘We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it’s almost impossible for them ever to have it.’

Bernard Marx is such a complex character, he is for the most part of the novel the sole voice of protest but he is too afraid to really express it, surrounded as he is by others who have been successfully conditioned to passively accept everything on offer. When John revolts against the impassive acceptance of his mothers death and refusal to see his grief, Bernard just stands back unable to join him. In his heart, and in his thoughts he knows that the methods of distraction are against everything he wants to stand for, but because he is both critical and part of society he just cannot separate himself entirely because it is all he knows. I didn’t wholly understand the point Huxley was driving toward until John (the Savage) meets with the Controller, Mustapha Mond, and Mond discusses the basis of the civilized world to the alienated and confused John. It wasn’t until this point when all everything started fitting together for me, and became truly horrifying – and started to mirror aspects of our own culture as well. The cult of positivity, the fear of solitude, the use of entertainment to dull people. Here’s a graphic which lends the comparison to today a stark relevance, and compares the future as envisioned by Huxley to that of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.’
‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’
‘All right, then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’
‘Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.’
There was a long silence.
‘I claim them all,’ said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said.

I’m still stunned and taken aback by how powerful the final chapters of Huxley’s novel are. Reeling, I suppose one would say. I think my experience of Brave New World is going benefit immensely from multiple rereads, there was so much going on that didn’t become clear to me until the end. I feel completely unable to articulate how deeply it has shaken me. I wonder whether this paralyzing inability to write about Brave New World stems from the power and continuing relevance of its message or from the novels prestigious reputation. It’s the same feeling I had when I was reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter for the first time (yes, I can really tie Carson McCullers into any and every book discussion I have.), the feeling of “yes. Yes. Yes! Someone else gets it.” I’m sure it’s just a matter of synchronicity, simply discovering it at the right time.