Sherie: I read this book in year 10. It had a deep impact on me, as did Orwell's 1984 (read the same year, I think we had to compare/discuss them as an English assignment). Not a month passes when something I hear in the news or read in the papers or read here in BB makes me think of BNW. If anything, MORE students need to read it. When I feel that my DD is old enough I'll give it to her.
A contemporary novel that would 'prime' a teen to read these kind of thought-provoking futuristic novels is Gemma Malley's The Declaration. ...my favourite novel of 2007.
I read BNW a couple of years ago. Reading your summary Bath was excellent, because I've forgotten so much about it. I remembered little things like the Bible and Shakespeare hidden away in a locked safe(?) and funerals / crematoriums being places where the resources in your body were reclaimed. And the eternally optimistic and joyus Soma.
But I'd forgotten who the main characters were and the story line....this is why I can read books lots of times , I forget them in between reads so all is well!
Can you refresh my memory, did our protagonist end up living with the savages permanently? I can't remember.
I remember thinking that the ending of 1984 was so much more powerful than BNW's ending. I just loved how Winston became the believer - it was so twisted and just so ...right? It just worked for me, this broken man, sitting in the tea house drinking gin and being seen as an, I dont know how to describe it, but a respected man of the party who had earned his faith?
Have you read other Huxley novels? I haven't, but I keep meaning to.
Bath, I had to read BNW & 1984 for my HSC - to do a comparison on them both as well!
The 3rd one we had to do was 'Utopia'... that was similar, yet completely different as well... BNW was definately my fav of the 3 ... I remember thinking about the cloning etc at the time and how clever it would really be if they could really do that .... must have cursed myself because I'm gearing up for IVF stim cycle #5!!!
I can't even remember who wrote Utopia, (I'll have to google it as it will eat at me now ), but I remember thinking at the time that the situation in the novel was as far away as possible from what I would consider 'Utopia' to be
Saying that - I was 17 when I read them all - would definately be worth reading them all now at 31.
One of my piano students is doing BNW for her HSC this year.. I asked her about 1984 & Utopia, but shes only doing the one.
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), but I remember thinking at the time that the situation in the novel was as far away as possible from what I would consider 'Utopia' to be 
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