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As I posted below, I've set a goal for myself to read 50 classics over the next year. My first review is now up!

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I have a confession to make: I’ve tried reading Brave New World before. The book had a profound affect on George when he read it in college, and he enthusiastically recommended it to me. But I’d start the book, get halfway through the tedious first chapter about growing babies in bottles, and would promptly fall into a drooling, boredom-induced stupor that made reading on impossible.

So imagine my surprise when I finally got past the baby factory scene, and learned for the first time that the book is all about sex. That’s right: sex.

See, I think that’s a major structural problem. Huxley really should have started with the sex, right there on the very first page. And, sure, if he wanted to, he could have slipped the whole tour of the baby factory scene in at some point further on in the book. (Although, preferably, a shortened version. Yes, yes, they grow babies in a factory. We get it. Can we please move on now?).

So there’s my editorial suggestion: Sex first. Boring laboratories later.

Anyway. Brave New World, set in a distant future that finds wimpy outcast, Bernard Marx, traveling with Lenina, the girl of his dreams, to the American Southwest to gawk at a tribe of Native Americans. There they find John, otherwise known as the Savage, whom they talk into going back to London with them. Bernard wants to use John to impress his colleagues, while Lenina plots to seduce the newcomer.

But here’s all you really need to know about Brave New World: it’s Dick Lit. In fact, considering that the Modern Library gave the book the impressive number five slot on its 100 Best Novels list, you might even say it’s the preeminent example of Dick Lit.

In BNW, Huxley created a world of frat boy fantasy. The women are all easy (monogamy is considered a moral failing). Men can grope their work colleagues without fear of a sexual harassment law suits, and hook up without the hassles of commitment or child support. Subjugating lesser males is not only expected, but encouraged. Free time is spent watching porn, playing golf and popping ecstasy tablets.

Of course, the reader is supposed to see through all of the sex, fun and good times, and recognize the BNW for the dystopia it is. First comes the promiscuity, and then it’s a slippery slope to administering electrical shocks to babies as behavioral modification.

Would I put BNW in my top five books of all time? No. The book was well written, but cold, and it was difficult to relate to the characters. The women were all weak and slutty, the men were all either self-absorbed and shallow, or self-absorbed and weak. Although, once I got about halfway through the book, I did find myself pretty absorbed in the story, if only to find out how it ended (unsurprisingly, everyone did not live happily ever after).

Still, I’d give it a solid B-plus (and somewhat higher, if you’re a twenty-year old college boy).

One down, forty-nine to go.

Posted 15 February 2006 at 09:49 PM