Literary Musings

What does a hermit do when he has a lot of time on his hands and no TV? The answer is read, a lot. So far, in the last two weeks, I've polished off H.G. Well's The First Men in the Moon, Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, William Golding's The Lord of the Flies, Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days and already a third of Aldus Huxley's Brave New World. My favorite by hare is already Brave New World. It was originally written to satirize the Californian way of life as Huxley saw it but ended up representing almost the entire world. There are some pretty corny cultural references in the book too. For example, the first name of Lenina (an obvious derivation of Lenin) and the surname of Trotsky are both considered fine and respectable names. Obstacle golf (aka mini golf) is a common passtime and one may go to the feelies (tactile descendant of the talkies) or listen to a sexophone.
I have enjoyed the book so thuroughly though because the "brave new world" is so like the old one (the one that Huxley lived in and we're still living in) with the primary diference being that people naturally fall into their castes rather than being forced there. The conditioning is the same, only done by parents rather than a totalitarian government and soma isn't quite so popular.
My parents made frequent references to this book when I was growing up, so now it's a treat to finally read it. "Betas are better because we have more fun," or "the world needs epislons too," my dad would occasionally say. I'll grant that this shows just how nerdy of a home I grew up in. Personally, I think of myself as an Alfa, if not an Alfa plus, but then, that's how Huxley likely saw himself too. Aldus Huxley was from an amazing family. His grandfather was Thomas Henry Huxley, famed associated of Charles Darwin; his father was a noted writer; one of his brothers was the first director of UNESCO and another brother was a nobel laureate for Biology. Is it better to be a Beta? I don't think so. Nobody remembers the Betas of the world, and not even most of the Alphas. But then, only an Alpha would be more conserned over perminance than having fun. I was conditioned to be an Alpha, it's all I want or know.