Amazing new world. King's "Brave New World"

Utopias turned out to be much more feasible than previously thought. And now there is another painful question, how to avoid their final implementation... Utopias are feasible... Life is moving towards utopias. And, perhaps, a new century of dreams of the intelligentsia and the cultural layer is opening on how to avoid utopias, how to return to a non-utopian society, to a less “perfect” and freer society.

Nikolay Berdyaev

Reprinted with permission from The Estate of Aldous Huxley and the Reece Halsey Agency, The Fielding Agency and Andrew Nurnberg.

© Aldous Huxley, 1932

© Translation. O. Soroka, heirs, 2011

© Russian edition AST Publishers, 2016

The gray, squat building is only thirty-four floors. Above the main entrance is the inscription: “CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND EDUCATIONAL CENTER”, and on the heraldic shield is the motto of the World State: “COMMUNITY, SAMEENESS, STABILITY”.

The huge hall on the ground floor faces north, like an art studio. It’s summer outside, the room is tropically hot, but the winter-like cold and watery light that greedily flows through these windows in search of picturesquely draped mannequins or nudes, albeit faded and chilly-pimply, and finds only nickel, glass, cold shiny laboratory porcelain. Winter meets winter. The lab technicians' lab coats are white, and their hands are wearing gloves made of whitish, corpse-colored rubber. The light is frozen, dead, ghostly. Only on the yellow tubes of microscopes does it seem to be juicy, borrowing a living yellowness - as if it were spreading butter on these polished tubes, standing in a long line on the work tables.

“Here we have a Fertilization Hall,” said the Director of the Hatchery and Educational Center, opening the door.

Bent over their microscopes, three hundred fertilizers were immersed in an almost lifeless silence, except for the occasional purr of an absent minded voice or a whistle to themselves in detached concentration. On the heels of the Director, timidly and not without servility, followed a flock of newly arrived students, young, pink and fledgling. Each chick had a notebook with him, and as soon as the great man opened his mouth, the students began to scribble furiously with pencils. From wise lips - first hand. It's not every day that you have such a privilege and honor. The director of the Central London Computing Center considered it his constant duty to personally guide new students through the halls and departments. “To give you a general idea,” he explained the purpose of the walkthrough. For, of course, at least some kind of general idea must be given - in order for things to be done with understanding - but given only in a minimal dose, otherwise they will not turn out to be good and happy members of society. After all, as everyone knows, if you want to be happy and virtuous, do not generalize, but stick to narrow particulars; general ideas are a necessary intellectual evil. It is not philosophers, but stamp collectors and frame cutters who form the backbone of society.

“Tomorrow,” he added, smiling at them affectionately and a little menacingly, “it will be time to get down to serious work. You won't have time for generalizations. For now..."

In the meantime, it has been a great honor. From wise lips and straight into notebooks. The youngsters scribbled like crazy.

Tall, lean, but not at all stooped, the Director entered the hall. The Director had a long chin, large teeth protruded slightly from under fresh, full lips. Is he old or young? Is he thirty years old? Fifty? Fifty five? It was difficult to say. Yes, this question did not arise for you; Now, in the 632nd year of the era of stability, the Ford Era, such questions did not come to mind.

“Let’s start over,” said the Director, and the most zealous youths immediately recorded: “Let’s start over.” “Here,” he pointed with his hand, “we have incubators.” – He opened the heat-tight door, and rows of numbered test tubes appeared - racks after racks, racks after racks. – A week’s batch of eggs. They are stored,” he continued, “at thirty-seven degrees; As for male gametes,” here he opened another door, “they must be stored at thirty-five. The temperature of the blood would render them infertile. (If you cover a sheep with cotton wool, you won’t get offspring.)

And, without leaving his place, he began a brief summary of the modern fertilization process - and the pencils kept running around, scribbling illegibly, on the paper; he began, of course, with a surgical overture to the process - with an operation “which is undertaken voluntarily, for the benefit of the Society, not to mention a reward equal to half a year’s salary”; then he touched upon the method by which the vitality of the excised ovary is preserved and the productivity developed; spoke about the optimal temperature, viscosity, salt content; about the nutrient liquid in which separated and matured eggs are stored; and, leading his charges to the work tables, he clearly introduced how this liquid is collected from test tubes; how they release drop after drop onto specially heated microscope slides; how the eggs in each drop are checked for defects, counted and placed in a porous egg receptacle; how (he took the students further and let them watch this too) the egg receiver is immersed in a warm broth with free-swimming sperm, the concentration of which, he emphasized, should be no lower than one hundred thousand per milliliter; and how after ten minutes the receiver is removed from the broth and the contents are examined again; how, if not all the eggs were fertilized, the vessel is immersed again, and if necessary, then a third time; how fertilized eggs are returned to the incubators, and there the alphas and betas remain until capping, and the gammas, deltas and epsilons, after thirty-six hours, travel again from the shelves for processing according to the Bokanovsky method.

“According to the Bokanovsky method,” the Director repeated, and the students underlined these words in their notebooks.

One egg, one embryo, one adult - this is the scheme of natural development. An egg subjected to bokanovskization will proliferate – budding. It will produce from eight to ninety-six buds, and each bud will develop into a fully formed embryo, and each embryo into an adult of normal size. And we get ninety-six people, where before only one grew up. Progress!

“The egg is budding,” the pencils scribbled.

He pointed to the right. A conveyor belt carrying a whole battery of test tubes moved very slowly into a large metal box, and from the other side of the box a battery, already processed, crawled out. The cars hummed quietly. Processing a rack with test tubes takes eight minutes, the Director said. Eight minutes of hard X-ray irradiation is, perhaps, the limit for eggs. Some cannot stand it and die; of the rest, the most persistent are divided in two; most produce four buds; some even eight; all eggs are then returned to incubators where the buds begin to develop; then, after two days, they are suddenly cooled, inhibiting growth. In response, they proliferate again - each kidney produces two, four, eight new buds - and then they are almost killed with alcohol; as a result, they bud again, for the third time, after which they are allowed to develop quietly, because further suppression of growth leads, as a rule, to death. So, from one initial egg we have anything from eight to ninety-six embryos - you must agree, the improvement of the natural process is fantastic. Moreover, these are identical, identical twins - and not pitiful twins or triplets, as in the old viviparous times, when an egg, by pure chance, occasionally divided, but dozens of twins.

“Dozens,” repeated the Director, opening his arms wide, as if bestowing grace. - Dozens and dozens.

To understand how deep the meaning of a particular prose work is, it is first worth studying the brief content of the works. "Brave New World" is a novel with deep meaning, written by an author with a special worldview. Aldous Huxley wrote wonderful essays based on the development of scientific technology. His skeptical view of everything shocked readers.

When the will of events led him to a dead end in his philosophy, Huxley became interested in mysticism and studied the teachings of Eastern thinkers. He was especially interested in the idea of ​​raising an amphibious man, adapted to existence in all possible natural conditions. At the end of his life, he said a phrase that to this day makes everyone think about how to live correctly. This is to some extent what Huxley’s novel “Brave New World” is about, a summary of which reveals the main meaning of the work.

Huxley tirelessly tried to find the meaning of existence, while pondering the basic problems of humanity. As a result, he came to the conclusion that we just need each other. This is what he considered the only answer to all questions of earthly existence.

Biographical sketch

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born in the town of Godalmin, Surrey (Great Britain). His family was wealthy and belonged to the middle class. The great humanist Matthew Arnold was a relative on his mother's side. Leonard Huxley, the father of the future writer, was an editor and wrote biographical and poetic works. In 1908, Aldous enrolled in Berkshire and studied there until 1913. At the age of 14, he suffered his first serious tragedy - the death of his mother. This was not the only test that fate had in store for him.

When he was 16 years old, he suffered from keratitis. The complications were serious - my vision completely disappeared for almost 18 months. But Aldous did not give up, he studied and then, after intensive training, was able to read with special glasses. Through sheer force of will he continued his studies and in 1916 he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree from Baliol College, Oxford. The writer's health did not allow him to continue his scientific work. He couldn’t go to war either, so Huxley decided to become a writer. In 1917 he took a job at the London War Office and later became a teacher at Eton and Repton colleges. The twenties were marked by friendship with D. G. Lawrence and their joint trip to Italy and France (he spent the longest time in Italy). There he wrote a unique work, which presents the embodiment of the gloomy life of the society of the future. A brief summary will help you understand the meaning that the author put into his creation. "Brave New World" can be called a novel-call to all humanity.

Prologue

The World State is the setting of a dystopia. The heyday of the era of stability is the 632nd year of the Ford Era. The supreme ruler, who is called “Our Lord Ford,” is the well-known creator of the largest automobile corporation. The form of government is technocracy. The offspring are raised in specially created incubators. In order not to disrupt the social order, individuals are in different conditions even before birth and are divided into castes - alpha, beta, gamma, delta and epsilon. Each caste has a suit of its own color.

Subservience to the higher castes and disdain for the lower castes is cultivated in people from the very birth, immediately after the Uncorking. A brief summary will help you understand how the author views the world. Brave New World, a novel written by Huxley many years ago, depicts events that are happening in the real world today.

Civilization through Huxley's eyes

The main thing for the society of the World State is the desire for standardization. The motto is: “Community. Sameness. Stability". In fact, from infancy, the inhabitants of the planet get used to the truths, by which they then live for the rest of their lives. History does not exist for them, passions and experiences are also unnecessary nonsense. No family, no love. From early childhood, children are taught erotic games and taught to constantly change partners, because according to this theory, each person completely belongs to the others. Art has been destroyed, but the entertainment sector is actively developing. Everything is electronic and synthetic. And if you suddenly feel sad, a couple of grams of soma, a harmless drug, will solve all your problems. A brief summary of O. Huxley's novel "Brave New World" will help the reader get acquainted with the main characters of the work.

The main characters of the novel

Bernard Marx comes from the alpha caste. He is an atypical representative of his society. There are many oddities in his behavior: he often thinks about something, indulges in melancholy, he can even be considered a romantic. This is a key image in the novel Brave New World. A brief summary of the work will help you understand a little the hero’s way of thinking. They say that in his embryonic state, when he was still in the incubator, instead of a blood substitute, he was injected with alcohol, and this is the reason for all his strangeness. Lenina Crown belongs to the Beta caste. Attractive, curvy, in a word, “pneumatic”. She is interested in Bernard because he is not like everyone else. What is unusual for her is his reaction to her stories about pleasure trips. She is attracted to traveling with him to the New Mexico reserve. The motives for the characters' actions can be traced by reading the summary. "Brave New World" is a novel rich in emotions, so it is better to read it in its entirety.

Plot development

The main characters of the novel decided to go to this mysterious reserve, where the life of wild people was preserved in the same form as it was before the Ford Era. Indians are born into families, raised by their parents, experience a full range of feelings, and believe in beauty. In Malparaiso, they meet a savage unlike everyone else: he is blond and speaks old English (as it turned out later, he learned Shakespeare’s book by heart). It turned out that John's parents - Thomas and Linda - also once went on an excursion, but lost each other during a thunderstorm. Thomas returned back, and Linda, who was pregnant, gave birth to a son here in the Indian village.

She was not accepted because her usual attitude towards men was considered depraved here. And due to the lack of soma, she began to drink too much Indian vodka - mezcal. Bertrand decides to transport John and Linda to the Beyond World. John's mother disgusts all civilized people, and he himself is called a Savage. He is in love with Lenina, who has become for him the embodiment of Juliet. And how painful it becomes for him when she, unlike Shakespeare’s heroine, offers to engage in “mutual use.”

The savage, having survived the death of his mother, decides to challenge the system. What is a tragedy for John is here a familiar process explained by physiology. Even very young children are taught to get used to death, they are specially sent on excursions to the wards of terminally ill patients, and they are even entertained and fed in such an environment. Bertrand and Helmholtz support him, for which they will later pay with exile. The savage tries to convince people to stop eating soma, for which all three end up with the fortress Mustafa Mond, who is one of the ten Chief Rulers.

Denouement

Mustafa Mond admits to them that he was once in a similar situation. In his youth he was a good scientist, but since society does not tolerate dissidents, he was faced with a choice. He refused exile and became the Chief Administrator. After all these years, he even speaks with some envy about exile, because it is there that the most interesting people of their world are gathered, who have their own views on everything. The savage also asks to go to the island, but because of the experiment, he is forced to stay here, in a civilized society. A savage escapes from civilization to an abandoned air beacon. He lives alone, like a real hermit, having bought the most necessary things with his last money, and prays to his god. People come to see him as a curiosity. When he was frantically beating himself with a whip on the hill, he saw Lenina in the crowd. He cannot stand this and rushes at her with a whip, shouting: “Mischief!” A day later, another young couple from London comes to the lighthouse for an excursion. They discover a corpse. The savage could not stand the madness of a civilized society; the only possible protest for him was death. He hanged himself. This concludes the fascinating story of the novel "Brave New World" by Huxley Aldous. A summary is only a preliminary introduction to the work. In order to penetrate deeper into its essence, you should read the novel in its entirety.

What did the author want to say?

The world may indeed soon come to such a turn of events that Huxley describes. You can understand this even if you only read the summary. Brave New World is a novel that deserves special attention. Yes, life would become carefree and problem-free, but there would be no less cruelty in this world. There is no place in it for those who believe in man, in his rationality and purpose, and most importantly - in the possibility of choice.

Conclusion

A brief summary of the novel “Brave New World” will allow you to preview the idea of ​​the work. Aldous Huxley tried to create a picture of a utopian society in his work. But this desire for an ideal device is akin to madness. It would seem that there are no problems, the law reigns, but instead of the victory of good and light, everyone has come to complete degradation.

PREFACE.

Prolonged self-reproach, according to the consensus of all moralists, is the most undesirable activity. Having acted badly, repent, make amends as much as you can, and aim yourself to do better next time. Under no circumstances should you indulge in endless grief over your sin. Floundering in shit is not the best way to cleanse yourself.

Art also has its own ethical rules, and many of them are identical or, in any case, similar to the rules of everyday morality. For example, endlessly repenting of both behavioral sins and literary sins is equally of little use. Omissions should be looked for and, having found and acknowledged, if possible, not repeat them in the future. But endlessly poring over the flaws of twenty years ago, using patches to bring old work to perfection that was not achieved initially, in adulthood trying to correct the mistakes made and bequeathed to you by the other person you were in your youth is, of course, an empty and vain undertaking. That is why this newly published Brave New World is no different from the previous one. Its defects as a work of art are significant; but in order to correct them, I would have to rewrite the thing again - and in the process of this correspondence, as a person who has aged and become Other, I would probably have rid the book not only of some of its shortcomings, but also of the advantages that the book has . And therefore, having overcome the temptation to wallow in literary sorrows, I prefer to leave everything as it was and focus my thoughts on something else.

It is worth mentioning, however, at least the most serious defect of the book, which is the following. The savage is offered only a choice between a crazy life in Utopia and a primitive life in an Indian village, more human in some respects, but in others hardly less strange and abnormal. When I wrote this book, the idea that people are given free will to choose between two types of madness - this idea seemed funny to me and, quite possibly, true. To enhance the effect, however, I allowed the Savage’s speeches to often sound more reasonable than what fits with his upbringing among adherents of a religion that is a cult of fertility mixed with a ferocious cult of penitente. Even the Savage’s acquaintance with the works of Shakespeare is incapable of justifying such reasonableness of speech in real life. In the finale, he throws my sanity away; the Indian cult takes possession of him again, and he, in despair, ends in frenzied self-flagellation and suicide. Such was the deplorable end of this parable - as it was necessary to prove to the mocking skeptic-aesthete, which was then the author of the book.

Today I no longer strive to prove the unattainability of sanity. On the contrary, although I am now sadly aware that in the past it was very rare, I am convinced that it can be achieved, and I would like to see more sanity around. For this conviction and desire, expressed in several recent books, and most importantly, for the fact that I compiled an anthology of statements by sensible people about sanity and about the ways to achieve it, I received an award: a famous scientific critic assessed me as a sad symptom of the collapse of the intelligentsia in this time crisis. This should apparently be understood in such a way that the professor himself and his colleagues are a joyful symptom of success. The benefactors of humanity should be honored and immortalized. Let us erect a Pantheon for the professoriate. Let’s build it on the ashes of one of the bombed cities of Europe or Japan, and above the entrance to the tomb I would inscribe simple words in two-meter letters: “Dedicated to the memory of the learned educators of the planet. Si monumentum requiris circumspice.

But let's return to the topic of the future... If I were to rewrite the book now, I would offer the Savage a third option.

Between the utopian and primitive extremes would lie the possibility of sanity for me - a possibility, partly already realized in the community of exiles and fugitives from the Brave New World living within the boundaries of the Reservation. In this community, the economy would be conducted in the spirit of decentralism and Henry George, politics - in the spirit of Kropotkin and cooperativism. Science and technology would be applied according to the principle of “the Sabbath for man, and not man for the Sabbath,” that is, they would adapt to man, and not adapt and enslave him (as in the current world, and even more so in the Brave New World). Religion would be a conscious and intelligent striving towards the Ultimate Goal of humanity, towards the unifying knowledge of the immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendental Deity or Brahman. And the dominant philosophy would be a version of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the principle of Greatest Happiness would recede into the background before the principle of the Ultimate Goal - so that in every life situation the first question would be posed and decided: “How will this consideration or action help (or hinder) to me and the greatest possible number of other individuals in achieving the Ultimate Goal of humanity?

Not the best book in its genre, but quite an interesting book, I especially liked how the author deftly moved from one scene to another, then back, and sometimes balanced on three scenes, this is the first time I’ve seen this, I liked it.
Someone says that they did not feel sympathy for the heroes, but I will say the opposite; over time, first one hero, then a second, then a third, wins the reader’s sympathy. The only negative is that it is really stretched, but catches. You don't consume pages in a day, but the book makes you miss it.

Grade 4 out of 5 stars by Niger 03/21/2019 14:20

What always amuses me is the ubiquitous moralphobes with hysterical bombings on comms. The same moralfags, only in reverse))

Grade 4 out of 5 stars by Brutal 06.10.2018 18:34

Apart from the scene with the reference to the island, nothing pleases me, it’s so gray.

Grade 3 out of 5 stars by Sir Shuriy 08/24/2018 22:49

A magnificent work, if you have already read Orwell and Bradbury, I definitely recommend it!

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from ila.punch 30.12.2017 21:19

The book is truly a masterpiece. It will be relevant for a long time; people in a global sense do not change much.

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from mikhail.antipin 12.10.2017 10:26

I read this work after “Fahrenheit 451” by R. Bradbury. I liked “Brave New World” a little less, as it was drawn out in places and I didn’t really like the ending - it was too utopian (that’s why it’s a solid 4). And so, in general I recommend)) very informative))

Grade 4 out of 5 stars from wise.owl 24.04.2017 16:35

Why are moralfags so bombed? great book. Has God been devalued to you? So only the weak and stupid need it. Don't like Childfree? Well, let’s make it as it was under the Soviet Union: the family is the unit of society and blah blah blah. You just need to take care of yourself and make the world around you a better place, and not write nonsense on the Internet)

Grade 5 out of 5 stars by Edward 03/09/2017 10:43

Lord Forde! We already live in all of this!

Grade 5 out of 5 stars by Nad 02/05/2017 15:03

Grade 5 out of 5 stars by Victoria 01/22/2017 01:26

It's easy to read! The plot itself is, in principle, nefarious, if not rape. Moreover, it is melodiously given as a sign that the book was written in 1932, and then 2017.
As for me, the most interesting seemed to be the remaining sections 16 and 17, in which the heroes conduct deep discussions about the place of man in the world, about common standards and about how civilization can develop . The reshta of the book has only been a preamble to many verses. In the end I would like a little more.

Grade 4 out of 5 stars from Ilya 01/16/2017 13:30

For me, the author was, as they say, on topic, i.e. had access to the world's behind-the-scenes plans. For those who have ears, let them hear. After all, much of what the author described has already come to life - promiscuity is encouraged, drugs are almost free, a consumer society is developing, all kinds of childfree, etc., the LGBT movement, moral principles have been cast into oblivion. Note this is 1932.

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from Alexander 06/06/2016 12:47

For some reason, all 3 dystopias (Zamiatin's "We", Orwell's "1984" and "Wonderful World") reminded Solzhenitsyn's "In the First Circle". And how much “In the First Circle” is richer in language and thoughts, how much deeper!! Dystopias, all 3 of them, seem to me, despite their numerous merits (somewhere the aphoristic language, the ease and excitement of reading is combined with the complexity of the problems that gave rise to the book), somewhat sketchy, as if these were not novels, but scripts for movies or even computer games... Maybe , I just don’t like science fiction?.. Solzhenitsyn’s language is much richer, the text is solid, full-blooded, you want to read and re-read, because it’s not just a plot... “In the First Circle” is not a dystopia in genre, but a piece of real terrible Soviet totalitarianism, a book about strong and weak people, about bureaucracy and the degeneration of socialism, which, having developed from a wonderful idea, turned into a monster that slowly dies and continues to devour (also slowly...) its victims... If you like (or If you liked...) dystopias, then you will also like “In the First Circle”, this novel compares favorably with utopias precisely in its reality, and also in its atmosphere...

Grade 4 out of 5 stars from Olga 05/14/2016 18:33

First I read “Brave New World”, then I picked up Orwell’s “1984”, since everyone compares them. Now I can write a comment about my own impressions. “...Wonderful World” didn’t impress me, I didn’t get into it. The beginning promised a more exciting read than what I received. Then I was bored and had thoughts of quitting reading. There were few events, the world in the book depressed and shocked me, which made me want to be in it even less, even if it was just a book. I didn’t feel any sympathy for the heroes (although it’s not their fault - that’s the way the world is), so I didn’t force anyone to worry about themselves. Although, of course, I was alone, not right away, but I was...
Most of what remains in my memory of the book is the beginning and ending.

Grade 3 out of 5 stars from Tanya_led 12.09.2015 20:43

reads avidly

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from junesj 03.09.2015 14:54

Basically, I liked the book. There are quite a lot of thoughts expressed in it that are worth thinking about. The beginning of the book, the preface, especially stands out. The book itself evokes a storm of emotions and protest. But the ending was too abrupt for me. She didn’t have time to get involved, and she - Bang! - and it ended.

Grade 4 out of 5 stars from Happy Milkman 21.08.2015 15:50

Great stuff. Not for any reader, of course. It’s strange to read some reviews here, comparisons with 1984. One can draw some parallels with another dystopia - “We” by Zamyatin, because Huxley’s novel came out much earlier than “1984”. The book is light and witty. The author is a genius, and whoever doesn’t understand it, it’s better to refrain from commenting so that... I advise.

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from autooffer 02.08.2015 00:46

An interesting book, thought-provoking, fascinating with its description of a new stamped society that has already appeared in some countries. I feel sorry for the people.

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from eloxy 28.07.2015 23:32

So, the problems described in the book are incredibly relevant today, although the book was written not even a century ago, it is easy to read... I haven’t read a book like this in a long time, the story is boring, and it ended atypically.

Grade 3 out of 5 stars from lera.dubych 29.03.2015 19:42

I liked it

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from alex501007 25.02.2015 23:43

My opinion is that the book is much stronger and deeper than Orwell's 1984, both in literary excellence and in the themes raised in it, although at first glance it does not seem so. Orwell is more schematic, well, and modern by as much as 17 years, but here everything is closer to human experiences. We should not forget that Huxley was educated as a writer, while Orwell was still more of a journalist and publicist than a writer.

Grade 5 out of 5 stars from xs15 29.01.2015 02:08

The book is interesting because it anticipated the era of consumption and described the problems of modern society! But it’s hard to read, Huxley is not an important writer...

Grade 4 out of 5 stars from smetan4ik

Detail of the cover of the original edition

This dystopian novel takes place in a fictional World State. This is the 632nd year of the era of stability, the Ford Era. Ford, who created the world's largest automobile company at the beginning of the twentieth century, is revered in the World State as the Lord God. They call him “Our Lord Ford.” This state is ruled by a technocracy. Children are not born here - artificially fertilized eggs are grown in special incubators. Moreover, they are grown in different conditions, so they produce completely different individuals - alphas, betas, gammas, deltas and epsilons. Alphas are like first-class people, mental workers, Epsilons are people of the lowest caste, capable only of monotonous physical labor. First, the embryos are kept in certain conditions, then they are born from glass bottles - this is called Uncorking. Babies are raised differently. Each caste develops reverence for the higher caste and contempt for the lower castes. Each caste has a specific color of costume. For example, alphas wear gray, gammas wear green, epsilons wear black.

Standardization of society is the main thing in the World State. “Commonality, Sameness, Stability” - this is the motto of the planet. In this world, everything is subordinated to expediency for the benefit of civilization. Children are taught truths in their dreams that are recorded in their subconscious. And an adult, when faced with any problem, immediately remembers some saving recipe, memorized in infancy. This world lives for today, forgetting about the history of mankind. “History is complete nonsense.” Emotions and passions are something that can only hinder a person. In the pre-Fordian world, everyone had parents, a father's house, but this did not bring people anything except unnecessary suffering. And now - “Everyone belongs to everyone else.” Why love, why worries and drama? Therefore, from a very early age, children are taught to play erotic games and are taught to see a being of the opposite sex as a pleasure partner. And it is desirable that these partners change as often as possible, because everyone belongs to everyone else. There is no art here, there is only the entertainment industry. Synthetic music, electronic golf, “blue senses” - films with a primitive plot, watching which you really feel what is happening on the screen. And if for some reason your mood has gone bad, it’s easy to fix; you only need to take one or two grams of soma, a mild drug that will immediately calm you down and cheer you up. “Somy grams - and no dramas.”

Bernard Marx is a representative of the upper class, an alpha plus. But he is different from his brothers. Overly thoughtful, melancholic, even romantic. He is frail, frail and does not like sports games. There are rumors that he was accidentally injected with alcohol instead of a blood substitute in the embryo incubator, which is why he turned out so strange.

Lenina Crown is a beta girl. She is pretty, slender, sexy (they say “pneumatic” about such people), Bernard is pleasant to her, although much of his behavior is incomprehensible to her. For example, it makes her laugh that he gets embarrassed when she discusses plans for their upcoming pleasure trip with him in front of others. But she really wants to go with him to New Mexico, to the reserve, especially since permission to get there is not so easy.

Bernard and Lenina go to the reserve, where wild people live as all humanity lived before the Age of Ford. They have not tasted the benefits of civilization, they are born from real parents, they love, they suffer, they hope. In the Indian village of Malparaiso, Bernard and Lenina meet a strange savage - he is unlike other Indians, he is blond and speaks English - albeit some ancient one. Then it turns out that John found a book in the reserve, it turned out to be a volume of Shakespeare, and learned it almost by heart.

It turned out that many years ago a young man, Thomas, and a girl, Linda, went on an excursion to the reserve. Thunderstorm began. Thomas managed to return back to the civilized world, but the girl was not found and they decided that she had died. But the girl survived and ended up in an Indian village. There she gave birth to a child, and she became pregnant in the civilized world. That’s why I didn’t want to go back, because there is no shame worse than becoming a mother. In the village, she became addicted to mezcal, an Indian vodka, because she did not have soma, which helps her forget all her problems; the Indians despised her - according to their concepts, she behaved depravedly and easily got along with men, because she was taught that copulation, or, in Fordian terms, mutual use, is just a pleasure available to everyone.

Bernard decides to bring John and Linda to the Beyond World. Linda inspires disgust and horror in everyone, and John, or the Savage, as they began to call him, becomes a fashionable curiosity. Bernard is tasked with introducing the Savage to the benefits of civilization, which do not amaze him. He constantly quotes Shakespeare, who talks about things more amazing. But he falls in love with Lenina and sees the beautiful Juliet in her. Lenina is flattered by the Savage's attention, but she cannot understand why, when she invites him to engage in “mutual use,” he becomes furious and calls her a harlot.

The Savage decides to challenge civilization after he sees Linda dying in the hospital. For him this is a tragedy, but in the civilized world they treat death calmly, as a natural physiological process. From a very early age, children are taken to the wards of dying people on excursions, entertained there, fed with sweets - all so that the child is not afraid of death and does not see suffering in it. After Linda's death, the Savage comes to the soma distribution point and begins to furiously convince everyone to give up the drug that is clouding their brains. The panic can barely be stopped by releasing a pair of soma into the queue. And the Savage, Bernard and his friend Helmholtz are summoned to one of the ten Chief Governors, his fortress Mustafa Mond.

He explains to the Savage that in the new world they sacrificed art, true science, and passions in order to create a stable and prosperous society. Mustafa Mond says that in his youth he himself became too interested in science, and then he was offered a choice between exile to a distant island, where all dissidents are gathered, and the position of Chief Administrator. He chose the second and stood up for stability and order, although he himself perfectly understands what he serves. “I don’t want convenience,” the Savage replies. “I want God, poetry, real danger, I want freedom, and goodness, and sin.” Mustafa also offers Helmholtz a link, adding, however, that the most interesting people in the world gather on the islands, those who are not satisfied with orthodoxy, those who have independent views. The savage also asks to go to the island, but Mustafa Mond does not let him go, explaining that he wants to continue the experiment.

And then the Savage himself leaves the civilized world. He decides to settle in an old abandoned air lighthouse. With his last money he buys the essentials - blankets, matches, nails, seeds and intends to live away from the world, growing his own bread and praying - either to Jesus, the Indian god Pukong, or his cherished guardian eagle. But one day, someone who happened to be driving by sees a half-naked Savage on the hillside, passionately flagellating himself. And again a crowd of curious people comes running, for whom the Savage is just a funny and incomprehensible creature. “We want bi-cha! We want bi-cha!” - the crowd chants. And then the Savage, noticing Lenina in the crowd, shouts “Mistress” and rushes at her with a whip.

The next day, a couple of young Londoners arrive at the lighthouse, but when they go inside, they see that the Savage has hanged himself.

Retold