12 Classics: Brave New World

So despite being sadly behind on my 12 Classics challenge for the year, I'm still chugging ahead. I optimistically checked out several classics from the library last week, and still hope to go back to the few classics that I put down halfway through, including Persuasion and The Three Musketeers, but probably not Dune. My husband has also convinced me that I can add True Grit to my list of finished classics as it is a "modern classic" according to people who like westerns (?).

But that's not what this post is about! From my pile of books I got from the library, I read Brave New World in under a week, making it my 4th classic of the year, if you count True Grit.

Brave New World is a famous dystopia novel published in 1931 about a society heavily influenced by industrialization and a strictly controlled caste system. The reader is taken on a detailed tour of how this society works, and gets to see the reactions and observations from a happy insider (Lenina), an unhappy insider (Bernard), a savvy insider (A World Controller), and an outsider (John the Savage).

I've read quite a few dystopian novels so I knew a bit about what to expect, and I was excited to find several parallels with my favorite dystopia novel of all time; Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee. The infantile nature of the citizens, with every need catered to an every pleasure highly encouraged was almost identical in both books--from drug usage to sexual attitudes. Citizens in both worlds are also young-appearing and healthy for their entire lives, and the characters who are unhappy are generally unhappy for almost the same reasons. There are substantial differences of course, but I'm fairly certain that Tanith Lee would list Brave New World among her inspirations for the society depicted in Biting the Sun.

Brave New World is also often categorized or compared with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I personally greatly preferred Brave New World.  I felt like Orwell didn't give us a good enough description of how the society in Nineteen Eighty-Four came about, how it worked, or where it was going. It was too Clockwork Orange in it's ending and not rewarding enough in the journey for me. Though Brave New World had a sad ending too, I felt that it was justified and made sense for the character. John the Savage ended things on his terms and the society, unaffected, continued on in it's factory-like efficiency.

Overall I really enjoyed this classic, and I'll probably read it again in a few years to get a broader impression of it. It's probably not appropriate for anyone less than a mature high schooler, but I think that paired with a few other dystopian novels, it can really give people something to think about regarding our future as a civilized society--it certainly gave me things to think about!