Brave New World
I read this in high school, and liked it well enough, but as time went on the memory soured. In hindsight, and as I read more broadly in science fiction, 'Brave New World' seemed by comparison too clinical and detached; John Savage is too unreal.
But, reading this again for a book club, 'Brave New World' grabs your attention by introducing the new society by way of a tour through the baby bottling factory. And I must mention, Huxley is very, very funny. If you happen to think sick things are funny. Which I do. I also remembered that the most nagging little problem I had with the book was Bernard Marx. Huxley sets him up to be sympathetic: introverted, self-aware of the conditioning everybody undergoes, isolated from his own peers because of his height and moodiness, and, he's further cut off from the rest of society because he wants only one woman, and romance as well! Too bad he's just a shallow, monster. Only railing against his society so long as it doesn't revolve around him.
Of course, the nagging problem I had was that I doubted I wouldn't have reacted the same way. I want to revile Bernard, show him up as the petty, hypocritical whiner that he is, but would any of us be different in raised in that kind of environment? Coddled and conditioned from gestation -- it was hard enough asserting yourself in high school when encouraged to do so -- Bernard didn't have a chance.
