“Brave New World” and “Brave New World Revisited” by Aldous Huxley

“Brave New World” (1932) is a science fiction novel written by the English writer Aldous Huxley (1894-1963). In this novel he presents a futurist world dominated by technology: human beings are artificially “cultivated” and genetically modified to belong to particular castes. Everyone is made to be “happy” by a process of hipnopedia. They live under the rules of a totalitarian man, the creator of the world, ironically called Ford. Everyone who does not belong to this world is considered a savage.

“Brave New World Revisited” (1958) is a recopilation of essays which had been published on the magazine “Newsday”. In this set of essays, Aldous Huxley himself analizes (30 years after the publication of “Brave New World”) the themes of his own novel.The book consists of 12 chapters, each of which deals with a certain topic such as “Brainwashing”,”The art of selling” and “Education for freedom”.Then, Huxley verifies that most of his ideas and predictions were right and some others wrong.

The first time I was asked to read “Brave New World”, I was at secondary school, and I can remember that I found it quite a tedious and odd book, because I have never liked science fiction stories. The thing is that when I was asked to read it for the second time (then at higer education), I read it with much more enthusiasm. I think that I could read between the lines and go beyond the story itself. Moreover, I decided to read “Brave New World Revisited” on my own, and then I found both of them interesting books. It is incredible how Huxley describes and asserts on his predictions of the western world. Even if you read it almost 80 years before the first edition, the description of a society managed by a few, where the influence of government limits citizens on their thoughts, is in a way what is happening nowadays with uneducated people.

IZZIE