The Brave New World Collection by Aldous Huxley

Brave New World is a 1931 classic dystopian novel by British author Aldous Huxely. It is a world where people are grown in bottles and their caste — Alpha to Gamma is predetermined in vitro.  Parent, mother, father, and pregnant are offensive words that are repulsive.. Promiscuous sex, feelies, the drug soma to level you out or take you on a holliday, and socially mandated activities that make sure no one is alone, keep everyone “happy”, content, and unquestioning.

The first part of the book reads like a catalog of how this world differs from our own.Things get more interesting when the Alpha Barnard visits a reservation of savages and finds John, a young man whose parents are from the outside. Seeing this as a way to increase his social status, he takes John back to the world. John is dubbed John Savage and is an immediate sensation with Bernard as his manager. John isn’t dumb, he’s a keen observer who quotes Shakespeare in response to this “brave new world” with its artificial and superficial happiness. He finds that the solitude he craves is forever out of reach.

Brave New World is a dystopia masquerading as a utopia and a warning how technology and complaisance could lead to a totalitarian dystopia. Huxley explores this in Brave New World Revisited.

Brave New World Revisited is a series of essays published in 1958. Here Huxley contrasts the totalitarianism of Orwell’s 1984 with that of Brave New World. Huxley is pessimistic that overpopulation and over organization inevitability  is going to lead to totalitarianism. He also skirts alarmingly close to espousing eugenics. The chapters on propaganda and manipulation apply as much today as when Huxley wrote them. Perhaps more so given the way broadcast media can disseminate propaganda and manipulate people’s thinking. See the 2024 election.

Brave New World is an extreme look at a possible future for society given advances in technology and other stressors but I found Brave New World Revisited much more relevant and thought provoking. The reader sees just how easy it is to manipulate people.

Read Brave New World, Brave New World Revisited, Orwell's 1984, and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 for a good look at possible paths toward totalitarianism. All three books are still relevant today.

Bunny by Mona Awad

After finishing Rouge I decided to reread Bunny and I’m glad I did because I’d forgotten much of it..

To summarize, Samatha (Sam) Mackey, a scholarship student at an elite, highly selective New England university, finds herself inexplicably drawn into the circle of the other 4 members of the all-female cohort of a MFA program in narrative arts. These are the self-named Bunnies who are everything Samatha is not and who she finds repelling, even hates. When they invite her to join them, she is unable to resist and her insecurities win out. She finds that the Bunnies are not only the mean girls clique she imagines but a cult and she finds herself taking part in some pretty disturbing rituals. As she becomes enmeshed in the cult she drifts away from her best friend Ava. Can she escape the Bunnies or will she lose herself?

Awad’s writing is stunning. razor sharp, flowing, witty, and funny. I was grabbed from the opening pages where Samatha and Ava are at the Narrative Arts Department’s welcome back Demitasse (nothing as low class as a party) observing, mocking, and scoffing at the Bunnies. Sam’s made up dialog of what the Bunnies are saying to each other is wonderfully snarky. As she falls under the influence of the Bunnies and some elements of horror appear, the writing becomes more hypnotic and trance-like as Sam’s sense of self starts to slip away. You also see this in Rouge. I wondered if the events were real or happening in Sam’s mind or made up by Sam. I think I know but to say more would be a spoiler...maybe..

Bunny satirizes girl-cliques and pretentious academia and is often very funny but it also looks at Sam’s need to belong even if it means becoming what she says she hates. Bunny doesn’t have the body horror of Rouge but there are a few ewww moments.

With Bunny and Rouge, Awad has become one of my favorite and always read authors. I’m looking forward to the sequel, We Love You, Bunny, which will be published September 2025. It’s told from the viewpoint of the Bunnies and I hope  answers some of my questions.

Julia by Sandra Newman

My triad of totalitarian/dystopian novels—1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451—is now a quartet. I just finished Sandra Newman’s Julia which tells the story of George Orwell’s1984 from the viewpoint of Winston Smith’s lover, Julia Worthing (Orwell didn’t give her a last name). Newman has given us a fully fleshed out female protagonist with her own backstory, agency, and motivations. There is a lot more to Julia than what we see in 1984.

We see Julia’s interactions with Winston and events involving Winston through her eyes. She refers to him as Old Misery because of his dour disposition and apparent dislike of women. Between these scenes, we are shown the lives of Outer Party women in Big Brother’s London in grim detail. Unlike Winston who has his own apartment, Julia has a bed in the open bay, barracks-like hostel, Women’s 21. This gives us an intimate look at the daily lives of the women living in close quarters. Likewise, through Julia we see the lives of the proles (i.e. non-party members) with whom she engages in black market activities.

Julia is an excellent companion to 1984 and skillfully shows us a different side to the story. I very much recommend reading or rereading 1984 first, before opening Julia. You need to have the events of 1984 fresh in your mind. I really can’t give more detail about Julia because I don’t want to spoil the story but I love everything about the way Newman builds on the story of 1984 and gives it her voice. Julia takes nothing away from 1984 but rather blends the two storys.The ending is superbly understated and made me sit back and say hmmm.

I got Julia from the library but need to add it to my permanent collection.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

I  recently realized that I had never read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë despite having been a lit major. I’d only seen the 1939 Lawrence Olivier film version. Much embarrassment. To fix that I listened to the Blackstone audio book narrated by Carolyn Seymour and read a Kindle edition.

I haven’t read any critique of the story other than it is considered one of the greatest novels ever written and a love story that transcends the grave. There are probably deeper meanings that I missed. Since it is over 170 years old I’m not going to worry about spoilers or describe the story in detail. 

Basically, Heathcliff is brought into the Earnshaw family at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff and Catherine(Cathy) Earnshaw love each other dearly but he misunderstands a conversation he overhears  and runs away for three years. During that time, Cathy marries wealthy Edgar Linton thinking she will be able to uplift Heathcliff on his return. He doesn’t take this well. Cathy dies in childbirth. Heathcliff becomes even more deranged. Revenge, retribution, and abuse ensue.

My observations

• It’s raw and probably had ladies clutching their pearls at how awful the people are.

• It depicts extreme mental, emotional, domestic, and physical abuse to adults and children and the lasting effects of that abuse

• Romance? It certainly shows what can happen when a deep love is thwarted and the scarring effects on someone already mentally unstable, i.e.Heathcliff

• Rage, lots of rage

• You should read it if only for the cultural references

• It’s a well constructed story though the highly charged language and drama can be a bit much for modern readers

• I admire Brontë’s writing. Her use of language is both brutal and beautiful. She didn’t compromise at all in realizing her characters, the good and bad.

• People can fall deathly ill at the drop of a hat

• Seymour is an excellent narrator, almost too good. The near constant shrieking, bellowing, growling, and raging are jarring to the ear. I needed to switch to reading for relief

• I really liked the contrast between Edgar Linton’s Thrushcross Grange and The Heights. Wuthering Heights is wonderfully described in its soulless bleakness

Amusing (to me):

• When the reader narrated Joseph’s (servant at WH) dialog I thought of Gabby Johnson in Blazing Saddles who spoke authentic frontier gibberish (available on youtube). Joseph spoke in authentic Yorkshire gibberish.

• In Jasper Fforde’s The Well of Lost Plots, Thursday Next, a literary detective, visits Wuthering Heights where the characters are in a mandatory rage management session to keep the rage in the story from getting out of control as happened with Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. You also get a pretty good overview of the story.

Rouge by Mona Awad

A large part of the book shows us how disturbingly cultish the beauty industry can be. It’s not a straightforward portrayal but surreal. Someone said it has a David Lynchian atmosphere and I agree.

The narrator Belle has been obsessed with much of her life. Now in the present she is addicted to Dr. Marva’s skin treatment videos. She returns to California after her mother dies from a fall from a cliff into the sea. She is barely hanging on as she tries to make sense of her mother’s and how she racked up so much debt. And what are all these red jars in her condo?

A woman in red is at the funeral and later Belle receives a mysterious video on her phone from ROUGE asking “Is grief affecting your skin barrier?”. The same woman from the funeral is in the video. Days later Belle is at her mother’s place and finds herself in one of her mothers dresses and wearing her mother’s red shoes.which seem to lead her along the cliffs to the gates of a huge manor, La Maison Meduse.

There she is apparently expected and welcomed as a special guest. Within the mansion is a tank passing below and through the upper floors in which jellyfish-like creatures swim. ROUGE promotes beauty treatments. Later Belle is offered a free treatment which makes her the target of envy among paying guests. Oddly, Belle is asked to select a jellyfish which is with her during the treatment. Afterwards, Belle's perceptions are confused, there are gaps in her memory, she mixes up words. But the treatments are giving her an unearthly beauty that stuns people.

After the treatments start, the story enters into David Lynch territory. The reader can’t help but be drawn into the dreamlike, surreal state along with Belle.

Lots of questions. What are the treatments and what is happening to her? Why is “her”jellyfish with her during the treatment? What was her mother’s connection with Rouge and why do the embrace her as her mother’s daughter? What is ROGUE's real goal and is it really to help you achieve your best self?

The ending is both stunning and imaginative and shows the true horror within La Maison Meduse. I loved and now need to read the author’s Bunny.