These are posts I made to a book club I read this work with. I read this book at the same time I began reading "Crisis."
Part 1:
To those who are struggling to understand, is it the technical talk? There is quite a bit in chapter 1. Perhaps we could help out with understanding.
I had the same immediate reaction to ____. I had to read the brief bio of Aldous Huxley (I knew it was a classic, but...) and was amazed at the dates. My jaw dropped.
I'm not really weirded out, though I find the ideas to be strange, certainly. Some of it I find immensely fascinating. I mean, can there be such manipulation?
Now, let me explain my position when looking at experimentation. That is over-the-top, IMO. I do not support it at all. I'm looking at the biology he's "predicting" and going, "Wow!" But I think it must be a fictionalized treatise on psychology. (I'm into chapter two. If I didn't have other reading and responsibilities, I would probably have read it all by now.)
I also find the narrative rather humorous in spots. (My copy is in the car riding around town at the moment, or I'd quote.)
I'm trying to remember...the people in the labs who care for the zygotes, are these Deltas or higher up? They seem to have been extremely experimentally tampered with, having that coloration of a person with lupus.
Okay, yes, I admit I was weirded out with the babies(Ch. 2). How cruel was that? But in chapter 1, I wasn't so much weirded out. I was still marveling over the fact of this man in this time period writing something that was so prophetic.
In contrast to Robin Cook, I hate to say, his style is crisp and well-edited, which also reflects his time period. (There are scads of annoying mistakes in "Crisis," but the story line is engaging. I enjoy his word-choice.)
I'm going to reserve my decision for after I finish the book, but I think this should be required for AP English 2 over "A Clockwork Orange" (I hated that book) or "1984." This one just has such an elegance about it.
Part 2, defining some terms:
I think viviparous is a term referring to a mode of reproduction, especially that of a child in the womb rather than an egg that is laid. I remember it from a presentation one of my fellow bio students presented regarding sharks. Some are viviparous.
I think indefatigable refers to something being unwavering, untiring.
As for inculcate, I remember studying the word, but it was a long time ago. It's not used very much. I think it's a verb and the connotation I'm deriving is something like induce, but I'll have to look it up.
To the general group,
One chemistry term I thought others may have some difficulty understanding (though I'm certain I could be wrong) is the reference to "liquor." Now, Huxley does refer to alcohol, and there may be alcohol present in the liquor, but that is not the only meaning, especially in chemistry. As we've used it, we've described the term as "mother liquor" which is appropriate to Huxley's lab (as a pun).
Mother liquor is what is left after some mixture is distilled, and I imagine it could refer to other extraction procedures which leave behind some fluid. Maybe ____ could clarify.
Going to look up "inculcate."
I found inculcate at dictionary.com:
in¡Ecul¡Ecate /ɪnˈkʌlkeɪt, ˈɪnkʌlˌkeɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[in-kuhl-keyt, in-kuhl-keyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
¡Vverb (used with object), -cat¡Eed, -cat¡Eing. 1. to implant by repeated statement or admonition; teach persistently and earnestly (usually fol. by upon or in): to inculcate virtue in the young.
2. to cause or influence (someone) to accept an idea or feeling (usually fol. by with): Socrates inculcated his pupils with the love of truth.
Not really to induce, but not too far from it, either. I think I'll make it my word for the day. ;p
This is a really short, rather non-technical article about refining sugar that also uses the term mother liquor: http://www.sucrose.com/rboil.html
I think mother liquor may be rather arcane. I had a professor for Organic Chem who preferred calories to joules and made no beans about it. ;p I think that the newer generations of chemists may lean toward energy measurements in joules. My textbook used joules predominantly, although measurements in calories were included along with them.
So anyway, back to the term. It was in my lab book (can't remember the original print date, but it was several editions before the current textbook edition) and I had to search and search for other uses of the word. I think it's similar to "pot residue" except that there is more mother liquor, which is definitely liquid.
Part 3:
From Ch. 2, I took away the alpha's crossing themselves to "Their Ford." ROFL! We were wedding shopping that day and everytime I saw a ford of any make/model, I crossed myself. ;p
I read Ch. 7 this morning.
I think that Huxley is doing a mental social experiment with this one, not just making a political statement.
Someone mentioned communism in the first couple of chapters, and I honestly wasn't seeing it. I think Huxley appropriately describes it as a caste system, where communism only has 2 classes. Well, true communism, like that of the Native Americans, has only one. Funny, but Marx's idea of communism more mirrored that of the tribal peoples who all worked together and all shared the spoils together, if I'm remembering correctly. The leaders are the ones that spoiled it, creating a divide between the rulers and the workers. I don't think it's a coincidence that Marx and Lenina seem opposed in their idea of how civilization should be.
One thing I'm wondering about is, does Lenina genuinely care about these people, or does she raise herself up above them? I think that is not clear to me at the moment.
So the experiment that I think Huxley is trying to make is the one about conditioning. Some claim that we have our morals and find our roles in society due to conditioning. That may be so, but in his book, it takes a great deal of de- and reconditioning to level it all out so that women are basically men with some slight physiological modifications.
It's funny how, the things that women complain about in our society are the things the MEN complain about in the Brave New World. Anyway, I think that's the gist of it. It's basically topsy-turvy, which is not a foreign idea, even within the book.
Jumping to ch. 7, so spoiler warning:
Now, there seems to be a biblical reference in Linda's situation. It reminded me of Sarai's maidservant who was cast out. She was pregnant and established a new nation, the Arabs. John is clearly not in line with the "civilized" brainwashing.
The ideas of consumerism that Huxley talks about...hehe! It is gluttony, but gluttony of food is the evil of this society, not gluttony of...age-fighting scientific miracles, gluttony of products which drive the market and keep the society in equilibrium, gluttony of control of human destiny, of thought or belief.
There seems to be an element of "The Truman Show" derived from this work. The human spirit, a strong mind that is, longs to break free from the limits of this realm, to break the equilibrium. And even the weaker minds have difficulty handling it, such that Soma is the coping mechanism. (I believe there is a current drug named Soma.)
Soma keeps the spirit obedient. I suppose it's the "opium of the masses."
Notice that the religion is rather demystified, but the religion Bernard Marx longs for is not the one being attacked by the attitude of the narrator and contains an element of mystery. He seems to enjoy the chaotic nature of the Native American people, the slow onset of decay, the wildness of their traditions.
I find it funny that Bernard says they haven't heard of Their Ford, and yet, in all likelihood, they have. Maybe this is an oversight on my part, forgetting the history of the Native American people and their exposure to our modern conveniences at this time, but it seems silly of me to assume they hadn't heard of Henry Ford at this time in history, or that Huxley would not anticipate their discovering that knowledge.
I guess that's all for now. (I've probably written about as much as Huxley, by now.)
I understand now. Yes, there is a communal "thing" going on with the idea that everyone belongs to everyone else.
I've been waiting for Huxley to redeem the promotion of sexuality in children. I can't really figure that out at the moment. Unfortunately, the reader either has to accept that as part of life in the world he's devised, or wait for some explanation for it. I think it's a bit more acceptable within the story because there isn't a crossing of age lines. The children are generally the same age. That doesn't excuse it, and there is so much more to it and it is rather disturbing, but I keep thinking it is symbolic of something else. Maybe it's not, which would be disappointing.
What you say is what I learned. Marx didn't intend for communism to be what it amounted to in practice. But, ____ pointed out that in Huxley's book, Marx loved Lenina.
Lenina thought of herself as a piece of meat, and B. Marx hated that about her. Could Lenina stand for Russia, and not the leader Lenin?
Part 4:
It may be that that is what Huxley is trying to show with the sexuality, but I've been unsure about that. I think there may be more to it.
I think it may lend to the horror of this world, self-satisfaction without having to pay the price of birthing a child or caring for it. Since there are no families, there is no responsibility except to one's pleasure and work. It is totally an autonomous society. But one must bow to the beliefs of the society in order to remain individual and "happy." But obviously, not everyone is happy. The individual sometimes wins out over the conditioning.
The sexuality then may be part of that strive for happiness, er, instant gratification, despite the individual's preferences. The boy who didn't want to play erotically with the girl was...what? We're not privvy to whether he was punished or not, but he was removed from his peers.
I'm finding the soma thing rather interesting. I am still marveling at Huxley's foresight, but maybe I should marvel at my lack of knowledge of his era. I keep getting this nagging feeling that I've forgotten the timeline (sure of it, in fact) of certain advances and insights of knowledge.
Has anyone read "The Brothers Karamazov" in whole or in part (any part)? John reminds me, a bit, of Alyosha/Alexei. Both seem so pure, so devoted to their ideals. However, I have to say that John seems less ideal than Alyosha. Alyosha is more of a presence than, excuse me for saying so, a man, so far as I've read. But I'm no expert.
I'm on the fence about whether there would be some alphas who couldn't adapt. That was why I asked the question about Lenina. We already see how Linda has handled the situation. She virtually popped, but she made it. Now, she's just not able to cope at all.
I suppose we may view alphas as the intellectual elite comparable to our current society. While these tend to be a little more stable, there is still a truck load of psychological upheaval.
Isn't Lenina described as having the Lupus look? And isn't this a characteristic of Beta's? I should look it up, but I've moved on to manga. LOL!
Argh, okay! My sensibilities are getting the best of me.
I forgot the color of Gammas was green, and Lenina wears green. So is Lenina a Gamma? And then, Linda has the same skin coloration, and Linda's a Beta.
I think Bernard was scared off his rocker by the lives of the so-called Savages. Plus, his personal desires and willingness to remain "happy" overrode his personal convictions. He reminds me of Cipher in "The Matrix."
Okay, if I say much more, I risk spoiling the plot. I'm returning my book today, so I won't have it for reference in the future.
I was very disappointed by John's death, but I suppose it was inevitable. He had nowhere to go. He could have been exiled to where there is proper progress, but his education was probably not up to scratch. He'd burn out before long. An assumption on my part, I know.
I just was sure, until I realized where he was going to live, that he was going to beat the problems. I thought there was even a chance for him and Lenina, but I suppose there really wasn't. Lenina was too steeped.
I hope you enjoyed reading this. If you haven't read the book, or are planning to use this in place of the book, I'd advise against it. Although I don't approve of everything in it, I think it is a fascinating read, on the whole.
Regina G
Yu Watase