Brave New World - Got Soma?

Alrighty. I had to read this for British Lit class, but found it to be less horrific than previously thought. In other words -I renounce all speeches made about dreading this book. There. I said it. I was wrong. This book doesn't suck, and it wasn't 500 pages long. Sorry.

Now that *that's* over with we'll get down to the story. Bernard, Lenina, and John, comprise the main characters of this dystopian tale. Linda, Mond, and Helmholtz also play important parts. Bernard is an under-qualified Alpha who works in the 'Sleep Teaching' department. (Technically they have a really long name for that but I enjoy the simple version...) He hates society because he isn't accepted, mostly for his lacking appearance, and enjoys trying to briefly corrupt Lenina. Lenina has a pull toward close relationships -a big 'no no' in modern civilization, but tries to stay morally right by making herself be with other men.

Bernard gets a date with Lenina when she goes on another 'Man Spurt' and they visit the Indian/Savage reservation. While there they see a painful and disturbing ritual where a boy walks around a pile of snakes while getting whipped. Like butter! : D Just not as tasty I imagine... Lenina is grossed out by this and desperately wants soma to knock her out and help forget everything she just saw. Bernard finds it fascinating, but I doubt he would ever let someone whip him. Maybe someday we'll find out, or maybe not, I don't really care. The main reason for seeing this is to establish JOHN! yay, whoop, holla, YEah, Gig em, Go John, etc, etc, etc. He wishes he could have done the ceremony, and boasts that he could have bled twice as much as that boy before stopping. o.O

So we now hear the story of John, more or less. Linda, the woman our D.H.C mentioned earlier (who got lost on a trip here and was consequently left behind) accidentally got pregnant while taking birth control and raised John on her own. She stayed true to city morals and slept around with the other men...*married* men. No surprise then when we hear about a group of women coming in and beating Linda and John while telling them to stay away from the rest of the village. I don't think they appreciated her freeness. Some people just don't understand good manners -always KNOCK before coming in to beat someone senseless! *sigh* What is this world coming to in the far future?

Bernard sees how high John hold the 'Brave New World' of the city, and takes both him and Linda back with him. Lenina, outraged at the horror of being around savage people so long, takes enough soma to kill a poodle, and lies in bed for a day or two till they leave. John looks through her apartment before realizing she was sleeping there, but resists the urge to rape the sleeping girl. Wow. What marvelous self control he has. wow......so....now that I established that both Lenina and John like each other (one only if the other is sleeping?) we can move on. Bernard is about to get fired, and basically *does* get fired in front of the entire office, but brings out his new friends. John is the Director's son, which makes him so ashamed he quits and Bernard is left very popular and suddenly in charge of a hot commodity. Both Lenina and John enjoy their coolness boost, but all is lost when John refuses to see anyone after feeling like this city was corrupt.

Its either before or after John locks himself away, but he and Lenina go to the 'feelies', which are movies that make you feel what the actors are feeling, as in they kiss each other and you feel it. Creepy, huh? But in a society that pushes (on pain of banishment) promiscuity and drug use, while banning love and personal feeling, this isn't really looked at as gross or even immoral. John uses Shakespeare as his moral compass in this 'Brave New World with such people in it'. He calls Lenina a strumpet, whore, and god only knows what else, multiple times and occasionally hits her to stop her seduction scenes. Lenina and John *do* like each other, but after that movie/feelie he is repulsed by civilization and it's values. He meets with Mond, his 'fordship', and has a long debate about the reasons behind this new society. He argues for his Shakespearean values, while Mond both agrees and disputes with him. Its a very amusing scene when this all happens.

Linda dies somewhere around chapter 15, and John almost deconditions some lower class children being trained to ignore death. He is outraged at their flippant attitude and upsets the poor nurse on duty, who then has to resort to giving the children chocolate eclaires to distract them. I don't think the kids minded that much.

Just to clarify - Soma is a mind altering drug. I guess it would be similar to weed? Perhaps marijuana mixed with valium....hmmmmmmm. They take it when life annoys them, or gives them any bad feeling, to stay happy. Because life is all about staying happy. 'A gramme is better than a damn!' is a commonly repeated phrase in this book. Poor brainwashed, conditioned, lovestruck Lenina. I don't even know *how* many times she says this to angry people, but no one ever listens, in fact she seems to anger them more. Oh well.

John finally gets so mad he tries to 'free' the lower classes by taking away soma. He wants them to see the awesome injustice done to them, but their conditioning renders this technique useless. John and Helmholtz (Bernard's friend who is too intelligent for his own good)fend off the riotous mob, while Bernard tries to run away after the police get there. All three are taken to Mond, where they are told they must leave (but John is still asked to stay unless he really wanted to go). Bernard goes hysterical and cries, pleading with Mond, and getting dragged out of the room by security guards. Helmholtz listens to Mond's story and is excited to meet the other people who are banished to far off islands. He decides to go somewhere with bad weather for the extra creativity that will surely be added to his stories. : )

John and Mond then have their big debate, slapping around Shakespeare like its gravy for the Turkey across the table. But John leaves and stays in an abandoned building outside the city. Of course, since it has a beautiful view John has to 'punish' himself before he can accept living here. He drinks mustard mixed with warm water then throws up. Joy. *shudders and wipes John's vomit off my shoes*

Eventually people find him and surround him with helicopters, chanting "We want the Whip!" because a nosy reporter filmed him from behind some plants as he whipped himself one day. John tries to run away but is stopped and sees Lenina in the crowd. He takes his whip and hits her, then ironically (hypocritically?) joins in their big 'end of the crazy ceremony' orgy. Said orgy is also a staple in civil life....yeah.....

The next morning he wakes up. I assume he realizes only *after* seeing a whole bunch of naked people on his lawn that he took part in an orgy the night before. But nonetheless he feels so ashamed that he goes inside and kills himself. Whether he does this because he longer feels worthy of life, or whether that was the only punishment he saw that could redeem him, he still dies. Reporters see his feet dangling above their heads and the book ends.

Let me just say again that this book was not at all what I expected. And reading it reminds me of our society today, constantly trying to make everything casual, and take meaning away from long term relationships. The fact that sex is so everyday, and encouraged at such young ages (you'll see in the book) is absurd, but rapidly becoming more plausible. While I cannot rationally say our world would ever end up like a fictitious work of art, it does touch home in its comparison between past and future moral views.

ENDING POINTS:
+ better than I expected
+ makes me wish such drugs as 'soma' were legal....and existed
+ everyone but John is easily understood.
- I'm still confused as to John's reasoning and lack of individual thought. I mean, if he's so unique, then why couldn't he adapt his own interpretation of life instead of relying on other people to tell him what's good and bad? In a book that's about John's stand against conforming to any one society, he is rigidly attached to Shakespeare's morals, and those are only morals made clear through plays and characters.
+ Love Mond's debate with John
+ Love the sad ending