Brave New World for the book group

This month's read was Brave New World by Adlous Huxley, chosen by Andy. It was a book that already seemed very familiar because, like Orwell's 1984, there are ideas, images and phrases that have become part of our language and our culture. All the group members enjoyed reading it, even if most wern't entirely satisfied with the story. None of the characters were very strong - because they were just vehicles for the idea. Tellingly, one group member, John, commented that the only person he felt he knew was Linda - poor, imperfect Linda, who'd fallen out of the system and committed the sin of getting ill, fat and unhappy. Everyone else was a slave to ruthless conditioning and predestination, drugged up on soma to keep passions at bay. The way peoples role in life could be formed in the birthing jar was a really strong image. Morag obseved that she'd spotted a few Epsilons on Jerry Springer that very day.

The background to the book - published in 1932 -was eugenics, American consumerism, the Great Depression, and the notion that the problems of society could be cured by a grand Plan. Although a less brutal regime than that of 1984, the 'civilisation' of the Brave New World was repugnant. John pointed out how it sometimes mirrored today's society: the botox/slimming mania to keep folk young forever; ageism; sexualisation of children; disgust at breast feeding in public; the doling out of antideppressant drugs from an early age.

The argument for encouraging promiscuity made a weird kind of sense - chastity breeds passion, and passion causes instabilty. We had a society therefore where everyone was at it like rabbits but it was just yawningly unerotic. The society recognised and admitted the central flaw of our consumerist world, to quote the Controller: "Industrial civilisation is only possible where there's no self-denial. Self-indulgence up to the very limits...otherwise the wheels stop turning."

We loved Helmholtz's plea to be exiled to an island with a bad climate: "I believe one would write better if the climate were bad. If there were a lot of wind and storms, for example..." I thought they were going to send him to Shetland, but it turned out to be the Falklands! Should Shetland Arts use Helmholtz's quote to attract writers here though?