London – Great books blog

Page turner: 8/10
Heart tugger: 7/10
Thought provoker: 10/10
Overall: 5 stars

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, is brilliant.

In my head, I thought it would be a sort-of precursor to 1984: author creates totalitarian regime for political point. Point made well and clear, and good story along the way an added bonus. (Not to diminish from 1984, which I will certainly get to and give proper consideration in due course!) A Brave New World is so much better than that. Huxley, in 1932, publishes a book that creates an entirely different planet- full of crazy rocket technology, syntethetic experiences, and sky scrapers- that hasn’t, really, aged. And this new planet isn’t really the result of an intentially extreme political party gaining world dominination. Instead, it is an entirely new culture. A new world. One that I had never even considered feasible.

The brave new world which Huxley writes about is a world of ‘decanting’ rather than ‘birth’; where happiness, consumption, and stability reign at the price of passion, liberty, and independence. Imagine a world where ‘pneumatic’ is the highest of compliments. It’s so very, very backwards from what we all take for granted. But it takes not-very-long before you get into it. Even as I read about the conditioning that people go through in order to create this society of solidarity (think Pavlov … on crack), I felt for them. You feel the pressures of thier invisible constraints. And you empathize.

The appropriately eerie cover from my edition of Brave New World

Really, I think this book should have been in the curiculum on one of my university anthropology courses. Talking about seeing things through different lenses. It’s nurture trumping nature – but playing by totally different rules.

Meanwhile, it’s still a good story. Lots of sex (not too explicit), drugs, love, death, and a bit of adventure. And the accessories of the world itself is more novel and fascinating than plenty of ‘modern’ science fiction books.

It’s also incredibly well written. Concise but descriptive. Clever but functional. And, not to be too blunt, a very readable length. Well edited.

Brave New World is really a commentary about what happens ‘for the sake of progress’. When technology gets us so far – then what? You can see why what happens happens. And simultaneously you can totally comprehend the perspective of ‘ancient’ Shakespeare (his works feature) and of the folks of a ‘Savage Reservation’ whose way of life resembles that of Native Americans at the turn of the 20th century. Sort of.

I will admit that by a somewhat surprising turn of events the two main locations of the book- London and Malpais, New Mexico – are places that I hold rather personal connections with. But that probably just makes it a cheeky 6 stars for me, and a 5 for everyone else. So, if you are looking to read a Great Book, getting many virtual brownie points for high school English teachers the world over, go with Brave New World.

Page turner: 6/10
Heart tugger: 5/10
Thought provoker: 6/10
Overall: 3 stars (but on the low side of 3)

I liked Offshore, which won the Man Booker prize in 1979. I was tickled by the tendency of the characters to refer to each other by the names of their boats; and particularly pleased by the character, Maurice, who changed the name of his boat to Maurice in response to this.

The book is about a small group of people who live in house boats at Battersea Reach on the Thames, London in the early 1960s. Quite pleasingly, I coincidentally discovered that the modern-day bus route 319 passes has a stop at Cheyne Walk, right where the characters are traipsing about.

The characters are, to say the least, an eclectic bunch. The best two, by far, are the 11 and 6-year-old daughters of Nenna, the abandoned wife. They are both feral and precocious, which is an improbable and impressive combo.

The trouble is, I just didn’t quite ‘buy’ any of the characters. They were a bit too … out there. Some of their inner monologues are clever and convincing, but as a set, I just never quite got Into the book. I never saw myself amongst them. And so, in spite of the fact I actually KNOW where the book takes place, I kept getting tangled in location, time, and events. Which is actually a bit embarrassing given that nothing particularly unusual or exciting happens. Yes, one of the characters is a male prostitute, but the author, Penelope Fitzgerald, steers clear of any sordid details. So the characters – apparently doing deep-and-meaningful things – to me just seemed to be bopping about.

As it is an award-winning book over a certain age, my edition of the book has an introduction. I usually try not to read them until after I’ve reviewed, so that I’m not unduly influenced. But this time I did, and I am going to borrow the term ‘tragi-farce’, which describes the tone of the book well. It’s dark, but not depressing. It would make an excellent Christopher Guest film.

*Anything* after 17 days of Ulysses would be a pleasure, but on reflection while I liked Offshore (and enjoyed my personal connection to it), I would think it was average overall. And the ending was thoroughly unsatisfying (again, fab for a movie, but…)