Having read 1984, I felt I had to read the 20th century's other major dystopian novel: 1932's Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. Well-spiked with humor, Huxley's vision of an over-organized future is not nearly so nightmarish as Orwell's. And with its central government's use of drugs and free sex to keep everybody happy, much less likely to happen in this world order. Overall, while ominous, not nearly so malignant as 1984. But to move away from the comparisons, this is a well-imagined future scenario, with a number of details that, taken out of context, turn out to be quite prescient. The third person narration shifts focus from character to character at a good pace, teasing out threads from varying directions. And yes, quite a bit of humor -- some of it probably downright shocking in the 1930s, but not so much today. Still, 1984 seems the more important and on-the-money warning signal.
I'm starting to go back and reread some of Huxley's work, after having my interest whetted by the Gary Lachman book, Turn Off Your Mind. Huxley's influence on Timothy Leary and the rest of the incipient 60's drug culture was huge, second only to Hermann Hesse.
I just wish they could've made a decent film/television version of BNW like they did with the John Hurt/Richard Burton 1984. I think it's pathetic when producers feel they have to contemporize novels in order to make them relevant to viewers. It almost never works.
Posted by MrBaliHai at 09:05 AM, December 28, 2003.