How could I forget...

my favourite book from all of those I have read over the past few months?

Island - Aldous Huxley

 

This is Huxley's final novel, published in 1962. I urge you to read it. Keep in mind when it was written when you do.

Literature often provides a platform for the individual to voice their discontent. Many authors have written successful and haunting dystopian novels, drawing on elements of our reality to create terrifying portraits of the possible destiny of modern humanity. George Orwell's '1984', Margaret Atwood's 'A Handmaid's Tale' and Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' are favourites among many.

But how many writers can give us their vision of dystopia and follow up with an alternative offering into a possible utopia?

In 'Island', cynical journalist Will Farnaby is shipwrecked on 'Pala' (a fictional island in the Pacific Ocean). Farnaby has been sent to explore the land for its potential oil reserves. The motor of the outside world is running on empty and here, the peaceful islanders have not yet plundered the land. Through the course of the novel Will learns about the way of life on Pala. As the Islanders open his eyes to an alternative way of life, he wonders whether the outside world could benefit from a similar education.

Huxley's antithesis to 'Brave New World' reveals a society where Eastern philosophy meets Western science. Violence and weapons are banned, as is needless materialism. Children learn 'the yoga of love' and selective industrialisation is implemented to meet basic human needs such as nutrition and food storage. People take 'moksha medicine' to aid their enlightenment and practice Buddhism. They strive to attain enlightenment through constantly working towards awareness; of their own bodies, minds, and the world around them. The Palanese people have ultimately built a society that aims to dissipate collective human fears by sharing, learning and understanding them. It seems that when fear is removed, greed and the need for power and attachment disappear too. People accept who they are so they no longer need panic-fuelled crutches to assert their importance and make them feel worthwhile. The Islanders are able to find peace with their place in the chaos of the natural world, rather than fight against it.

I like the way this guy writes:
"spongy seats for spongy bottoms - at home, in the office, in cars and bars, in planes and trains and buses. No moving of legs, no struggles with distance and gravity - just lifts and planes and cars, just foam rubber and an eternity of sitting. The life force that used to find an outlet through striped muscle gets turned back on the viscera and the nervous system, and slowly destroys them."

This book highlighted our obsessive need as humans for control. For whatever reason, humans have been given the gift of consciousness. No other animal seems as aware or conscious of its own existence as we do. What we choose to do with this consciousness is up to us. That's where the fear steps in. One thing is clear, with responsibility, comes fear. The idea that we are free and have the power to choose actually terrifies us more than anything else. Why else are so many of us so desperate to believe in a God above us? So that we may find a reason for our actions, and a responsible party outside ourselves. Rather than look at the fear, we have tried our utmost to bury it. We build cities, surround ourselves with manmade things, suckle oil from the earth like desperate overgrown babies and farm animals so we can get nice and plump and show them who's boss while we're at it. Huxley indicates that this "gift" of consciousness could be nurtured in an alternative way. If we learned to understand ourselves, we may see that there is in fact a higher order. It is not us, as we have tried to assert, but if we stop pretending we are the higher order, we can definitely be part of it. It might be a better idea than trying to destroy it?

Unfortunately, in the novel, the future of the island lies in the hands of Murugan, a greedy teen who is set to be the next Raja. Murugan represents the hoodwinked greed and naivety of capitalism. He is drawn to the ways of the outside world and has links with Colonel Dippa, the military-backed ruler on the large and developed 'Rendang' island next door. Murugan provides the ultimate example of how power corrupts.

Some quotes that illustrate Huxley's philosophy in the novel:

"Abstract materialism - that's what you profess. Whereas we make a point of being materialist concretely - materialistic on the wordless levels of seeing and touching and smelling, of tensed muscles and dirty hands."

"Armaments, universal debt and planned obsolescence - those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste and money-lenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are over-consuming, the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster. Ignorance, militarism and breeding, these three - and the greatest of these is breeding. No hope, not the slightest possibility, of solving the economic problem until that's under control."

"But the underdeveloped countries aren't committed. They don't have to follow your example. They're still free to take the road we've taken - the road of applied biology, the road of fertility control and the limited production and selective industrialization which fertility control make possible, the road that leads to happiness from the inside out, through health, through awareness, through a change in one's attitude towards the world; not towards the mirage of happiness from the outside in, through toys and pills and non-stop distractions. They could still choose our way; but they don't want to, they want to be exactly like you, God help them."