Paperback, 199 pages
Spanish language
Published Nov. 30, 2013 by Editores Mexicanos Unidos.
Prólogo con resena crítica de la obra, vida y obra del autor, y marco histórico.
Read in and for English class in school. Would likely not have read it on an other occasion, although the themes and things discussed are thought provoking, I didn't really enjoy the book.
Read this immediately afte reading the Orwell classic, 1984. I admit, I struggled reading this book. The method of story telling, with the switching of character perspective was difficult to follow. The idea of the book became far more clearer as the book progressed and became clear especially towards the end.
However the ideas presented in the book and their demonstration was thought provoking.
Everyone's supposed to have read this book already, but I hadn't. I knew very little about it, other than I'd written it down on a list to read after someone mentioned it in a throwaway comment - "you know, like Brave New World".
The obvious comparison is to George Orwell's 1984, though Huxley is much darker. Orwell brings lots of interesting detail in terms of his vision of the future; Huxley's future is less focused: we learn about recreation, but very little about living quarters, or food, or much else. A television is mentioned at one point; but at one moment of action, someone scrabbles to look up a telephone number, an action that seems quaint and old-fashioned.
Like Orwell, Huxley makes you think. His vision is just as sinister, but both more joyous and more controlling. It's an interesting thought: and I wonder whether all our politicians have read …
Everyone's supposed to have read this book already, but I hadn't. I knew very little about it, other than I'd written it down on a list to read after someone mentioned it in a throwaway comment - "you know, like Brave New World".
The obvious comparison is to George Orwell's 1984, though Huxley is much darker. Orwell brings lots of interesting detail in terms of his vision of the future; Huxley's future is less focused: we learn about recreation, but very little about living quarters, or food, or much else. A television is mentioned at one point; but at one moment of action, someone scrabbles to look up a telephone number, an action that seems quaint and old-fashioned.
Like Orwell, Huxley makes you think. His vision is just as sinister, but both more joyous and more controlling. It's an interesting thought: and I wonder whether all our politicians have read this book and have honed policies around it. Stranger things have happened...
Obra sobrevalorada donde las haya. Es cierto que Huxley es un adelantado a su tiempo ya que describe una sociedad que en algunos aspectos se va pareciendo peligrosamente a la nuestra, pero en mi opinión, sigue un planteamiento erróneo. Desde el aspecto político, describe una sociedad en la que el Estado cubre todas tus necesidades (comunismo) y al mismo tiempo somete a la población a continuos estímulos y drogas para que los ciudadanos crean que son felices (capitalismo), una contradicción como una casa. Entre eso y la burda selección de nombres de los personajes (Lenina, Marx, Trotsky…), es evidente que lo que ha escrito este señor británico de familia acomodada no es más que un panfleto con el que difundir la absurda idea de que “los extremos se tocan”.
There is much to be learned from reading this book and it is easy to forget that it was written early in the last century, not this one. Sadly, the warnings Huxley offers about what society was becoming were largely ignored and we've come to a society that so closely mirrors his "civilization" that it could have been a metaphor about our current state of affairs written by a contemporary author.
It is a very short novel but full of warnings and lessons that are as applicable, or even more so, today as they were in 1930. It is a lesson in mass manipulation by the media and big pharma. It is a lesson in treating people ultimately as mere resource rather than persons. And it is a lesson in extremes, extreme pain v. extreme pleasure and the wrongheadedness in submitting to either.
