Reading log 1: Brave New World

“A squat grey building of only thirty-four storeys. Over the main entrance the words, Central London Hatchery and Conditioning centre, and, in a shield, the World State´s motto, Community, Identity, Stability.

    The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north.”

These are the three first lines of the novel Brave new world by Aldous Huxley. They invoke a feeling of dread and insecurity in me. Furthermore, the words conjure pictures of huge, dark factories where thousand of workers spend all their waking hours under deplorable conditions. However, I do not know if this place described in these lines is a factory as my intuition says, and even less what kind it could be. Even thought it sounds as it has something to do with hatching things. Could it be as simple as hatching eggs or is it something more abstract as hatching new ideas? I believe that the novel will proceed with entering this building and then to discover what is hiding inside. Moreover I believe that the main characters of the book will be found in this particular building and will be introduced to us along the way. Reading these lines awakes an interest; I begin to wonder if my speculations are correct and how the novel will develop from here.

    The world the book is enacted in is both radical and unique in comparison with other similar books. The writer Aldous Huxley wrote something new as well as different. Along with creating a world that was rather revolutionary, when regarding what you were allowed to say and do during the time the novel was written, resulting in that he did something brave. Therefor I believe the author chose the title Brave new world.

    The novel begins with that you follow a group of students who are guided through the manufactory of an embryo to a full grown human. Firstly the manufactory of humans and how they are divided into different casts is explained. It continues with explaining the benefits of brainwashing the children to create the needs and opinions the authority want them to have. Lastly you are introduced to two of the novels main characters this far in the book, Lenina Crowne and Bernard Marx.

    Lenina Crowne belongs to the cast Beta, the second best cast after Alfa. The lower casts characteristics concerns her and she often raises the subject of her superiority over them. She is called pretty and is quite popular. Moreover a lot of men want to have sex with her, but Lenina differ from the majority of the people in this world at this point; she keeps to one person at a time. During the beginning of the novel it is Henry Foster, who she also goes out on a date with after that she has told Bernard Marx in public that she would love to accompany him to New Mexico.

    Bernard Marx is a relatively shy person, someone who usually keeps to himself and do not want to attract too much attention. He feels that he does not fit in the society and due to this he does not regard everything the same way as everyone else. For example he does not take the drug Soma, which all the others happily consumes, and he does not enjoy solidarity services. Moreover he differs from the other people from his cast Alfa due to his height, he is unusually short and rumour says it is because of an accident during the manufactory of his embryo. Furthermore he has strong feelings for Lenina, as a result of this he also diverges from the others who only sees Lenina as a trophy you could brag about that you have had. Bernard’s feelings for her are deeper than just dreaming of having sex with her. Of course he thinks she is pretty, but he feels that there is something else about her that appeals to him, I yet have to figure out what. Even though he is really happy that she lastly accepted his invitation, he still wishes that they would have had the conversation at a less public location. Lastly Bernard is different in one other aspect in comparison with the rest of the population; he does not live in an imaginary paradise where he always is cheerful. Bernard, on the other hand, is occasionally overwhelmed of feelings, as anger and jealously, a burden the rest do not have to handle.

Isabel Vinterbladh, NA11A