Day Twenty-One: The book that made you look at life in a different way
One of the first posts I ever wrote for this blog was about dystopian literature and how I came to really appreciate the genre and I talk about this novel a little bit.
I only read Brave New World this past year. It was one of those books that I always meant to read, but never did. Last semester, my friend John (the same John who lent me a book I haven't read yet) kept talking about it and finally I went to the library and borrowed a copy.
How did this book change the way I look at the world? In my the aforementioned post on dystopian literature, I mentioned that Brave New World made me angry. This is what I said:
Basically, Brave New World helped me to see how our rampant consumerist culture is destroying us. I, too, am a consumer and a slave to my culture. We all are, for the most part. This novel raised my awareness of my own slavery and helped to illuminate aspects of society that I had brushed aside as being unimportant or, at the very least, innocuous. I'm not saying that I had some brilliant epiphany or that I've since become a hermit living in a cave wearing nothing but a loincloth. What I am saying, however, is that I'm more vigilant when it comes to what society says is important and am more willing to speak up when I see something that I see as being wrong.I couldn’t help but look at the world around me as I was reading it and realize that, in many ways, Huxley’s world has become reality.It wasn’t the book I was angry at; it was the world. How had we gotten to this point? Why had we allowed ourselves to become so enslaved to our own culture? I obviously don’t have the answers to these questions, although they continue to haunt me. But I did gain something from the experience: A Brave New World gave me yet another reason to love dystopian fiction: it reveals our darker natures, makes people think about who they are, who the people around them have become. It shines a light on the inequalities in society, the sheer madness of politics, religion, technology, etc.
I've never been a sheep but Brave New World helped to ensure (hopefully) that I won't become one in the future either.
-Gabe
thanks for sharing that perspective, i myself don't care for that genre of books, seem a bit extreme however our world maybe heading that way but i think it will end before it becomes a complete dystopia world.
ReplyDeleteI read this one in my teens, maybe I should reread it.
ReplyDeleteSidne: I'm not sure what the future holds but books of this nature are always so compelling to me.
ReplyDeletebooketta: You'd probably find that you have a new perspective on it now than you did then. There's a few books that I read (or failed to read) in my teens that I'd like to take another crack at just to see if I still love them or hate them.