Aldous Huxley was born in 1894 in Godalming, Surrey, England. He came from what seems to be a very intelligent family. His dad was also a writer. I feel like since he was raised in such a intelligent environment that this helped him develop complex ideas. Huxley was taught by his mother for a good portion of his life but when she became terminally ill he started attending Hillside. He started college at Eton college but got seriously sick and had to drop out. Once he had recovered he got his degree at Baliol College, Oxford.
After college and in his late 20s' is when Huxley started getting serious with his novels. He wrote many novels ranging from Crome Yellow and Antic hay which describe the mood of the 1920s' to Brave New World and island which are both about utopian worlds.
I feel like Huxley got his inspiration to write Brave New World because he grew up during the industrial revolution and saw how mass production was taking over. I can really see how he thought the world was going to be like that in a few hundred years or at least come up with the aspect of it happening.
I also feel like Huxley's great sense of humor played a big influence in the book. " Oh Ford" is a very common phrase used in this book. instead of having god they look at Henry Ford as a idol. They even use the term A.F. (after Ford) as a way of measuring time e.g. B.C. A.D.. When I first heard that I laughed hard. Another thing is the way that they condition the kids to be super sexualy active.
"What's the lesson this afternoon?" he asked. 'We had Elementary Sex for the first forty minutes,' she answered." This quote is from the beginning of the book when the director is kind of giving a tour of the baby factory/daycare. This really cracked me up along with many other creepy A.F. lines.
Huxley had a pretty interesting life. When he got ill in college he lost his eyesight for a few years which actually saved him from the draft (if you think about it, if he wouldn't have gotten sick he probably would've died a lot ealier and never even write a noval.). Once he started getting better his eyesight started coming back which enabled him to go back to college to study. Around 1939 Huxley started using the Bates Method in hopes of better vision. He claimed that the Bates method helped him regain his eyesight, but some people are skeptical how much better his vision was. Though it might not have gotten that much better it compelled his to write the book called The Art of Seeing.
Another interesting aspect of Huxley's life is his involvment in hellucinagenic drugs like mescaline and LSD. Huxley truely believed that hellucinagenic drugs could open your mind up to enlightenment. He believed this so much he wrote the noval called The Doors of Perception which is a book about psychadelic enlightenment. That book became a cult noval among hippies in the 60s.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Monday, March 17, 2008
Brave New World- Volume Three
In my last entry I was in a point of the book where Brenard (one of the main characters) sounded like a pretty cool guy and I thought his character was going to be character the plot of the book centered around, but it wasn't. Now that I'm finished with the book I think completely differently of brenard, but the plot is still kind've the same it just took a little different twist.
So once Brenard brings John and Linda back to the civilized world he becomes somewhat of a celebrity and everyone loves him and he starts getting a lot more attention, especially from girls. The bigger Brenard gets the bigger his head gets. He starts even being hateful to friends who have always been there for him. Eventually Brenard's big head puts him back where he started, being a loser.
Also while this is happening John (the savage brought back to the civilized world) and Lenina are kind of having an affair. Though they never actually do it they get pretty close at one point. The reason they never do it is because John feels like he has to prove his love to her, but Lenina doesn't care and just wants to do it with him. This just makes John extremely angry and puts him into a kind of rage like state, really scaring Lenina.
Right after John and Lenina have there huge fight the telephone rings for John. He answers and it's the hospital saying that his mom is dying. John is completely alarmed by this and immediately heads to the hospital to see his mom. When he gets there Linda (his mom) is in this really creepy hospital. The hospital is basically a giant death farm. All the rooms had the best synthetic music playing and all the patiently were in deep Zoma holidays. When John got to his mom she was basically dead in a deep Zoma holiday. He tried to talk to her but she couldn't really comprahend him and kept kind of dozing off. Then a nurse came and told John he had to be leaving because she had a batch of children coming. The nurse then brought in a bunch of kids all identical to observe the dying people. This drove John mad because he had to sit there watching his mom die with a bunch of kids all playing around like it was a gymnasium. As John is freaking out trying to talk to his mom she dies. This really puts John in a rage and he leaves the hospital, and on his way out he see's the workers of the hospitals getting there Zoma rations. In his rage and entirely fed up with the civilized world John goes to the front of the line and takes the Zomas and throw them off the air strip and started screaming " Free. Free. You're Free." This of coarse cause a giant outrage and these poilice like people came into the crowd with Zoma super soakers and sythetic music to get the situation under control ( I thought this was hilerious. It's so perfect for the world A.F.).
John, Brenard, and Helmholtz (one of their friends who got caught up in the matter also) all were sent to talk to the controller of western europe, Mustapha Mond. There the controller talked about how it is important to make sure that the people aren't exposed to certain literature, science, or solitude to insure their happiness. During this meeting John and the controller are in a constant debate about how happiness should be achieved, and matters of individuality. At the end of the meeting the Controller informs Brenard and Helmholtz that they will be sent to islands that have people like them, but says John has to stay so the experiment can continue.
John gets furious with this and decides to leave London and try to find somewhere, where he can live in solitude and support himself. He does this, and moves in an abandoned light house. During this time he feels the urge to cause massive amounts of pain on himself to purify himself to god. He feels like the civilized world has made bad and he wants to be good with god. One day while he's lashing himself some poeple see him and tell some other people and then reporters here of it and start coming by to his light house and constantly bugging him. One night John is thinking of Lenina and the pain he caused her and starts getting extremely furious makes him go into self inflicting rage. He goes outside and jumps into a thorn bush almost completely naked trying to make himself not think of Lenina. During his rage a reporter who decided to stay all night trying to get a good shot sees him in his rage and starts recording it. Within a week the video is released and becomes one of the best movies in A.F.. because of its deep pain and emotion. So the next day there is swarm of people all coming to John freak out. John tries to hide but can't, the people are everywhere. People start throwing gum and other highly civilized products at him urging him to use them just trying to egg him on. John is yelling for them to stop but they don't, they keep egging him on and start yelling for him to whip himself. Eventually John starts whipping himself and crowd goes nuts. Eventually everyone leaves, but the next day everyone shows again wanting to see him freak out. When they can't find him they go up to light house, but find him dead. He had hung himself.
I actually predicted John comiiting suicide pretty early in the book, but the way it got there was crazy. The ending of the book was heart thumping with intensity. The way they egged on John was horrible. I couldn't feel worse for the guy.
Even though the end of the book was really intense and climatic it wasn't my favorite part of the book. My favorite part of the book was when John and the controller were debating means of happiness. This part of the book got very deep and was kind of hard to understand fully at times, but during this part of the book the whole point of the book was explained.
So once Brenard brings John and Linda back to the civilized world he becomes somewhat of a celebrity and everyone loves him and he starts getting a lot more attention, especially from girls. The bigger Brenard gets the bigger his head gets. He starts even being hateful to friends who have always been there for him. Eventually Brenard's big head puts him back where he started, being a loser.
Also while this is happening John (the savage brought back to the civilized world) and Lenina are kind of having an affair. Though they never actually do it they get pretty close at one point. The reason they never do it is because John feels like he has to prove his love to her, but Lenina doesn't care and just wants to do it with him. This just makes John extremely angry and puts him into a kind of rage like state, really scaring Lenina.
Right after John and Lenina have there huge fight the telephone rings for John. He answers and it's the hospital saying that his mom is dying. John is completely alarmed by this and immediately heads to the hospital to see his mom. When he gets there Linda (his mom) is in this really creepy hospital. The hospital is basically a giant death farm. All the rooms had the best synthetic music playing and all the patiently were in deep Zoma holidays. When John got to his mom she was basically dead in a deep Zoma holiday. He tried to talk to her but she couldn't really comprahend him and kept kind of dozing off. Then a nurse came and told John he had to be leaving because she had a batch of children coming. The nurse then brought in a bunch of kids all identical to observe the dying people. This drove John mad because he had to sit there watching his mom die with a bunch of kids all playing around like it was a gymnasium. As John is freaking out trying to talk to his mom she dies. This really puts John in a rage and he leaves the hospital, and on his way out he see's the workers of the hospitals getting there Zoma rations. In his rage and entirely fed up with the civilized world John goes to the front of the line and takes the Zomas and throw them off the air strip and started screaming " Free. Free. You're Free." This of coarse cause a giant outrage and these poilice like people came into the crowd with Zoma super soakers and sythetic music to get the situation under control ( I thought this was hilerious. It's so perfect for the world A.F.).
John, Brenard, and Helmholtz (one of their friends who got caught up in the matter also) all were sent to talk to the controller of western europe, Mustapha Mond. There the controller talked about how it is important to make sure that the people aren't exposed to certain literature, science, or solitude to insure their happiness. During this meeting John and the controller are in a constant debate about how happiness should be achieved, and matters of individuality. At the end of the meeting the Controller informs Brenard and Helmholtz that they will be sent to islands that have people like them, but says John has to stay so the experiment can continue.
John gets furious with this and decides to leave London and try to find somewhere, where he can live in solitude and support himself. He does this, and moves in an abandoned light house. During this time he feels the urge to cause massive amounts of pain on himself to purify himself to god. He feels like the civilized world has made bad and he wants to be good with god. One day while he's lashing himself some poeple see him and tell some other people and then reporters here of it and start coming by to his light house and constantly bugging him. One night John is thinking of Lenina and the pain he caused her and starts getting extremely furious makes him go into self inflicting rage. He goes outside and jumps into a thorn bush almost completely naked trying to make himself not think of Lenina. During his rage a reporter who decided to stay all night trying to get a good shot sees him in his rage and starts recording it. Within a week the video is released and becomes one of the best movies in A.F.. because of its deep pain and emotion. So the next day there is swarm of people all coming to John freak out. John tries to hide but can't, the people are everywhere. People start throwing gum and other highly civilized products at him urging him to use them just trying to egg him on. John is yelling for them to stop but they don't, they keep egging him on and start yelling for him to whip himself. Eventually John starts whipping himself and crowd goes nuts. Eventually everyone leaves, but the next day everyone shows again wanting to see him freak out. When they can't find him they go up to light house, but find him dead. He had hung himself.
I actually predicted John comiiting suicide pretty early in the book, but the way it got there was crazy. The ending of the book was heart thumping with intensity. The way they egged on John was horrible. I couldn't feel worse for the guy.
Even though the end of the book was really intense and climatic it wasn't my favorite part of the book. My favorite part of the book was when John and the controller were debating means of happiness. This part of the book got very deep and was kind of hard to understand fully at times, but during this part of the book the whole point of the book was explained.
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