This book presents a futuristic dystopia of an unusual kind. Huxley’s dystopia is one in which everyone is happy. However, they are happy in only the most trivial sense: the people lives in a caste system based on genetics, conditioned from birth and pacified by drugs, living to consume goods and take soma to forget their troubles. What impresses me a lot is the embryonic childhood and early adult conditioning. The Director explained: “All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny.” (BNW, page 7: line 10) People do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude. One of my most unforgettable conditioning scene (in Chapter Two) had a nurse training infants to dislike books and nature, by terrifying them whenever they approached or even looked at a book or flower. Clearly, technologies such as Bokanovsky’s Process have undo their capacities to think and their love for beauty. The other means of control was mass addiction to the drug soma, readily distributed to all, more powerful than alchol or heroin, and producing complete bliss. The world seems stable, people there are well-off. The controller summarized the world this way: “People are happy; they get what they want; and they never want they can’t get… They’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma.” (BNW, page 95: line 27) Like John the Savage, I am an outsider looking in on that world. To me it is just abnormal and to some degree, hellish. Those people live without art, literature or philosophy. As for religion, Henry Ford is to them what Jesus is to Christians. In short, people live without deeper meaning. Although they are expected to work hard and efficiently during working hours, during off hours they live in an infantile way, never engaging their minds, having no passion or nothing to feel strong about, and satisfying themselves with sex and drugs. First published in 1932, this book is timeless and as relevant today as when it was first written. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. He feared we would become “a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and centrifugal bumblepuppy” (Neil Postman, Foreword from Amusing Ourselves to Death). I do fear the serious danger in the future is closer to what Huxley envisioned. Our culture seems to be moving in the direction of Brave New World all the time. Do the rampant consumerism and herd mentality seem a little familiar? Has it become a truth that we tend to get entertainment from the internet rather than read Shakespeare? I’m afraid we are indulged in sensual pleasure, losing curiosity, free minds and belief in good taste. To sum up, Brave New World is very readable and not at all dense. The ideas are very easy to absorb, especially in this day and age. In these uncertain times, Brave New World is as timely as ever. I highly recommend reading.
英语作业
《Brave New World》热门书评
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你还要些什么
794有用 49无用 drunkpiano 2010-03-17
2503年,一个婴儿养育室里。护士们在地板上摆了一堆图书和鲜花,然后把一群长得一摸一样的、8个月大的婴儿放到了地板上。婴儿们看到图书和鲜花,飞快地爬过去,拿起来玩耍。这时候,长官一声令下,护士长启动电路装...
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美丽新世界——未竟的争论
289有用 10无用 逆转录猴子 2007-09-15
首先说,看这本书来自neil.postman的《娱乐至死》,后来才知道其与奥威尔的《1984》,扎米亚京的《我们》并称为反乌托邦三部曲,在postman看来《美丽新世界》和《1984》描绘的是两个相反的未来,而在读过此书后,我觉得这种相反反而只是表面上的。内在来看,他们描绘的都是又精英统治的所谓稳定...
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《1984》与《美丽新世界》
220有用 12无用 yzw 2013-02-04
曾经有幸参加过一次读书会,主题乔治奥威尔,不外乎是谈《动物庄园》与《1984》。当时在场的更多人是更喜欢《动物庄园》,而我对那本书却没什么很深刻的感觉,只很喜欢《1984》。当然《1984》也是有不少讨论的,一片引申,而我却只在旁听与发呆,基本没有发言。只是现在回想起来,讨论《1984》竟然没人提到...
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越少完美,越多自由
157有用 7无用 惨绿 2005-11-14
一直没有看到过这本书的中文版,也许是托了去年那本《娱乐至死》的福,重庆出版社在新近推出的一套名为经典重现的丛书中,收录了这本书的中译本。这套丛书还收录了一些在西方读者心目中地位甚高,但编者认为被中国读者忽略的文学作品,比如已出的《秘密花园》和《华氏451》,待出的《我们》、《禅与摩托车维修艺术》、《...
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给那些在温水中愉快享受的青蛙们
83有用 8无用 North Laker 2005-08-19
看到对《1984》的评论,让我想起另一本书《美丽新世界》。对1984里描述的令人窒息的独裁场景我已不担心,因为从上个世纪末开始,我们这一代人已经开始翻过那沉重的一页,中国人正头也不回地掠过《1984》的阴影。这本书在二十年前对国人会有振聋发聩的作用,但在半个多世纪后的今天,这本书预言似的描述看起来更...
书名: Brave New World
作者: [英] Aldous Huxley
出版社: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
出版年: 1998-9-1
页数: 268
定价: $12.95
装帧: Paperback
ISBN: 9780060929879