Kai Ohlig
Anna Klasen
English 10
25th August 2013
Summer Reading: Book Review
Book:
Brave New World
Author:
Aldous Huxley
Genre:
Fiction
The story is set in future London, England, where babies are
transfused into bottles and everybody belongs to everybody. The idea of this
novel is to show how stable and identical the world could become and how
everybody will love his/her job (p.33,34). Throughout the book the author gives
good reasons why the world is like it is, e.g. how controlled growth of babies
in bottles makes them look and be perfect for the world (p.22).However, by
having three major characters, Aldous Huxley is able to represent different
perspectives about this world: Lenina is completely confident in the system,
while Bernard Marx is unhappy and feels uncomfortable (p.55, 78). On the other
hand, John hasn’t been in this civilized world as a child and can’t adapt to it
at all (p166, 167). This is how the story begins.
The action starts when Lenina and Bernard travel to
Mexico and rescue a civilized person by the name of Linda, who had been stuck
in Mexico (p.100, 101, 117). Badly, she had given birth to John, which is
completely absurd for a civilized person. The story advances with the struggle for
John to fit into society and how the perfect seeming environment of the world becomes
a barrier for him…
Overall, I like the book, especially because the story
doesn’t end as I had expected. In the middle of the book the plot advances into
a completely different direction than it does at the end, which was very
surprising. However, I won’t give any references for that, since I don’t want to
spoil anything. I also enjoyed the style of the book. By putting in three important
characters the author made me think that the world was perfect and at the same
time warned me that nothing can be perfect at all. I connected to that, because
it remembers me of everyday life and even I had troubles with thinking that
someone else is perfect. However I learned very fast that those people only
acted as if they were. Therefore I had personal reasons for liking this book as
well.
That is why I definitely recommend this book to every
person, because it’s different compared to many other stories. If one doesn’t
like usual action stories then this book is worth a try. When a nerd searches
for a book with a lot of logic included, then he/she should also read it. The
story offers a lot of connections if someone decides to analyze it. I actually
tried to go into the story and found an undefined number of connections. I was
able to dig deep without hitting the ground. It made me become very interested,
because I wanted to read on to go even further down and get a definite answer
to all of my questions. When you get interested in the story then it doesn’t
matter where to read it, it will always hook you. However, I wouldn’t recommend
the book for English class, because some students will not be able to control
themselves and read beyond their assignments. Others may take longer to get the
whole picture as well. Otherwise it is good for journeys, rainy days, in the
bed, even in the bath tub if you decide to read it there. Even though this was
an assignment for school, which had to be done over the summer break, it felt
like holiday for me.
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