A review by pleu
Du sköna nya värld by Aldous Huxley

challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

It's a classic for a reason and I found it very thought-provoking in an enjoyable way. I didn't care for the ending tho as it felt a bit like an "easy escape", on the other hand the essay by the author seem to indicate that he too didn't care for the ending as he grew older so I guess it's a pretty acceptable opinion.

Some part of the Swedish translation makes me wonder how this was received in it's original language, as some expressions seem oddly worded. I'm not sure if that's the author or the translation.

I did get a chuckle out of the Swedish preface by Göran Rosenberg, as it was from 2000 and clearly dated itself when he said that 1984 is now very unrealistic to him as information is free and open and it will be hard for any country to change that. In this day and age that part falls a bit flat but the text was still a good preface for the book. Currently available at https://www.rosenberg.se/frord-huxley if one reads a different edition of the book (only in Swedish).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Racism, Self harm, and Suicide

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Violence, Medical content, and Colonisation

Minor: Incest, Sexism, Sexual content, Vomit, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, and War

The last chapter has a character "driven mad" were he's flogging himself and eventually ends his own life, he's driven on by a big crowd of people and it's very dehumanizing.