WWW Wednesdays (October 23)

What are you currently reading: Killing Jesus by Bill O'Reilly and Matt Dugard

What did you recently finish reading: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley & The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

What do you think you'll read next: The Prodigal Son (Frankenstein Book #1) by Dean Koontz

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Book Review)

Brave New World

by Aldous Huxley

259 pages

HarperPerennial, 2006 (1932)

fiction / classic literature / banned book

Finished in 6 days

Rating: ★★★★

Amazon | BN

"A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in the shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY."

Review: Alaina of That's What She Read and I are back at it again. We just couldn't stay away from each other and over what better subject than Banned Books? As you can read from my "pre-review" Alaina and I toiled over which book to read but quickly decided Brave New World was the one. I suppose the first thing to go over is WHY it has been consistently placed on the Banned Books List? For this I defer to Alaina's "pre-review" post where I feel she does a bang up job of answering that very question.

.@NYCBookWorm84 I felt that I didn't get a lot from the characters. W/exception of John, none had any emotions going on. #TheCollaborators
— Alaina Patterson (@WillBeFunOrElse) October 19, 2013

Of course our collaborations wouldn't be complete unless we disagreed on something and we found our disagreement pretty early on.

@WillBeFunOrElse and I felt opposite. They all had emotions, just didn't realize it. Especially Helmholtz & Bernard. #TheCollaborators
— Erica Drayton (@NYCBookWorm84) October 19, 2013

But a couple things we did agree on, like the character John. She appreciated how he became better acquainted with the world through Shakespeare's works as opposed to The Bible. Whereas I liked the many parallels his character had with the life that Jesus led. I'm gonna let her take the Shakespeare angle and I'm going to try and delve a bit into The Bible and the correlations.

Like Jesus, John felt like he was atoning for sins. Whose sins is what I'm sure many before me have questioned? His mother's? The lack of a true father figure? Maybe because he never felt like a real "man" no matter how hard he tried to prove it to those around him. He was always looking for vindication for his actions but was never satisfied with the responses he did get.

The biggest sin he placed up on himself was the lust he had for Lenina. A quick explanation of the book is John (a "savage") by New World standards is brought to this new place where he gets to see first hand what it's like to be happy ALL the time. There's a lot more layers to peel back from this onion but for the sake of time and wanting to keep this post shorter than the last Collab, let's just leave it at that.

Going along for the ride aside from Lenina, are Bernard, the man who initially sets out to help acclimate John into the New World but ends up using him for his own personal gain then wanting nothing to do with him when it really counts. Almost like Peter when he denied Jesus three times? Then there's Helmholtz who's supposed to be a teacher who isn't supposed to think on his own let alone create on his own but that's exactly what he does and he loves every minute of the rebellion. All he does is write a poem he thought up in his head of feeling alone. This is a no-no since no one there should feel anything but happiness. They should definitely never feel alone!

Through processes of conditioning they have all been rigorously put through since birth (in a process I shudder to think of let alone explain to you) they are programmed to all behave in the same way based on whatever social class system they are placed in. Their social class is based on varying forms of looks and intelligence. Obviously the lower class are created to do the menial tasks that those who are smarter are less inclined to do. There is no such thing as parents. No one is born of a woman or created of a man and a woman. The idea is if you have no attachments or entanglements to another human being then you are free to have no problems whatsoever.

What I loved about this idea in this book is that even though they were all (except John) conditioned to never think on their own or feel anything other than happiness, they all did just that in their own way. Bernard became excited when he was reprimanded by his superior because it was a punishment only he was getting. He felt like an individual. Helmholtz wrote a poem that was unique to him and no one else. Lenina admitted to herself that she wanted to be with just ONE man even knowing the very concept of bedding one man forever is not acceptable. In this Brave New World everyone belongs to everyone else.

And taking one more stab at the religion aspect, even though they have no use for God in this New World they still manage to take commonly used phrases like "Oh God" or "God damn" or "Good Lord" and replace all those references to God and Lord with "Ford"?! The idea of religion or history isn't one because all those books have been banished, yet, in their own very "savage" way they worship Ford and declare their allegiances on a regular basis.

Just goes to show you no matter how hard you try to change an entire way of life there are still aspects of it that you fall back on for comfort.

The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. (Chapter 16)

There are so many scenes between two conflicting characters and relationships. Many of them I deem VERY important. My top two, however, would be John's to Helmholtz and the second which I'll share a little of now is between John and the Controller (Mustapha Mond). All you need to know about the controller is what his job entails. He collects all the books that are no longer allowed to be read by anyone. He's supposed to destroy them but after reading them all he simply cannot bring himself to destroy them. He gets away with it because he holds such a high title and all the power so why should he have to abide by the laws he hands down? The irony! Anyway, there is a rather important (and long) scene where John has been captured trying to get rid of soma (the drug of choice everyone uses to stay happy) in order to save humanity. He's in the Controllers office and they are arguing opposing sides to life and how it should be lived. One of the key points is with or without God? Another is with regards to conveniences and freedoms?

"Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences."

"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 to-morrow; 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.

What better case or argument can be made for man to be free?

I remind you I did not mention Shakespeare or the many references made to him and all his works in my review. I will leave you with a few lines from The Tempest where Aldous Huxley got his title for this book:

How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in it!
Chapters 8 & 15 The Tempest (V, i)

Summary: Huxley´s vision of the future in his astonishing 1931 novel Brave New World -- a world of tomorrow in which capitalist civilization has been reconstituted through the most efficient scientific and psychological engineering, where the people are genetically designed to be passive, consistently useful to the ruling class.

To learn more about Aldous Huxley's Brave New World visit his website here.

The Collaborators, 2nd Edition

Before I get started on this "pre-review" I'd like to share an idea that Alaina briefly joked about during our first Collaboration and I decided to run with it, creating this "logo": (the final image will come fairly soon from a good college friend of mine who is an amazing artist)

We are indeed back again so soon! Alaina (That's What She Read) and I just couldn't resist coming together to read a book in honor of Banned Books Week. Yes, we are both well aware this week has long since passed but hey, we have lives outside of reading (unfortunately) and so better late than never I say!!

We did bounce around a few ideas for what our Banned Book should be. Of course, we prefer to stick to a book we both own (this makes not having to buy ANOTHER book easier on both of us) and we both haven't read. My memory might be a bit fuzzy here (and Alaina please correct me if I'm wrong) but some of the books we toyed with reading together were: Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye, and even Dracula came up!

In the end I wanted to stay away from Catcher in the Rye since I remember barely getting through the first few pages more than a decade and a half ago! I think I may have thrown Catch-22 in there but in fact we didn't initially have that on our minds at the time of picking a book. We both knew we wanted a classic (ie old) book rather than a current one. I was instantly cool with that idea because nowadays ANYTHING that's published can end up on a banned list by some school in some state for no real good reason. But don't get me started on that!

Anyway, what did we go with? Glad you asked. Drum roll please...

I think this is a great choice to read for banned books week and not just because it's short and sweet coming in at under 300 pages! But it also echoes Animal Farm, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Agenda 21, and even The Handmaid's Tale, all wrapped up in a nice new package of a crazy and extremely overreaching government. Of course we all know what happens in these sort of books could and would NEVER happen, but sometimes you've gotta wonder... And might I add that I have read all of those. I've included links to my reviews except Animal Farm & 1984 which I read in my junior high school days.

So, yeah, this book has been on the banned books list in many schools throughout this great (and might I remind us all, FREE) nation because of it's highly conspiratorial views that government, when given too much power, can in fact be a not so good thing. Wouldn't want to wrongly influence the minds of the young and impressionable high school students right? I mean, I know at that age I couldn't think for myself yet nor could I make up my own mind about what's right and what's wrong! Let me stop before my mind explodes!

As I write this I am less than 100 pages away from finishing the book but this is a "pre-review" before my actual thoughts and opinions. And trust me when I tell you it will be very hard for me to remain objective and simply talk about the style of writing and storytelling as opposed to going into depth about the subject matter and idiotic reasoning behind banning this book or any other book just like it. To put it as mildly and as frankly as I possibly can, I'm insulted, and so should ever parent of any school institution or library that would ban this book who would doubt my child (or my) intelligence and ability to read this kind of book and not get "the wrong idea" about government and its usefulness or lack thereof.

Okay, rant over...for now...

What did you read for Banned Books week? If you didn't during the actual week as both Alaina and myself haven't either, what book have you read because you heard it was banned? Or perhaps a book you've read and later found out we added to the Banned Books list for whatever reason?

Do you think the idea of "Banned Books" is a good or bad one? Why?

To follow along with us on Twitter search for #TheCollaborators or simply follow us!

Alaina - @WillBeFunOrElse

Erica - @NYCBookWorm84