Our ongoing series reviewing audio adaptations of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror works. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.
By John J. Joex
Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars
Audiobook Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 Stars
Back in the 1930’s, Aldous Huxley penned a dystopic novel that has since become, along with 1984 (see my review of that one at this link), one of the most recognized observations on totalitarian society in literature. It is set in the year 2540 (632 in the “Year of Our Ford” according to the book) when the World State has united most of the population of the planet and limited it to a maximum of two billion people. It controls this by having outlawed natural childbirth in favor of an assembly-line process that “creates” people from artificially inseminated eggs designated into four different castes, from the highest level, Alpha, to the lowest, Epsilon, depending on how long the fetuses mature in their “decanting bottles”. This society is kept constantly distracted with consumerism, recreational sex and drugs (Soma), and with other diversions, and therefore they remain passive and susceptible to the dictates of the state. However, one of the Alphas in this society, Bernard Marx, has grown bored with his life and decides to visit the Savage Reservation where people live a harsh life without technology and the social structure of the World State. There he meets a man (who will come to be known as John the Savage) whose mother once lived in the World State before finding herself stranded in the Savage Reservation (and his father is actually the current Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning). Bernard brings John and his mother to the World State where John becomes an instant celebrity until he finds himself at odds with the leaders of this society and with its ways. This ultimately results in the exile of Bernard and one of his close friends because of their anti-social behavior, and John chooses to isolate himself from this world that he finds very distasteful.
Written over a decade and a half before 1984, Huxley’s novel had less of the dark foreboding tone of that book because he approached Brave New World as a satire. Originally intended as a parody of sorts of H. G. Wells’s utopian novel Men Like Gods, Huxley’s book also keyed upon his distaste for the direction he saw society heading in the early 1930’s (and for an elaboration on that, read the second to last chapter when John the Savage essentially becomes a mouthpiece for Huxley’s views). And while it is definitely a remarkable work of literature, I would say that it does not succeed as well as a novel as Orwell’s 1984 did. While the oppressive atmosphere of 1984 may put off some readers, it also made for a much more engaging story. Brave New World on the other hand almost has a light feel to it in contrast. That follows from Huxley’s satirical approach, but it also makes it easier to dismiss parts of the book or to find the mind wandering while reading (or listening to) it. Not to denigrate the book, which is a must-read for fans of Science Fiction and dystopian literature, it’s just that this one does not match up as well to 1984.
Another reason for this is that the predictions do not ring quite as true as those that Orwell put forth. Things like genetic conditioning, state-mandated drug use, the casual attitude toward sex, the disillusion of the family might have seemed like potential future problems at the time Huxley wrote Brave New World, but have since proved themselves to be little if no threat to societal structure. The attitudes, perceptions, and scientific advancements that made those seem imminent at the time have since mostly faded from the social consciousness (despite what the far right-wing minority might tell you these days). In addition, the book does not work quite as well as a story as did 1984. The characters lack development and, as mentioned above, by the end of the book John the Savage essential becomes just a mouthpiece for the author’s views. This and other parts of the book make it at times it feels like just a “what if?” essay on potential future directions that society could follow and the consequences thereof.
Still, the book does have plenty of merits including some predictions that do ring true with modern society: mindless entertainment to pacify the masses (see our Blockbuster Overload column for plenty of that), rampant consumerism, a throw-away culture. Each of these definitely can touch a nerve with those turning a critical eye to the world of today and Brave New World does address some of the consequences of this behavior. Because of that, it does ultimately succeed in presenting an intriguing and at times frightening view of a potential future society, and you can find traces of it in the directions of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. It’s definitely worth the read, even if it is not quite as engaging or prophetic of a novel as Orwell’s 1984.
The audio book version that I listened is narrated by Michael York, and at first I thought that an excellent choice for this book. York has long been one of my favorite actors even if he has rarely received the material that fits his Shakespearean style acting skills. And for the most part he does a decent job narrating the book, but he does tend to slip into melodramatic flights at times, almost as if he is reading for his life, and that actually distracts from the material. But it does not completely derail the production, and it’s definitely worth a listen. This version is available from Barnes and Noble for a fairly reasonable price (around $22 as of this posting) and through Audible.com and eMusic.com. And while I would say that for dystopian literature you definitely would want to start with 1984, you need to have this one pretty high on your list as well.
