Brave New World

You'd think after all the thinking and writing I've done about bioethics, reading Brave New World woulda been a no-brainer. But it took having it on the assigned reading list to get me to finally pick it up.

And then it took awhile for me to get into the thing, because I prefer character-driven stories. If I don't give a rip about any of the characters, I have a tough time caring about the plot. And Huxley doesn't really develop his peeps until pretty far into the thing.

Still, once I reached the halfway point, POW. And near the end, Huxley surprised me with his depth of insight into human nature, spiritual need, pleasure/passion, and the necessity for trials in our lives. Even in the 1930s he saw ahead to where our sex-crazed culture was leading us and how it would take more than porn and/or the interaction of body parts to bring true connection. The world he creates considers chastity and monogamy bad. People there chomp on sex-hormone chewing gum, and getting too connected is a bad thing because loss is so disruptive to society. And it turns out the pursuit of happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be. This book is a great companion guide to Genesis 3--you know, the part where the talking snake shows up and they eat the yellow snow. (Just making sure you're still with me.)

Next stop: New York. Dos Passos's Manhattan Transfer. I'm a hundred pages in. Great reading after having just been to NYC.