This society is a would-be utopia where pleasure is the priority: sexual libertinage is the norm, people have no parents, and commitment is discouraged. The year is 2540, or 632 years AF (After Ford), and the setting is England, or the ‘World State’. So busy was I bemoaning the treatment of nature, of art, of the family unit that I often relegated the dichotomy between painful truths and escapist pleasures at the back of the list - that is, until now. In the interesting years since the 2016 election, however, the book has taken on a new sense of gravity, one of the most unexpected thematic aspects (for me) coming back to sound on my conscience, like a resounding gong. I went through an anxious phase, a few years ago, where I became overly preoccupied with the dangers of genetic modification, so reading Brave New World at that point in time was simultaneously therapeutic and a masochistic way to kindle my anxieties. Other times, I read it to pick apart the characters who are contradictions upon contradictions. Sometimes, I read it solely for the powerful prose. Much of Aldous Huxley’s work can be (and has been) dissected thoroughly over the years, unveiling constant new layers of complexity. Much of its timelessness has to do with the fact that it is, at its core, a statement on human nature as long as we remain, these haunting tales about the hidden pockets of our souls will be relevant. It remains a behemoth in American literature for a reason. Its bold and harsh commentary on pleasure as either vice or release, on social hypocrisy, on the acceptance of oblivion, on the obliteration of humanity and culture was unlike any I had read - besides, possibly, Lord of the Flies or A Clockwork Orange, which I devoured soon afterward. This book dealt with drugs and sex and suicide, topics I had seldom encountered so bluntly as a preteen but I am glad I did, because it has shaped the way I see the world ever since. The first time I read Brave New World, I felt that I was far too young.
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