timeless

I've been gripped by Brave New World today and listened to 4 discs back to back.

After describing society as it is in 500 years time, (a highly structured society where a person's potential is determined in vitro and there is no possibility of moving between the castes - alpha to epsilon) and unnerving his audience with the lack of freedom in that culture, Huxley introduces an unconditioned human to London society.

There is a stark contrast between John (the Savage) who has been raised in an uncivilized part of the world (New Mexico, which is a mix of Christianity and Hopi/Zuni) and the woman Lenina with whom he falls in love.
John has been born and knows his mother (not developed in a jar in a factory and raised in a nursery) and is determined to be chaste until he is married.
Lenina is a Beta + and works in one of the Hatcheries as a vaccination worker. She is the embodiment of conditioning but is attracted first to Bernard, an unorthodox psychologist who is struggling against his conditioning, and later to John the Savage. She is hurt and confused by his refusal to have sex with her.

Huxley was struggling against the desire for utopia thinking, that unless people have to work for things, or strive for things, or even wait for them, then any happiness that they experience is infantile. He writes about people being doped with soma, a drug which keeps people mellow, and people taking more drugs to ensure that they always look youthful until 60, when they die.

How much money is spent in the West for people to inject their faces with poisons to maintain their youthful appearances? Attitudes to sex have changed and the incidence of STD's is on the rise. One of the greatest problems facing us is the amount of recreational drugs used in every level of society.

It is stunning to see how much Huxley predicted 70 years ago.

The twist sock is progressing nicely while I've been enjoying this timeless scifi classic. I've picked up the in step stitches and am busy with the shaping.