Reading the Classics discussion

Please discuss chapters 1-3 here.

Is there a set time or do we just read then post whenever during the month?

You can just read at your own pace and then post as you finish each chunk of reading. I thought this would allow people to discuss the book before they actually finish the book without having spoilers since everyone reads at a different pace. Hopefully this works. We can always try a new method next month with the next group read.

Okay (:

Well, it's a LONG overdue and guilty admission that I had not read the book up to this point, and I've been looking forward to remedying that.

I have to say, 3 chapters in I'm surprised at the book so far. It's good, I'm enjoying it, but the devices used seem a bit tawdry in a juvenile sort of way. Certainly it's a common enough device, and authors since such as Piers Anthony and Robert A. Heinlein have both used sex in a free way to attract readers..the effect on young male readers the way all three authors use it cannot be ignored, titillating the senses..and again, I'm not objecting to the use, I'm certainly not scandalized, I just feel as though the author is trying to push a button on me a bit too often, and it's a button that I stopped reacting that way a long long time ago.

Of course, the case can be made that he's employing it to put us off balance, since dystopian fiction often tries to change at least one moral/social code we use in our lives to make us FEEL the difference in this new world. But frankly, I think it's being stressed to the point of wearing thinly.

Otherwise I'm enjoying the book a great deal, and I'm hopeful it will settle down in it's paces, and not resort to cheap tricks to get me to the finish line.

I agree that the author's use of sex in such a free way is a little annoying. I understand that the author is trying to point out just how different this society is from our own, but it does seem a bit much. Of course, nothing is gone in to detail, which is relieving because I know in some states, including my own, they read this in high school English classes.
The opening chapters really drew me in with the tour of the Hatchery and Conditioning Center, more like a baby factory. It is appalling that this society has banished the idea of family. Parents are non-existent. Children are produced along an assembly line, much like the assembly lines for the Model T. Which brings me to the absurdity of their worship of Ford, treating him like a god, and calling Controllers "your fordship," an odd twist on lordship. I also noticed that people say Ford as an exclamation much like we use the word Lord.
And of course there is the conditioning of the children, even from when they are only embryos. As embryos, their social status is determined and manipulated so that they will function "correctly" within their social caste. Children are conditioned through hypnopaedia to look down on social castes below their own, as well as to be disposed to consumerism. Makes you wonder how much truth is really in this when you look at our own society. We don't use hypnopaedia, but children stare mindlessly at televisions that in essence teach them how to behave in society as well as tell them that the "need" this toy or that type of food. So at least the aspect of consumerism in this society is horrifyingly not far from our own.
I am very interested in the character of Bernard Marx. So far there is not a main character to the story, but it seems like the author is setting it up so that it might be Bernard. I hope so, because a novel can only go on so long in just describing the society, before more is needed. I personally get interested in a story that has good character development. Still, I am very interested to see how this story turns out.

Will, I tend not to agree with you about the author's use of sex in a free way so that it titillates the senses. I have read many more books from earlier time periods that are more sexual than this one. The author does not go into any detail nor use any emotion at all regarding any of the sexual circumstances mentioned. It is almost considered as a normal part of everyday life. And I think that this is what the author is trying to get across to the reader. I don't think the author is trying to titillate any young male's senses just to attract him to the book. This however can be said of the romances of the Victorian Era.

I agree that the author is not using sex specifically to attract people to the book. But I have to say that the fact that it is so much a part of everyday life is what makes it all the more shocking, especially in the case of the young children in their "explorations."

Well, I didn't say he was using it that way. I said many authors do, and it cannot be discounted that it HAS an effect, whether intended, calculated, or done so with the strictest and surgical artistic intent. I do also understand how you could read my comment that way.

Specifically, I was suggesting it has an effect, and that authors such as Heinlein and Anthony do (I like Heinlein, and read Anthony as a kid)

But Huxley, while not using it to arouse, IS using it to stimulate.

"The fact that many people should be shocked by what he writes practically imposes it as a duty upon the writer to go on shocking them." - Huxley, the essay "Vulgarity in literature".

And as I said before, I'm neither scandlized or objecting, and I pointed out why he's using it when I said

"Of course, the case can be made that he's employing it to put us off balance, since dystopian fiction often tries to change at least one moral/social code we use in our lives to make us FEEL the difference in this new world."

But then I said I thought he was overdoing it, and that the effect begins to wear thinly. You just can't push a button too many times before the monkey begins to care neither for food nor electric shock. He'll still jump, but you mostly get confusion.

If you want to argue about what I DID say, concerning Heinlein or Anthony, fair play. There's room for argument there, albeit I still favor the chances on my side of that debate..as do you, most likely if you've read either of them.

Will, I think your use of the phrase "titillating the senses" may have seemed to imply that it was arousing, though I can understand exactly how you meant he was using it to stimulate or shock us. Of course he needed to shock us so that we could truly understand just how different this society is from our own.

I have never read Heinlein or Anthony, so I really can't make any comments or arguments regarding their styles of writing and how they compare to Huxley.

I am so far not enjoying this book. I can't help it. I really don't like reading about babies getting electrocuted or having erotic games or getting their oxygen reduced to make them dumber. And can I say incest!? That's what I'm thinking about when one person turns into a thousand. There are more people but still. It's not a good thought... I knew from the first couple of pages that this book was just going to make me angry and it has succeeded so far. I understand what he's trying to get at but it doesn't mean I'll like it. Will's quote is dead on for me.

lol, then if you feel that way, you'd probably LOVE the next lines of that essay...here's what comes directly AFTER that above quote (I left it out because I thought it was prejudicial to the point):

For those who are shocked by truth are not only stupid, but morally reprehensible as well; the stupid should be educated, the wicked punished and reformed. All these praiseworthy ends can be attained by a course of shocking; retributive pain will be inflicted on the truth-haters by the first shocking truths, whose repetition will gradually build up in those who read them an immunity to pain and will end by reforming and educating the stupid criminals out of their truth-hating. - - Huxley, the essay "Vulgarity in literature".

Nice :D

He's someone I know that will be a pain in real life to talk to. It's good to be direct sometimes but sheesh! He sounds like one of these people that hates everyone else or those that just don't agree with him.

point taken lol.