So odd, I was just musing in my head earlier today about how amazing Aldous Huxley is and how much I would love to teach Brave New World to a HS class.
As it is, thats the only one I read (I have the Island, I think its called, at home but I only got a few pages into it ever) and I actually brought it to Switzerland with me and reread it for the third time in the first two days. Amazing book, I'll have to pick up Ape and Essence.
Oh man, my HS english teacher (I think it was in 9th or 10th grade) refused to teach it. She said it had too many sexual connotations. But that's the point of the book - it would be so perfect for a fruendian phsychology class, because that's basically what it's propounding.
So dumb, I think its one of the most amazing novels especially considering when it was written. I love dystopia novels in general. For my final project in US history junior year I read three dystopia books and then wrote a paper on which I thought was the most likely to happen in the US. I could have watched a movie and read two books but I ended up re-reading 1984 and then reading Brave New World and A Clockwork Orange.
Ben insists that the only reason I like Brave New World is because its all about sex; and that is a major reason why I do like it but not for the reasons he thinks. I think looking at the sexual practices of a society are so revealing and thats why Huxley uses that and its so amazingly perverse.
I really like Huxley's symbolism too. I was really freaked out by Clockwork Orange, though. Especially when I was living alone; even though I'd read it years earlier, I still thought someone was going to burst through my front door and beat me up. It just freaked me out.