- The narrator for the audiobook is really good at doing different accents, and his main one reminds of Orson Wells or some American accent from the 50s.
- It’s a very interesting society, everyone takes drugs that make you happy with no hangover, have sex with everyone with no commitment, and generally seem to enjoy life. I don’t really agree with the eugenics and caste system, but the book tries to argue that in this society everyone is happy with their station because it’s all they’ve known, and is all their capable of knowing. My immediate reaction was that it’s inhuman to create a lower caste of humans that are dumber and subservient, but then what if we do this robots and artificial intelligences? Is it not inhumane to shackle them to menial jobs too? How do we automate our world without oppression? I’m sure there’s some middle ground here that doesn’t involve essentially enslaving people, but it just made me think. Artificial people would be people too in my book.
- This happens somewhere in the middle, but the story about the girl who got stuck with the savages and forced to raise a child made me really sad, how she was abused by the people because she didn’t understand their way of life, and how she passed that abuse onto her son. When the kid said that life is unfair, that resonated with me. I’d like to make it so that no one would ever have to think that.
- I’m getting close to finishing, somewhere like an hour and a half left. It’s interesting to see John (the savage) being the stand in for our society and how he reacts to the society in the book. I guess it raises interesting questions on what kind of happiness is morally superior, what we strive for in our world or how they do it in the book (just have sex with everybody and take drugs to feel good). At least so far in the book, there doesn’t seem to be any issues with their society, everyone enjoys themselves. I don’t see much technological/scientific innovation happening, and while that’s something I value, is that necessary for happiness? Do we need anything more than happiness?
- So I think my main takeaway here is that the utopia of Brave New World (yes I know it’s intended to be a dystopia) is very alluring. They claim that every class is happy with their station as that’s all they’re capable of knowing, and that seems to be the case in the book, although they never show the POV of a lower caste character (the show does and postulates that they don’t like their station/want to be alphas). I think such a utopia could work if everyone was the same, e.g. if everyone was an alpha, and all the menial labor/maintenance was taken care of by non-sentient robots (I believe any being capable of sentience, including artificial or non-human beings, deserve the same rights as we do). If no one was being oppressed in order to give alphas their lifestyle, I see nothing wrong with a life where you’re always happy and just having sex all the time, as long as there was a place for people to pursue fulfillment (arts, science, other work, etc.).
- As a sub note, I think polyamory without attachments seems superior, as you won’t ever have to deal with jealousy. If we could condition/modify humans to be like this, why not? You could still have platonic intimacy and best friends, and just satisfy sexual urges with non-committal flings. I think this exact thing was mentioned in some WIRED article I read a while back, a “vision of the future” type article that talked about being able to modify humans to remove jealousy.
- So now I’m going to talk about the 2020 TV adaptation. I think this is one of the few times that a TV show absolutely blows the source material out of the water. It took all the important themes from the book and expanded on them and made them relatable for a modern audience. It explored the relationships between characters and developed them far more, whereas the book just said that they had relationships. Everything in the show just felt more earned, and the visuals and music were stunning. The set design, costuming, lightning. VFX, worldbuilding, acting, soundtrack/score, EVERYTHING WAS SOOO GOOD! Everybody needs to watch this show! It’s an absolute travesty that it was released on Peacock only, leading to no one watching it, leading to it getting cancelled for poor viewership numbers. Idiots. Hopefully it gets picked up by another company.
- To expand on what exactly I like more, let’s see. In the book, Bernard was an outcast because he looked different from other alphas, whereas in the show, he looked pretty similar, but it was a mindset thing. He had an inferiority complex and just wanted to be more, to be loved by everyone, and it just felt so much more real this way, and I related to his character a lot.
- Lenina was actually developed as a character in the show rather than an object of lust like in the book, and it was cool to watch her change over the season. Same goes for all the characters really, Mond, Helm, Henry, the Director, Linda, all of them felt like real people instead of characters.
- The show did add some new stuff, like a revolution in the savage lands, and an AI called Indra masterminding the utopia, but I think it was a tasteful addition that actually added to the story rather than distract. Well, at least the AI did, I feel like the revolution thing was underdeveloped (probably would’ve seen more in season 2).
- The change to John was staggering, but I think worked really well. Instead of quoting Shakespeare all the time and failing to integrate, he’s just a normal guy who’s had a hard life, and he integrates pretty well but just feels empty as he’s used to feeling the full range of emotions that humans do. Like Bernard he also just wanted to be loved, but people kept seeing him as an object rather than a person and he still felt alone. Alden’s portrayal of John/his acting was really good, so good it makes me want to rewatch Solo just to see his range.