Brave New World--- The Twentieth and Final

Quote from page 228:

. . . It's curious," he went on after a little pause, "to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to have imagined that it could be allowed to go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific research was still permitted. People went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were the sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you?

This excerpt basically encapsulates everything about the book, its theme, and its purpose. The whole point of this novel was for Huxley to explain why it's a terrible idea to allow scientific research to go on unchecked. Huxley invented an imaginary- yet very possible- Nine Years' War for the people to fear and created a world without identity, freedom, and true happiness in order to get his point across.

That being said, I don't exactly understand how John and Lenina's relationship crises helped to prove Huxley's claim. Then again, I suppose it could just be for pure entertainment; it is, after all, still a book.

I found it very interesting that all of the scientific processes and advancements mentioned in this book-- Bokanovsky's Process, hypnopaedia conditioning, electromagnetic golf, the Feelies, et cetera-- seem very possible today.

All in all, I very much so enjoyed this book, despite not understanding it at times. I really hope the next one is just as crazy, if not crazier!
I have decided to take this last blog also to name a few movies and books that in a way coincide with this book.

BOOKS
1. The Giver by Lois Lowery
2. The Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld
3. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
4. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
5. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

MOVIES
1. Pleasantville
2. The Truman Show
3. Equilibrium
4. I Robot
5. Soylent Green
6. Gattaca
7. V for Vendetta

Until Next time,
Alysse