If you have read me ranting about "Nineteen Eighty Four" before, be prepared to sit through another ranting of another book. After "1984", I've moved on to "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley. All thanks to Nat for helping me lay hands on this book. *Smile*

BNW lacks the seriousness of the suppressed society in 1984, where everything you do or even think of is monitored by the Thought Police. No, what BNW talks about is a world of mass-produced people. EVERYONE is created in a factory through the embryos donated by the women. What amuses me more is the presence of a class system. Or class caste as written by Huxley. It starts from Alpha-Plus who are the cream of the crop, followed by Alpha-minus, Beta-Plus etc. down to the lowest castes which are Deltas, Eplisons and Gammas. The idea of this organized world state is to ensure that everyone is happy and that there is social stability. It is a world without disease, old age (They continually inject youth hormones into the aging people), or war but also without strong passions, a place where the past has been abolished and the future cannot begin.

And because everyone is mass-produced, there's no such thing as a "mother", "father" or a "family". In fact, parenthood is frowned upon and it was deemed disgusting if you are born of a woman's womb. Since young, in the factory, the children are induced with propaganda messages, even in their sleep. For Eg: A normal Beta child will be hearing messages like this in his sleep: "I'm so glad that I'm not an Eplison. I won't want to play with them. They are too stupid to even read of write. Besides, they wear black which is a beastly colour" etc.

They call that "class consciousness". It's frightfully alarming to read of such things being introduced to CHILDREN! Separating people by colour codes, teaching them who they should mix with and how they should mix with one another.

I'm just half-way through the book. With be back with more.