Here's an interesting letter from Brave New World author Aldous Huxley to George Orwell after the publication of the latter's classic 1984.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03...new-world.html
Printable View
Here's an interesting letter from Brave New World author Aldous Huxley to George Orwell after the publication of the latter's classic 1984.
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03...new-world.html
Interesting. I wonder if Orwell ever responded, as it seems as though Huxley was trying to start a dialogue with him.
ATTN: Huxley SUBJ: Your Letter
Dear Mr. Huxley,
with all due respect, go fuck yourself!
Regards,
George
That website is a total timesuck. But awesome.
I have read virtually everything Orwell has written and can recall several references to Huxley, whom he clearly respected.
That said, and having read both books several times, I can say that Huxley wasn't fit to lick Orwell's boots.
Brave New World merely sketches the outline of a scary distopian world. 1984 is scary as hell.
Years later, I doubt many would consider Brave New World literature. It's certainly an important document,
and Huxley's view of the future tells us a lot about the fears of the past. But, it's not much more than that. At no point
does BNW even come close to approximating Winston's hellish existence, the creepiness of the Thought Police, or the pyschological brutality of Room 101.
Few authors of any type of fiction have captured anything on the scale of Winston's love/hate relationship with O'Brien.
No matter how many times I read 1984, each time I do I discover something new and nuanced about it. It really is a masterpiece.
I think I agree Oliveloaf. Even from the simple perspective that BNW reeks of its era in a way 1984 just didn't for me, even when I read them both as a youngish teen.
Agreeing with you both. I don't read 1984 and think, "psh, I guess I can tell when THIS was written," as I do with BNW.
I remember seeing, years ago in a bookstore, a very expensive coffee-table book which was composed of big photographs of Orwell's entire typescript of 1984. Just fascinating. He rewrote the opening paragraph over and over and over - the page was practically solid ink.
I have borrowed this book from a coworker. It is pretty amazing. He labored over text that seems so simple.Quote:
Originally posted by Elendil's Heir
The man obviously pared and pared his prose. One of the cleanest, most economical writers in all of English literature.Quote:
Originally posted by Oliveloaf
Clean. Yeah, that's a great description.
Not to take anything away from 1984, but I think there was something to what Huxley was getting at with his letter. While 1984 is superior literarily, when compared to Brave New World in terms of describing the future, you can see some of the flaws. Huxley was definitely interested in trying to figure out the trends and influences of his time, and presents a more feasible future. Orwell does a better job of examining psychology within the world he created, but it comes off as an untenable scenario. Nonetheless we're probably better off considering Orwell's ideas; naturally his influence has been far greater because of the need to compare it to our world. And as it turns out, Huxley was mostly wrong — while society could have implemented those things, people did not.
Orwell wrote better, and Huxley put more thought into his writing. Although both of them were no slouches at either of those things.
I do think that there is slightly more plausibility to Brave New World's general approach to the future than that of 1984. While the 20th Century had its share of partially-implemented Orwellian totalitarianism, the idea of controlling a society through fear and terror is not and will not be sustainable. Controlling people by placating and distracting them is a more reasonable idea of what the future will be like.
There's no question about which one of them was the better writer, but there were some important ideas that Huxley explored in how we willingly, placidly dehumanize ourselves.
Of the two of them, I can find frequent occasions to quote and revel in the prose of 1984, but Brave New World was the one that really haunted me.
I absolutely love the site in the OP, BTW. That's one of my favorite places to get lost.