1. General information:
Publisher, city, year: Grafton in 1977 in London
Edition: 18th
First published: 1932 by Chatto & Windus Ltd (Great Britain)
Number of pages: 255

2. Author:
Aldous Leonard Huxley was born in 1894 in England in an intellectual English family. In 1916 he took studied English at Balliol College, Oxford, despite a condition of near-blindness. In 1919 he married Maria Nys and in the same year he joined The Atheneum under Middleton Murry. His first book of verse had been published in 1916; in 1920 Limbo, a collection of short stories, was published. A year later Huxley’s first novel Crome Yellow appeared. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy, but in the 30s he moved to Sanary, near Toulon (France), where he wrote
Brave New World. In California he became convinced of the value of mystical experience and he described the effects of some of his experiments in The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. Maria Nys Huxley died in 1955 and a year later Aldous married Laura Archera; they continued to live in California where Aldous Huxley died in 1963.
He was a brilliant social satirist. He also wrote criticism, poems and essays. He wrote about architecture, science, music, philosophy, history and religion.
The period of style is typical science-fiction from the 1920s.

3. First reaction
I chose this book because my father told me that it was a good book. He told me that it was a bestseller and therefore it had to be a great book. When I saw the book in the school’s library and read the foreword I decided that I at least should try to read the book. My first impression after I read the story was the marvellous mind of Huxley. The story itself is very simple and to me it’s not likely to come true and I thought this every time I put the book away; yet when I was actually reading the story I was so into it that it was as if it was the truth, and I was really there with the characters. I think that is what makes the difference between a normal and a good author; a good author is able to keep the attention of the reader even if the plot is not a brilliant one.

4. Deepening

Summary:
In the year 632 After Ford, according to the new time-reckoning, the Director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre explained the working of his factory to a group of first-year students. What they saw was a process in making human beings. Eggs were painlessly taken from the female body and fertilized in bottles. The bottles contained special nutritive solutions for each of the social classes, from Alpha plus to Epsilon minus, for which the future men and women were intended. Thanks to a brilliant invention by Bokanovsky it was possible to make each egg produce as many as 96 human beings, all exactly identical and therefore particularly suited for the performance of standardised tasks in society. Mass production, originally developed by the great Ford, ensured the material welfare of everybody; mental and spiritual troubles were effectively relieved by soma, a drug that makes you feels as if you were on a holiday. Individuality was banished; the slogan of the new society was Community, Identity, Stability. After “birth” (or decantation, as it was called) the babies were further conditioned for their predestined places in the community. The undergrads were deeply impressed by the Director’s inspired account as well as by the smooth efficiency of the machines and the trained workers in the factory. Their respect became even greater when Mustapha Mond, one of the ten World Controllers, joined them and lectured on the disgusting features of old-fashioned family life before modern scientific planning stepped in. They felt embarrassed at hearing him boldly use the obscene words father and mother. He told them to bear in mind that now sexual contact was a social obligation, for everyone belonged to everyone else. One of the After-Ford people who did not feel quite happy was Bernard Marx, whose was a bit like a Pre-Ford man owing to a mistake having been made during his period of incubation in the bottle. Too much alcohol had been put into it by a careless female worker. He loved Lenina Crowne in the old way and could not stand the fact that in accordance with the modern code of social behaviour she had affairs with various men. By rocket ship Lenina and Bernard made a holiday to the Savage Reservation in New Mexico, a region where primitive society and old-fashioned ways of life were preserved in the interest of science. Among the Indians there they met a young white man called John. John told them that he was the son of a man called Tomakin, who had visited the Reservation many years ago in the company of a girl. Tomakin had left the girl and returned to civilisation. She gave birth to a son, John, and was slowly assimilated into the primitive life of the Indians. John’s only education had been what he could pick up from an old collection of Shakespeare’s plays. Bernard at once guessed that John was the son of Bernard’s boss, the Director of Hatcheries, who had gone to New Mexico long ago with a girl and had returned without her. Bernard, curious to know what would be the influence of modern society on a young ‘savage’, asked John and his mother Linda to be his guests in London. John eagerly accepted, because he longed to see the wonderful world of which he had been told by his mother and because he was interested in Lenina.

Back in London, Bernard faced disgrace when the Director of Hatcheries publicly accused him of unorthodox behaviour, which was regarded as the greatest crime. Bernard struck back by producing Linda and John, who greeted the Director as their husband and father. The embarrassing scene caused the Director to resign office and disappear from public life.

John, who attracted vivid attention in London, was horrified by all he saw and heard. The illusions he had cherished about civilized life were rudely shattered by the utter lack of humanity and culture and by the disregard of all the things his beloved Shakespeare had taught him to value. His innocent love for Lenina received a cruel shock when she shamelessly offered her body to him. John retreated from her in terror, for his view of love was conditioned by reading of Romeo and Juliet, and he had a strong sense of morality.
Linda felt happy at being once more surrounded by every modern convenience after the long years of poverty and filth in the Reservation. She took an overdose of soma and died in John’s presence. Enraged by the lack of human feeling of the hospital staff who attached no importance to death, John stirred up a mutiny among workers about to receive their weekly ration of soma. He was arrested and led to His Fordship Mustapha Mond. Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson, the only man who seemed to understand John, were present when Mond explained to John the foundations on which society rested. Stability was the pillar of society and everything that might threaten it such as art, beauty and religion was banned. Even science might endanger the balance of communal happiness and had to be carefully chained and guarded. In spite of Mond’s eloquence John claimed the right to be unhappy, to grow old and ugly, to be afflicted with disease and live in insecurity, the right to be free. Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders and let him go.
John left London for the country in order to take up his former way of life. But people did not leave him alone. Hordes of curious men and women came to watch him as if he were some strange animal, and he was pestered by reporters and sensation-hunters. John still loved Lenina and whipped himself in order to drive out his desire for her. When she came to see him he flew into an uncontrollable rage and whipped her to death. When he realised what he had done, he hanged himself.

Main characters:
John “the Savage”: John was born in the savage reservation, he was pestered by the other children in the reservation and he was not allowed to take part in the religion ceremonies. From his mother Linda he had heard about the modern, civilized world. Linda always told him the most beautiful stories about it and it was his dream to live there; but when he actually saw this ‘perfect’ world he was disappointed and hated it. He was an outcast, as well as in the reservation as in the modern world.
He loved Lenina Crowne but when she shamelessly offered her body, he was completely disillusioned.

Bernard Marx: Bernard was an Alpha plus. Bernard did have the mind of an Alpha but the body of an Epsilon who are very small and ugly. Because of his appearance he was lonely. But Bernard had an own rather unusual vision of the society too. Therefore he was an outcast too.

Other important characters:
Lenina Crowne: Lenina was a pretty Beta and had good prospects. But she wanted to have John who did not want her. When she insisted, he became violent and she was terrified but still wanted to have him. Except for this she was perfectly normal.

Helmholtz Watson: Helmholtz was one of the few friends of Bernard. He was a lecturer at the College of Emotional Engineering (Department of Writing). He was not common either because he had too much ability. Recently Helmholtz had become aware of this difference and searched for something though he did not know exactly what he was looking for. In the end he finally understood that he was more self-conscious than other people; therefore he was sent to an island where he could be himself without endangering the society.

Linda: Linda was the mother of John. Yet she was born in the ‘civilized’ world as a Beta minus. She landed in the savage reservation when she went with her companion (the D.H.C.) but got lost and was found by the Indians in the savage reservation and they took her to their village. She found it horrible and always longed for the wealth of the ‘civilised’ world. However when she returned to this world she was old and ugly and nobody wanted to see her; she was wreck. In the modern world she constantly used soma and finally died when taking an overdose.


D.H.C.
The D.H.C. (Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning) was an important person in the society. He was entirely normal and when he noticed Bernard Marx was acting rather strange he wanted to transfer him to Iceland. Bernard however defended himself by putting Linda and John forward. Linda declared she was the mother of John and that he (the D.H.C.) was the father. Being a mother was an obscenity in this world so she destroyed the career of the Director. Bernard was not transferred.
Mustapha Mond: Mustapha Mond was the Controller of Western-Europe; there were only ten World-Controllers, so he was a man of considerable weight. It turned out that the Controller once had been a very good scientist. Therefore he was given a choice between living on an island where he could have got on with his pure science or to be taken on to the Controllers’ Council with the prospect of succeeding in due course to an actual Controllership. He decided to give up his science to live in luxury and provide other people with happiness.

Point of view:
It is written in/as a "personaal verhaal" (a he/she story). You could split the book up in two parts. In the first part Bernard Marx is the main character, in the second part John.

Time:
The story is written in chronological order. There is only one flash-back (John's childhood). The story takes about one year, though it is not mentioned.

Setting:
The story is set in A.F. (After Ford) 632. Ford released the first T-ford (Grandma Duck-car) in about A.D. 2535; in this year a new era had begun.
The story is set in London, England. In the end John tries to live alone in an old lighthouse between Puttenham and Elstead. The Savage Reservation is in New Mexico.

Atmosphere:
The atmosphere is rather weird because the society is happy, but they have no real consciousness. That makes it rather scary; it seems so easy to make the mass do what the elite wants. The idea of how people ‘make’ children in the ‘modern’ world resembles with cloning. It is an atmosphere of a world with merely mind bound slaves.

Climax:

In my opinion the climax is the conversation between the Controller and John. During that talk John finally understands himself and the society is explained by the Controller. I think that are the two most important elements of the book. Not until that point you fully understand the story. Underneath I put the passage from the book:

"But I like the inconveniences."
"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"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.

Some people could say that the insanity of John at the end when he tries to live unnoticed and by himself is the climax because it is the most impressive part, the most ‘exciting’.

Theme:
Advancement of science as it effects human individuals.
It is a satire on material and scientific progress. Huxley wants to warn the people that unlimited devotion to material welfare and technical improvement will destruct mankind.

Explanation of the title:

“Brave New World” is derived from Shakespeare’s The Tempest when Miranda exclaims in joyful wonder: “Oh brave new world, that has such people in’t.”
When John first heard about the modern world (from his mother Linda) he thought it would be like heaven; therefore he called it ‘Brave New World’. But when John actually has seen this ‘civilized’ world, he means ‘Brave New World’ in an ironical way; for in his opinion there is no freedom of will so nobody is unhappy, but it is an element of mankind to be free to choose whether to be happy or not.

5. Opinion:
I enjoyed reading this book very much. I cannot say the story is beautiful because it is not, but the way it is written, is fantastic! It was not as difficult as I expected it to be, yet it took quite a while to read it.
When I finished the book I thought it was very sad, because the main character (John “the Savage”) commits suicide. It was as if it would be a happy ending for John was living by himself, isolated from the society he loathed. But in the end no one can escape this ‘civilized’ society and John is chased by the press and having become insane, commits suicide.
But when I had thought it over, it was the only possible solution. John could not live with the Indians because they saw him as ‘civilized’. He could not live with the rest of the world either for he was ‘too self-conscious’. And he could not live completely isolated from other people forever, so he had to die.
The ‘civilized’ society has some good sides too (it is not completely bad, otherwise people would not want to live their); there is no war or suffering, little disease or social conflict. But on the other hand there is no love, family, science, art, religion, and history either. So the people have to pay a very high price to achieve and maintain this society, without unhappiness.

The book surely sets people thinking, because it is written so convincing. I couldn’t get it out of my head when I had read it. Moreover, this kind of books are not my favorite, I usually do not like books with this genre. Therefore it is one of the best books I ever read. I would advice people to read this book too; though it is not easily read. Nevertheless the story compensates for the difficulty.

In the beginning of the book there is a statement of the Frenchman Nicolas Berdiaeff, it is about a utopia:


Utopias appear to be much easier to realize than one formerly believed. We currently face a question that would otherwise fill us with anguish: How to avoid their becoming definitively real?

I thought this statement was necessary in this book report because it illustrates very clearly a utopia.

6. Used material:
- Internet: www.uittreksels.com
- Summary book (Survey One by H.J. van Moll)