I was very pleasantly surprised by Brave New World. I find novels with such a high reputation rarely turn out to be entertaining, the ideas come before a readable story. Brave New World is an exception though, it is compelling both because of the world Huxley has created - the ideas of happiness are fascinating and somehow repellant even though they certainly have a logic - and the characters are a good mix of outsiders and those perfectly 'conditioned' to this new world.
The book is set in the future, when the 'world controllers' have created a world in which everyone is happy. Children are engineered in labs, born and brought up in a huge factory where they are conditioned for the lives they are to lead. Mothers and Fathers are repulsive concepts and citizens are taught to never develop real relationships but to never be alone, everyone is a perfect consumer.
The novel follows Bernard Marx and Lenina Crowne. Bernard is dissatisfied with the society and is an outsider others are wary of, whereas Lenina is a model citizen and very likable. It is this duality which makes the book such a success I think - you see both sides. All in all well worth a read, it gets you thinking but is entertaining and very readable too.
I am now reading The Art of Being a Woman by Patricia Volk, who is talking about the two main influences in her early life, her mother Audrey Volk and the fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli.
