BRAVE NEW WORLD

This year we have a reading club in our library. We are only six member but we hope more people will join us in the future. We are going to start our meetings with the reading of Brave New World, so a brief presentation of this sci-fi classic is required.

This novel was published in 1932 by Aldous Huxley. It presents a dystopian vision of the future. It is a world only focused on science and efficiency, where emotions an individuality are forbidden.  Children are created outside the womb and cloned to increase the population. Embryos are chosen for different social classes, making the ones intended for the higher classes physically and mentally strong, whereas those of the lower classes are changed to be imperfect. Ones are bred to be leaders and the others are bred to be menial workers.

The main character travels to a "savage reservation" where one of the leaders has a son, John, who has been brought up as people used to live in the past. John is taken to the " brave new world" where he will become miserable.

Huxley wrote the novel between the two World Wars,an era of technological optimism, creating a dystopian world in his novel to criticize it. He was expressing a common fear surrounding the fast development of technology. 

His novel was banned in many libraries. Many parents considered that its overall negativity was not suitable for children. However, he influenced many novelists, such as George Orwell in his novel 1984. 

Nowadays, the novel goes on making readers think: In a perfect world without sickness, poverty, or sadness, why is society still missing something?

If you are interested in this amazing book, you can find an adapted version in the English section of our library. 

There are several adaptations of the novel: One was released in 1998 and the last one in 2020. You can see the trailers down below.