The Nightstar Zoo

Has anyone here read the book? And if so, what did you think?

I just started it and am liking it so far...

I read it. It was alright. As an examination of a possible future society it was interesting, but I never really got into the story. I think that the worst thing for enjoying the book was that I never really cared about any of the characters, and none of them seemed to change or learn.

That and I was repulsed by the society (although that is part of the purpose ). I guess I wasn't helped by the fact that I read many books that were inspired or at least influenced by Brave New World before I read the origional.

In the end I'd classify it as a potentially important piece of literature that I wouldn't read for pleasure.

I read it a couple of years ago, and liked it passably well then.
I'm not sure what I'd think of it if I read it now.

When I was in 10th grade I had to read "Brave New World", and then "1984". When I read the first, I was revulsed...It seemed like a nightmare. Then I read the second, and the first just didn't seem so bad anymore...

I liked it. Though I liked 1984 more. I think the distopic genre tends to suffer from too much future-technology. Makes it less real, dulls the intended message.

Brave New World is freaky... same effect as 1984, but would be even more impossible to break free from, compared to 1984.

1984 - Everyone is controlled through propaganda, constant threats of death and torture, and extreme security. Big Brother is always watching, thanks to the cameras and screens. You try to break out the system - you will be brainwashed to love the system. It is freaky, and terribly dismal. Everyone truly lives in a state of unhappiness.

Brave New World - Everyone is controlled because everyone WANTS to be controlled. Everyone is in a state of mindless happiness. Nobody wants to break out the system save a few "very strange" rejects. Everyone is brainwashed into being happy with their lives, believing they are given everything they want. If for some strange reason you are not happy, you have a drug to make you happy. There's practically no way for people to break the system, because that thought practically never occurs. Why free yourself when you believe you are happy?

That's what makes Brave New World terribly frightening. When people give up their liberties, technology could pave the way for civilization to never get those liberties back, because nobody will WANT them back to begin with.

On the topic of dysutopias, I love the book Fahrenheit 451, even more than 1984 and Brave New World (which are both very good sci-fi). I suggest Fahrenheit 451 to anyone who likes 1984 or Brave New World. It's short, exciting, and if terribly frightening in the fact that it is so similar to society is today, and how it is becoming.

Fahrenheit 451 is definately a book that needs a new film treatment. The 1966 film was low budget and therefore simply had to diverge widely from the book.

Oh, IMDB says there's a movie in production. Any bets on whether or not they'll burn the houses along with the books? With today's FX technology, they could closely follow the orginal story and make it better. My bet is the plot won't be followed any closer than it was in 1966.

_________________
Fandemonium!
August 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2014

"I am a machine. I am a weapon of war. I am a destroyer of life in the service of life, the sword and shield of my human creators." Bolo Invincibilus, Mark XXIII, Model B (Experimental) 0075-NKE "Nike".

I much prefer 1984. Brave New World, like Kit said, has no characters you care about, and it has aged - badly. Despite there being only about 15 years between BNW and 1984, the former feels like it was written fifty years earlier.
1984 in contrast seems much more believable, and is much more relevant to today's situation (the only thing Orwell got wrong was the date)...

_________________
Living in a state free from the burdens of privacy and democracy since 2008-06-18.

I recently read Brave New World right after finishing 1984 so I kept bracing myself for a darkness that did not come. However it is creepier in a way.

When I read 1984 I just didn't buy it. Not the totalitarian nature of the world but the scope of it seemed unrealistic. It was just too *perfect.* I didn't buy the continued balance of the world between Oceania, Eurasia and Estasia. It seems unrealistic to me in a military sense. One side would get complacent, or would develop a new technology, or there would be a breakthrough in intelligence gathering until one of the countries would gain a foothold.

I also didn't buy the idea that Party members could be so miserable and still be loyal to big brother. It's like the way a 1950's sitcom is all superficial and plastic, only dystopian instead of utopian, a plastic world of fake misery instead of fake happiness.

On the other hand you have Brave New World which solves that problem a bit more realisticly. The people aren't miserable, they are kept artifically happy with promiscuity and Soma holidays. All seems perfect until you see what happens when someone falls through the cracks. Much more believable in my opinion.

personnaly I think that A Brave New World is scarrier as we are constantly getting closer to having that sort of technology. 1984 isn't as scary, but it makes you wonder. And if you really want a book that makes you think twice about human nature read Animal Farm by George Orwell.

If you have no choice but to be loyal, you are loyal. Besides the fact that they would probably be brainwashed to love the life, no matter what it entailed, betrayal would be like playing the Prisoner's Dilemma with the entire Party.
The Party is decentralized. There is no one person to get to, no central core to attack.


If things really are as they are described. Remember, everything anyone knows comes from the party (even including such facts as, for example, what year it is).


And the technology and (most of all) society of 1984 isn't rapidly approaching?

_________________
Living in a state free from the burdens of privacy and democracy since 2008-06-18.

Thankfully some of the more important aspects of that society are not quickly approaching. Specifically, people aren't quite dumb enough to believe everything they're told, at least not most of them.

The internet, especially e-mail, is what keeps a Nineteen Eighty-Four situation at bay because it allows the individual to bypass all the media's self-censorship and propaganda, government propaganda and attempts at censorship.

Through the net, individuals can directly contact each other, making it impossible for a country, even a physically isolated one like the UK, to control 100% of the information people have access to.

The impression I got from Nineteen Eighty-Four was that none of the events outside of England/UK were actually happening. No floating fortresses, no massive battles, nada. England had gone totally INGSOC and decided to ignore the rest of the world. Apparently no other country was bothering itself to liberate the people of England, but that would've ruined the plot.

_________________
Fandemonium!
August 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 2014

"I am a machine. I am a weapon of war. I am a destroyer of life in the service of life, the sword and shield of my human creators." Bolo Invincibilus, Mark XXIII, Model B (Experimental) 0075-NKE "Nike".

Two words: Fox News.


Unfortunately, that's not quite true. At present, nobody tries to completely control it.

If you want to go 1984, here's how you render the Internet useless for your country's dissidents, using a combination of legal and technical measures:
You begin with outlawing crypto^* for personal use. For the rest you demand key and password access. Then you start filtering all internet traffic, at the international exchange level and the ISP level (you can do some incredibly neat stuff with packet filtering hardware and software (e.g. Packet Logic) these days). You have of course already instituted laws against using anything other than government-approved communication channels on the 'net (you can, for example, block everything except (monitored) HTTP, FTP, and VOIP traffic). And if you're extra devious, you don't just block all dissident traffic - some you block outright; some you just monitor for your weekly subversive hunt.

Good luck getting through the government propaganda now!


Exactly. It could all be true, but we have no way of knowing - everything we know of the outside world has been filtered through the Party.


Why would they? Foreign policy and altruism have little to do with each other.




^* if all cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir pelcgb.

_________________
Living in a state free from the burdens of privacy and democracy since 2008-06-18.