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[Rysith]

Huh. I loved Brave New World. I think Huxley was in favor of the happiness-oriented culture. I mean, just because he focused on the savage doesn't mean that he agreed with him.

My English teacher (and the wikipedia article) disagree with you there. He was trying to paint a grim, dystopian view of the future. The fact that he failed so badly is one of the bits that annoyed me about the book.

[Alexhans]

Is that the second one or the first one... I read the one that is translated as "a happy world".  The one about the indian being moved to civilization and the little Alpha guy that is inferior and feels apart.  That book is great.  How they give drugs without bad consequences to control people, "SOMA" in spanish... How the leader knows everything but sacrifices himself for the order... 

Yep, that's the one. The annoying part about it was that through the entire thing, Huxley was trying to say "Isn't this a horrible world? Look at the Betas, brainwashed from early childhood! Look at the old people, on mind-altering drugs until they die painlessly of liver failure! Look at the people enjoying themselves in the sinful porn feelies!". It's preaching about how bad a world that really isn't that bad is. Contrast 1984 (or Darkness at Noon), both of which do a much better job of portraying a hideously bleak future, and neither of which spends nearly as much time saying "Hey look how bad this is, they do sex and drugs all day and laugh at Christians!"

I think that he shows how crazy both extremes can be... How tough it is for people who are isolated on any of them...  Both worlds have a bad system.  I found the book very good and creative.  The prologue admits that he may have been wrong or naive in certain interpretations but he did a really good job in my opinion.

[inaluct]

Huh. I loved Brave New World. I think Huxley was in favor of the happiness-oriented culture. I mean, just because he focused on the savage doesn't mean that he agreed with him.

My English teacher (and the wikipedia article) disagree with you there. He was trying to paint a grim, dystopian view of the future. The fact that he failed so badly is one of the bits that annoyed me about the book.

I don't trust either of those sources. At all.

In fact, I am now absolutely sure that you, your mouthbreathing teacher, and all the people who wrote that on Wikipedia are idiots. There's no way that Huxley could have failed so badly to portray his new society the way he wanted it.

It's clear that he saw it as stupid and slightly repulsive, but I cannot fathom that he saw it as evil. I declare jihad.

[Jackrabbit]

Ha. Mouthbreathing. It sounds so much like an insult, yet it isn't.

[KaelGotDwarves]

IMHO:
Huxley's Brave New World vision of the future is FAR more terrifying than 1984's, not only because it now looks closer to the version of the future we're seeing, and also-

1984 was a future in which books are banned and knowledge hidden from the populace. Free will and thought is tightly controlled by the government.
Brave New World is a future in which you do not need to ban books, because no one is interested in knowledge, but only in the happiness society has created for them. Free will isn't controlled physically, but people simply don't understand they are being controlled through subversion of freewill. The one normal guy, "the Savage"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

kills himself because no one else realises this.

That's why Brave New World strikes me and many other people on a far deeper and sinister level that 1984 cannot.

I can write a lot more about this, but TLDR while a fascist government in control is bad, the idea of a society run by reducing half the populace into retards who have no free will and doping/drugging/sexing the rest into similar retards incapable of cohesive and critical thinking where no one realises they're being controlled because they're perfectly happy was ahead of it's time and remains a horrifying thought for the future of capitalistic consumer societies.

USA > USSR in the cold war after all.

[Alexhans]

Huh. I loved Brave New World. I think Huxley was in favor of the happiness-oriented culture. I mean, just because he focused on the savage doesn't mean that he agreed with him.

My English teacher (and the wikipedia article) disagree with you there. He was trying to paint a grim, dystopian view of the future. The fact that he failed so badly is one of the bits that annoyed me about the book.

I don't trust either of those sources. At all.

In fact, I am now absolutely sure that you, your mouthbreathing teacher, and all the people who wrote that on Wikipedia are idiots. There's no way that Huxley could have failed so badly to portray his new society the way he wanted it.

It's clear that he saw it as stupid and slightly repulsive, but I cannot fathom that he saw it as evil. I declare jihad.

I support this Jihad and side along inaluct 

[Gorjo MacGrymm]

IMHO:
Huxley's Brave New World vision of the future is FAR more terrifying than 1984's, not only because it now looks closer to the version of the future we're seeing, and also-

1984 was a future in which books are banned and knowledge hidden from the populace. Free will and thought is tightly controlled by the government.
Brave New World is a future in which you do not need to ban books, because no one is interested in knowledge, but only in the happiness society has created for them. Free will isn't controlled physically, but people simply don't understand they are being controlled through subversion of freewill. The one normal guy, "the Savage"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

kills himself because no one else realises this.

That's why Brave New World strikes me and many other people on a far deeper and sinister level that 1984 cannot.

I can write a lot more about this, but TLDR while a fascist government in control is bad, the idea of a society run by reducing half the populace into retards who have no free will and doping/drugging/sexing the rest into similar retards incapable of cohesive and critical thinking where no one realises they're being controlled because they're perfectly happy was ahead of it's time and remains a horrifying thought for the future of capitalistic consumer societies.

USA > USSR in the cold war after all.

agreed.




anyone seen my prozac?

[Bouchart]

I absolutely hate Moby Dick.  It's so rambling and unfocused, it's as if everything after "Call me Ishmael" was an afterthought.

[sonerohi]

I once read a book where it seemed to be that the author made a semi-coherent first paragraph and then wrote down an acid trip. "There were dragons vomiting SUV's onto the bumblebee spaceship!" type crazy.

[Alexhans]

I absolutely hate Moby Dick.  It's so rambling and unfocused, it's as if everything after "Call me Ishmael" was an afterthought.

mmm... I'm noticing people tend to hate classics that are "forced" into them...

It's very straightfoward but it's an interesting book my dear squeequeeg

[codezero]

I have some disagreements;

I liked 'grapes of wrath' and 'the great gatsby', but I wasn't forced to read them. I thought they gave a nice insight of a period/setting. Though the author of the first makes me sick now that I've read 'the garden of eden', which seems to sum up everything he could ever say. I think you should read the odyssey by homer if you like hero books. Odysseus' is the greatest hero in literature.

And I thought Kafka's 'the castle' was actually good. You're right it goes nowhere fast, but it just seems to inch closer and closer to a finale. It reminds me of life where you seem to be going nowhere yet every day heralds some new progress.

And you'll never know the true dimensions of a whale until you've read 'moby dick'.

Books I dislike are by steven king, Insomnia I read till about 20 pages from the end, giving it a chance to redeem itself, but it never did. It was all about these mysterious aura's that were really mysterious. And there was another I read about half of, possibly about some killer aliens in snow, stampeding animals, and a "highly trained, highly decorated" special agent doing a "perimeter sweep".

[Alexhans]

Well... Steven King may seem Bizarre in many of his stories but he is a really good writer... His novels manipulate the characters so that you begin to feel they're progressive fear.

All in all.  We are entitled to like or dislike whatever we want.   

I read the Great Gatsby at home and found it dull.  Maybe I should read it again to gain a new perspective because I can't even remember the plot.

[Oksbad]

Of the books I've this weekend:

Bad: Berci Kristin Çöp Masalları (for school)

Good: The Salvation War: Armageddon (online, pure epic win)

[Psyco Jelly]

Anything on Alabama's school reading list. It's all about racism.

People around here think they are still hated, but all the racism is against Caucasians.
My ancestors' crimes are not my own. I shall not be damned by your perceived oppression.

Does anyone else have the same problem?

[Vattic]

Heh I enjoyed the Dark Tower novels even if the ending wasn't fantastic, didn't have to wait for any to be released though and hit them all in one go.

I also enjoyed Brave New World the idea that books don't need to be banned because people don't want to read them any more puts a shiver up my spine. 1984 was also excellent, prefer it to Brave New World but then I prefer Orwell's writings in general. If you've read Brave New World the follow up Island is worth a read, this is Huxley's idea of a perfect society.

As for books I didn't enjoy, I'll likely get disagreement here but The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho really wound me up, I didn't like the message it was pushing and it lacked subtlety. Its supposed to be a modern classic though.

A Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle was a reasonable book but the sequel a The Moat around Murcheson's Eye by the same authors paled in comparison and this annoyed me about it.