Brave New World: Aldous Huxley

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
Reading Log

Chapter
Who? New students; the DHC; Henry Foster; Lenina
Where? London, central Hatchery and Conditioning Centre: Fertilizing Room, Decanting Room, ...
What? The DHC shows new students the CLHCC. Explains the Society (production of people, alpha, beta, gamma, epsilon; etc.) Henry Foster, his assistent, sees Lenina, with whom he has a date
Comments: no individuality in this world; DHC is very important; manipulation

Chapter
Who? DHC, new students, infants, nurses
Where? Still in the CLHCC: Infantnurseries
What? The DHC shows the students the Conditioning Rooms, where the children are manipulated by psychologic methods (sleepteaching [hypnopaedia], extreme noise, …)
Comments: the produced children are helpless, they can not grow on their own, this moves readers from today, because we live in a world, where everybody craves for freedome, own decisions and a free developement, and babies are cute and poor

Chapter
Who? DHC, Mustapha Mond, new students; Henry Foster + Friend; Lenina, Fanny
Where? Still the CLHCC; girls dressing room; the lift
What? Children play erotic games, and the students watch them. Mustapha Mond tells the students how awfull it is, to be mother, and to bear children; Lenina and Fanny talk about boys, that Lenina goes out for a few months with Foster and that this isn't normal in this society, they talk about Bernard Marx; Henry Foster and his friend talk about Lenina, how pneumatic she is; Bernard Marx listens to them and thinks bad about their talking, as if Lenina was a bit of meat; the social drug „soma“ is introduced
Comments: very long chapter, the three scenes are confused described, maybe this is an opposite to the societys motto: Stability!
The reader can feel, that Bernard is important in this book, because he is different to the system

Chapter
Who? Lenina, Bernard Marx, Helmholtz Watson, Benito Hoover
Where? In an elevator; on the roof; in the south
What? Lenina asks Bernard, if he takes her to the savage reservation in front of her former sexpartners in the elevator; Bernard meets Benito Hoover on the roof, and they discuss about women; Bernard visites his good friend Helmholtz Watson, in the south
Comments: the plot begins; Helmholtz and Bernard are both alpha plus, but Bernard is an outsider because he has a defect (he is too small!) and Helmholtz is very very good looking and a perfect alpha plus

Chapter
Who? Lenina, Henry, Bernard
Where? Helicopter, a club, Henrys appartment, something like a churge
What? 1) Henry and Lenina fly with the helicopter to obstacle golf and watch from the air the epsilons working; they think, that everyone is happy; they go together in a club and take very much soma, after that, they have sex;
2) Bernard goes to a solidarity service, with 12 other people, they take soma as well, sing songs and get in an extase; everybody there likes it, because, they are together, but Bernard feels very lonely comments: in this chapter is shown, in which different scenes soma can be token, and it is clear, that everybody takes everytime soma, and that this drug is very important for the stability of this society

Chapter
Who? Bernard, Lenina, Fanny, DHC, warden
Where? Helicopter, Bernards room, DHCs study, savage reservation
What? 1) Bernard and Lenina have a Date, they have different ideas of what they can do together; she wants to be like she thinks is „normal“ like taking soma and do sports.... but he wants to be „normal“ how he thinks, being clean (no soma), being alone with her and talk together, but Lenina just says the rhymes from the hypnopaedia; in the end Bernard gives in and takes soma and sleeps with her, how it should be
2) Bernard goes to the DHCs study, to get a sign, that he can go to the savege reservation; the DHC tells him, from his expiriences in the SR, that he lost his girlfriend there; and then he says, that Bernard will be sent to iceland, if he will not change to „normal“
3) Lenina and Bernard fly with a helicopter to the SR which is guarded by an electric fence; when they arrived in their hotel, Helmholtz calls Bernard and tells him, that the DHC has now finally decided, that he will be sent to iceland comments: it is strange, why the DHC tells from his girl; it is strange, why he decided to sent Bernard away, while he wasn't in town

Chapter
Who? Bernard, Lenina, John, Linda
Where? Savage Reservation
What? A guide brings Lenina and Bernard to the Pueblo of Malpais; in the savage reservation live indians, they are comletely different to the people in London; Bernard likes watching the whole thing, but Lenina hates everything there; during a rite they meet Linda and John, Linda is the DHCs lost girl and John is her and his son; comments: John and Linda are outsiders in the savage reservation; John seems to like Lenina;

Chapter
Who? Bernard, John
Where? In the reservation
What? John remembers his childhood, where his mother was often visited by men, afterwards hit by their women, and that Linda replaces the soma consume from her „world states days“ by an alcohol addiction; John is very fascinated by Shakespeare comments: Bernard wants to take Linda and John to London maybe to blackmail the DHC; you learn very much about Johns unhappy childhood

Chapter
Who? Lenina, John, Bernard, Mustapha Mond
Where? Leninas room, Monds study
What? Lenina cant stand the pictures she saw in the reservation and takes a lot of soma to forget them, then she falls asleep; Bernard travels back and asks Mond to take Linda and John to London; John is delighted by watching Linda sleeping, and he pulls himself together, not to touch her, because it wouldn't accord to shakespeares idea of love; he hears Bernard and runs away comments: John feels very attracted to Lenina; why does Mond allow Bernard, to bring Linda and John to London? What does he expect?

Chapter
Who? DHC, Henry, Bernard, Linda, John
Where? CLHCC
What? The DHC tells Bernard in front of all the others, that he'll be sent to iceland, maybe to make an example; he blames Bernard to make the society unstable; Bernard commands Linda and John into the room and explains the situation, John falls on his knees and says to the DHC “my father” what is very very very embarassing and huiliating for the DHC comments: now Bernard has everybody in his hands and it is the first time, when he is positively in the central point

Chapter
Who? Linda, John, DHC, Bernard
Where? Bernards rooms, CLHCC
What? Everybody wants to see John, he is very popular now; compared to Linda, who flees in soma holidays day by day; because of Johns vogue, Bernard becomes very important too, he enjoys it a bit too much; Helmholtz is disappointed about Bernard being like everybody else now and they end friendship; John doesn't like the society, he is disappointed as well; comments: Bernard changes and shows his true character, he wants to be friend with everybody and loses meanwhile his real friend; maybe Lenina has a fetish for strange or odd men

Chapter
Who? Bernard, John, Helmholtz, Lenina
Where? Bernards rooms, Monds study
What? John locks himself up in his room and rejects to appear on a party Bernard has organised; this leads to Bernards breakdown in society and his loss of selfconfidence; Lenina has sex with another man and takes a lot of soma, because she doesn't want to think about John; Helmholtz publishes a poem about positive loneliness, this makes him troubles with upper people; John reads Romeo and Juliet to Helmholtz and identifys himself and Lenina with them; Mond reads something about the sense of life but alone; comments: Lenina seems to be not normal as well, because she likes odd men and she loves them really; Mond isn't normal, he seems to know more; Helmholtz and John aren't normal, they both seem to come from our world; so, no protagonist is normal for this society in this story :D

Chapter
Who? Lenina, John, Fanny, Henry
Where? Changing room, Bernards rooms, Embryo station
What? Lenina tells Fanny about her love to John; she visits John in Bernards rooms, they come near and she undresses herself, John thinks, she is a whore and beats her, she can nearly escape in the bathroom comments: the both young protagonists are completely different in their idea of love, they just can't understand each other

Chapter
Who? Linda, John, Children, a nurse
Where? Hospital
What? John is in Hospital to watch Linda dying; there is a very happy atmosphere to get the children used to dying people; again John thinks about his childhood; Linda says Pope (her former lover) to John, he gets furious and shakes her, meanwhile she dies; he blames himself for having killed her; comments: it is self-evident, that in a world, where life is so easy to give and not important to anyone, death is nothing terrible, but for John it is very terrible, because he has a mother who grew him up; he can't understand why she called this terrible place “paradise”

Chapter
Who? John, Helmholtz, Bernard, Deltas
Where? Hospital
What? John leaves his dead mother and meets a group of Deltas; suddenly wants to change the terrible new world, makes a speech, wants to convince the Deltas to stop taking soma, he throws soma out of the window, crowd goes crazy; Helmholtz supports John, but Bernard stands doing nothing in the crowd; in the end, all the three are arrested comments: the addiction of the world state to soma is picked out again as a central theme; it is very suspenseful, what happens to the three arrested

Chapter
Who? Mond, John, Bernard, Helmholtz
Where? Monds office
What? John, Helmholtz and Mond discuss about the society, Shakespeare and life; Bernard gets sick, he tries to blame John and Helmholtz, because he doesn't want to iceland; in the end, Helmholtz and John are banned comments: it is a very important scene, maybe the culmination of the plot; Monds sight is very interesting, because it could be a little bit against the systeme

Chapter
Who? Mond, John
Where? Monds office
What? Mond and John discuss about god, John believes in god, and Mond says, that he is not necessary in his state comments: god, science and art are abolished in this system, although Mond knows about them

Chapter
Who? Bernard, John, Helmholtz, Lenina, others
Where? Lighthouse
What? John wants to go with Helmholtz and Bernard, but Mond doesn't allow, because he didn't finish his experiment; John goes away, to live in solitude in a lighthouse, he whips himself there and punishes himself for his dirty thoughts to Lenina; unluckily he is watched by a few Deltas, and reporters arrive at the lighthouse, a few days a whole mass of every caste wants to see John whipping himself; in the end John hangs himself comments: a very shocking described end, very pessimistic; open end, you are forced to think about it, a little bit like a short story