Brave New World

On the surface, the London portrayed in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World appears to be a nice place to live. Thanks to the Nine Years’ War (which began in A.F. 141 or 2049 A.D.), England (and most of the rest of the world, one presumes) has been transformed into a utopian society. Most infectious diseases and other maladies have been eradicated, the workday is balanced out nicely with compulsory recreation time, everybody zips around in personal aircraft a la “The Jetsons,” self-medication with the drug soma is encouraged, and, upon reaching adulthood, everyone remains healthy and youthful (though they do die suddenly at age 60).

However, beneath this façade of near perfection lies a negative utopia of sorts—a dystopia of the human condition. Works of great literature have been confiscated and prohibited. Monogamous relationships are considered abnormal and are strongly discouraged (“Everyone belongs to everyone else” is the time honored maxim). Entire generations have been mass produced, or “decanted,” in laboratories for so long that the idea of a “nuclear family” has become not only a forgotten concept, but a revolting one as well. Each person is specifically created to occupy a certain social class such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon (from highest to lowest caste). Within each caste level men and women are created “physioco-chemically equal,” and a form of subliminal brainwashing, known as hypnopaedia, ensures the consumption of goods, while eliminating the desire to rise above one’s social class.

This perversion of the human soul is largely unexamined by Londoners—with the exception of one man—Bernard Marx, Supervisor of the New Mexico Savage Reservation program. Small in stature, brooding in nature, and more open-minded in his thinking, Marx is the black sheep of his caste. He often forgoes after-work games such as “Obstacle Golf,” likes to spend time alone, and is sickened by the thought of promiscuous sex. While his fellow utopians are comfortable in their perfect world, Marx is unsettled. He sees society’s quest for perfection and stability for what it really is: the suppression of the human spirit. Marx longs to feel the human emotions deprived to him and wishes to express his frustrations to a kindred spirit, but he has no one in which to confide. That is, until he takes a trip to the New Mexico Reservation and meets John Savage.

As his surname would imply, John Savage is an inhabitant of the Reservation—a place devoid of the technological and genetic advancements of the “brave new world.” Here, men and women continue to age—living beyond the 60 year mark—and continue practices considered ancient by those visiting the Reservation—practices such as religion and childbirth. Contrary to his name, Savage is an intelligent and literate young man, having spent the past several years reading a grubby copy of the collected works of Shakespeare. Unencumbered by the science and technology of the modern world, Savage is free to feel all the emotions Marx himself has longed to feel.

Throughout the first half of the novel, Bernard Marx makes several attempts to free himself from the trappings of the society in which he lives. In an attempt to feel “all the emotions one might be feeling if things were different,” he frequently eschews soma and he does not participate in after-work, social functions. Upon meeting Savage, Marx realizes he has come face-to-face with a purer, more natural result of his own experiments.

Sensing the opportunity to observe the effects Savage might have upon his fellow Londoners (not to mention the opportunity to gain the long sought after respect and admiration of his peers), Marx returns to London with Savage in tow.

As one might expect, the inevitable clash of cultures ensues. Neither Savage nor the Londoners can make sense of each other’s ways. Ultimately, Savage is not equipped for a life of suppression and subjugation, and his violent reactions land him in a lighthouse in the English countryside, where he is to spend his time as an experimental subject.

Rather than reveal the rest of the novel’s conclusion, I instead encourage you to read Brave New World for yourself as it is an interesting and compelling book, especially today in an age in which our lives are affected every day by science and technology. Of further interest is Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Revisited in which Huxley considers whether the world has moved toward or away from his original vision.

Lolita, Part One: So Far, So Good. So Wrong?

I’m going to tell you something. An admission so dark, so profane, it just might cause you to question my moral integrity. Are you ready? Here it is: I’ve finished reading Part One of Lolita and...I LIKED IT.

Now, I know what you may be thinking. How can you like that book? Don’t you find it repulsive? Don’t you find it to be at least slightly pornographic? Considering the novel’s subject matter, these are perfectly valid questions. I, too, might be a little concerned about someone who went around admitting he (or she, but more so a he) liked Lolita. But before you navigate away in disgust–if you haven’t already–please allow me a chance to explain.

In no way am I trying to suggest that reading the first half of Lolita caused me no discomfort whatsoever. Quite the contrary, in fact. There were several scenes which caused me to squirm in my seat and provoked my eyes to scan the page a bit faster than normal. Take, for example, the scene in which Humbert Humbert, Lolita’s perverse narrator, spies Lo for the first time and is instantly reminded of his former “nymphet” lover, Annabel:

It was the same child–the same frail, honey-hued shoulders, the same silky supple bare back, the same chestnut head of hair...I recognized the tiny dark-brown mole on her side... I saw again her lovely indrawn abdomen where my southbound mouth had briefly paused, and those puerile hips on which I had kissed the crenulated imprint left by the band of her shorts.

For obvious reasons, this is not an easy passage to read. But for every uncomfortable scene such as this, there are seemingly dozens more that contain examples of Nabokov’s literary prowess. Evocative phrases such as “in a princedom by the sea” or “Most of the dandelions had changed from suns to moons.” Homonymic wordplay such as “Our Glass Lake” versus “Hourglass Lake.” An impressive vocabulary that includes words such as “procrustean,” “cantrip,” and “tendresse.” And don’t forget that famous opening line: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”

I guess what I’m trying to say is that thus far the good far outweighs the bad. Yes, there are scenes in Part One of Lolita that many readers might (should?) find objectionable and not so easy to read, but they are relatively few and far between. Ultimately, readers are rewarded for their fortitude with glimpses of Nabokov at play, which is truly a joy to experience.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapters II & III

Chapter II

In Chapter I of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, we saw Stephen Dedalus morph from a “small and weak” and, in some ways, sheltered boy into a bright student whose awakening to the world around him leads to the formation of his worldview. In Chapters II and III, on the other hand, Stephen’s freshly shaped worldview is altered by events beyond his control leaving him restless in his heart and in his soul. These chapters chronicle Stephen’s loss of innocence and his decline into sin.

Chapter II opens with Stephen and his family spending what will be their final days of “comfort and revelry” at the family home in Blackrock, a suburb of Dublin. His innocence still intact, Stephen views the world through the eyes of a romantic. Each night, Stephen reads from Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, while forming a strong association with the novel. Edmond Dantes, Dumas’ protagonist, “stood forth in his mind for whatever he had heard or divined in childhood of the strange and terrible.” Taken with the notion of romantic love, Stephen envisions “another Mercedes” (Mercedes being Edmond Dantes’ fiancé) living in a white house just outside of Blackrock. Furthermore, Stephen believes his first sexual experience will occur with this real-life equivalent of Mercedes: “They would meet quietly as if they had known each other and had made their tryst...and in that moment of supreme tenderness...he would be transfigured. Weakness and timidity and inexperience would fall from him in that magic moment.”

However, Stephen’s worldview, the source of his innocence, begins to crack under the strain of his family’s financial misfortune. “For some time he had felt the slight change in his house; and those changes in what he had deemed unchangeable were so many slight shocks to his boyish conception of the world.” Forced to give up the estate in Blackrock, the Dedalus family takes up residence in Dublin proper and Stephen is enrolled in Belvedere College, another Jesuit-run school.

For Stephen, Dublin is a “new and complex sensation.” With his Uncle Charles now too “witless that he could no longer be sent out on errands” and the rest of his family busy settling into the new house, Stephen finds himself free to wander the city. Walking near the docks “wakened again in him the unrest which had sent him wandering in the evening from garden to garden in search of Mercedes.” Disillusioned and angry with “the change of fortune which was reshaping the world about him into a vision of squalor and insincerity,” Stephen begins walking the city at night in an attempt to “appease the fierce longings of his heart.” After wandering into “a maze of narrow and dirty streets” in Dublin’s brothel district, Stephen’s romantic vision of love turns into pure lust as he lays eyes on the “leisurely and perfumed” women. Relinquishing the chastity he was saving for his Mercedes, he succumbs to sin and loses his virginity to a prostitute.

Chapter III

The end of Chapter II marks Stephen’s passage from innocence to a life of sin. Now 16 years old and a student of Belvedere College, Stephen possesses a “sin-loving” soul in which a “cold lucid indifference” reigns. He is now visiting the brothels regularly, despite knowing that “while he stood in danger of eternal damnation for the first sin alone, by every succeeding sin he multiplied his guilt and his punishment.” Initially, Stephen feared his dalliances with Dublin’s women of the night would leave his body or his soul “maimed by the excess.” Instead, he finds “a dark peace” has been established between the two planes.

Stephen is finally forced to re-evaluate the state of his soul by an unexpected visit from Father Arnell, his “old master” at Clongowes. The sight of Father Arnell brings back childhood memories of the old school. As Stephen recounts these memories, his soul becomes “ a child’s soul.” For the first time since his sins began, Stephen realizes he has “sunk to the state of a beast” and that his soul was “fattening and congealing into a gross grease.” At last, fear begins to creep into Stephen’s mind as he contemplates the consequences of his actions.

While listening to a fire and brimstone sermon delivered by Father Arnall, Stephen’s piety is suddenly renewed. He flees the chapel with “his legs shaking and the scalp of his head trembling as though is had been touched by ghostly fingers.” Later that night, Stephen is gripped by the sudden urge to confess each and every sin. Not wishing to admit his trespasses among his schoolmates, Stephen finds a chapel away from the campus and makes his first confession in eight months. With his soul finally purged, Stephen takes the sacrament and commits himself to a life of “grace and virtue and happiness.”

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter I

Chapter I of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce’s first novel, focuses on the most impressionable years of its protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. The novel opens with a series of Stephen’s earliest memories, presented in snapshot-like recollections as told by a child. Stephen remembers his father telling him the story of a “moocow” and a “nicens little boy named baby tuckoo.” Then, in rapid succession, Stephen goes on to remember the feel of wetting the bed (“first it is warm then it gets cold”), recalls singing and dancing while his governess Dante and his Uncle Charles clapped, and his proclamation that he will grow up to marry Eileen Vance, the neighbors’ daughter.

From there, we fast-forward to Stephen’s days at Clongowes Wood College, the same Jesuit boarding school Joyce himself attended as a boy. Here the narrative of the story evolves into a more mature tone in order to reflect Stephen’s age. Having said goodbye to his mother and father, Stephen watches his schoolmates playing a game of soccer. Feeling “small and weak” in comparison, he does not participate in the match, and instead observes from the sidelines, “feigning to run now and then.” Stephen’s physical inferiority is both a blessing and a curse. The inability to assimilate himself into the athletic realm forces Stephen to seek comfort and success in the academic realm. However, as a result, Stephen is subjected to some mild bullying from his schoolmates.

In this chapter, it is made clear that Stephen possesses a stronger moral fiber than the other boys at Clongowes. In one scene Stephen is pushed into a cesspool by a boy named Wells. Remembering his father’s admonishment to never “peach on a fellow,” Stephen remains quiet and lets the incident slide, thus sparing Wells from punishment. In return, Stephen contracts an infection and must spend some time recuperating in the infirmary. In Stephen’s mind such actions are saint-like; however, his innocence and sense of morality, both products of his devout beliefs, leave him open to manipulation.

Near the end of the chapter, Stephen’s eyeglasses are inadvertently broken as he is jostled by a careless schoolmate. While he waits for a new pair to arrive from his parents, Stephen has been excused from his studies by Father Arnell, a prefect at Clongowes. As Stephen sits quietly while the other boys work, Father Dolan, a much more rigid prefect, pays an unexpected visit and chastises Stephen for not working. Convinced Stephen broke his own glasses in order to avoid schoolwork, Father Dolan punishes him with a rap on each hand from a “pandybat.” Father Dolan’s accusation of lying stings Stephen’s heart just as much, if not more, than the pandybat stung his hands. Though angry, he is willing to remain silent and simply forget the matter. However, his classmates, who have received similar punishments from Father Dolan, are able to convince Stephen that the punishment was not only unjust but excessive and that the incident should be reported. Fearing further reprimands from Father Dolan and seeing an opportunity to gain the respect of his schoolmates, Stephen ignores his father’s warning to never tattle and reports the incident to the rector, Father Conmee. As he re-emerges from Father Conmee’s office, Stephen is suddenly seen as a hero in the eyes of his schoolmates. Celebrating the only way they know how, the boys hoist Stephen onto their shoulders as if he had just scored the winning goal in a heated soccer match.


Early in this chapter , we see that Stephen views the world from the eyes of a poet, even as a young boy. As he watches the “rough boys” at play, he sees the ball as a “greasy leather orb” that flies “like a heavy bird through the grey light.” As an aspiring poet, wordplay becomes important to Stephen and he revels in the ambiguity of the English language: “He kept his hands in the side pockets of his belted grey suit. That was a belt round his pocket. And belt was also to give a fellow a belt. One day a fellow had said to Cantwell: I’d give you such a belt in a second.” His romance with words and language will ultimately bring Stephen recognition (and a small bit of wealth) not as a poet, but as an essayist.

As a young scholar, Stephen is happiest when engaged in academic pursuits. This may be seen in the contrast between the interior (mental) and the exterior (physical) worlds in which Stephen moves. The interior of Clongowes is often associated with images of fires or fireplaces, symbolizing warmth or happiness. Conversely, the exterior of Clongowes is usually depicted as “cold” or “grey,” symbolizing isolation, alienation, and unhappiness. “It would be better to be in the study hall than out there in the cold,” Stephen notes. “The sky was pale and cold but there were lights in the castle.”

Chapter I ends on a victorious and optimistic note for Stephen. His confession to Father Conmee regarding Father Dolan’s unjust punishment has earned him some respect and acceptance among his peers and the act has left him feeling “happy and free.” However, Fate is about to deal the Dedalus family a bad hand which, for Stephen, will destroy “any vision of the future.”

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: A Brief Overview

James Joyce published A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in 1916, after re-working a stalled manuscript titled Stephen Hero. Portrait, Joyce’s first novel, chronicles the intellectual awakening of Stephen Dedalus (a.k.a. Joyce’s alter-ego), one of the protagonists of Ulysses. As the title suggests, Portrait is the most autobiographical of Joyce’s works. The novel is a fictionalized and highly condensed version of Joyce’s boyhood education in the Jesuit schools of Clongowes Wood College and Belvedere College. It might also be noted that Portrait serves as a prequel of sorts to Ulysses.

Portrait is a prime example of the Kunstlerroman, (novel of the artist), which is an offshoot of the Bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel). Typically, the Kunstlerroman examines the artist’s development from childhood to the point at which his or her artistic potential is realized. Other examples of the artist’s novel include Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. What is interesting about Portrait, however, is that this development occurs in the mind of its protagonist, Stephen Dedalus. Through a series of epiphanies, Dedalus’ intellect gradually develops, and this process is reflected in the novel’s narrative style. Beginning with snapshot-like memories of a schoolboy and ending with the theoretical musings of a young university student, we witness the metamorphosis of the introspective and philosophical Stephen Dedalus.

Unlike Ulysses, I will not be reading Portrait for the first time. My initial encounter with the novel occurred a few years ago in college. Back then, I studied the novel in relation to the Modernist period of literature and the ways in which it compared and contrasted with its contemporaries. However, this time around I am interested in seeing how the novel leads up to Ulysses as well as seeing if Portrait helps shine some light on Joyce’s more difficult work.

The Great Gatsby Quotes

"In my younger and more vulernable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
'Whenever you feel like critizing anyone,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'" -- Nick Carraway, Chapter 1

"Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope." --Nick Carraway, Chapter 1

"Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction--Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life..." Nick Carraway, Chapter 1

"No--Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it was what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men." --Nick Carraway, Chapter 1

"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness." --Daisy Buchanan, Chapter 1

"It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it..." --Nick Carraway describing Daisy, Chapter 1

"'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.'" --Daisy, on the birth of her daughter, Chapter 1

"This is a valley of ashes--a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air." Nick Carraway, Chapter 2

"Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtures, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever met." --Nick Carraway, Chapter 3

"On Sunday morning while church bells rang in the villages along shore the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn." --Nick Carraway, Chapter 4

"No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart." --Nick Carraway, Chapter 5

"'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!" --Gatsby, Chapter 6

"'Her voice is full of money,' he said suddenly." --Gatsby describing Daisy, Chapter 7

"So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight." --Nick Carraway, Chapter 7

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Nick Carraway, Chapter 9

From Ulysses to The Great Gatsby

A number of years ago–never mind how many exactly–I was walking home from school when suddenly the idyllic autumn afternoon was disrupted by a strong, hindering wind. For several seconds, it felt as though a large, invisible hand was pushing me backwards. By leaning forward and squinting my watery eyes, I managed to take several strained steps forward before the wind died down. For the few moments it took my body to adjust to the sudden lack of resistance, I felt weightless and fleet of foot. Though still walking, I felt as if I were sprinting home.

That same feeling returned to me as I transitioned from Ulysses to The Great Gatsby. For six nights I had been bogged down by James Joyce’s allusions and chaotic stream of consciousness narrative. By the time I finished the novel, I was exhausted. I felt as though as I had executed the mental equivalent of walking a mile through knee-deep muck. As I began reading Gatsby, however, I felt like an Olympic sprinter. My steps were quick and light as I burned through half the novel in one sitting.

That is not to say that Gatsby is inferior to Ulysses. Both are carefully crafted masterpieces. Both works encompass and embody their respective countries. Both Joyce and Fitzgerald were masters of fiction and to this day remain influential authors. Where the two authors (and their novels) seem to part company, however, may be seen in the means by which they chose to tell their respective tales. Joyce’s account of a day in the life of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom is a dense and indulgent exploration of the boundaries of English prose. Gatsby, on the other hand, is sparse and assuming, but by no means insubstantial.

Unlike Ulysses, I have read The Great Gatsby before–once in high school and twice now for pleasure. In some ways, the novel was new to me this time around. For example, the character of Jay Gatsby is younger than I remembered. I had previously envisioned him as a silver-haired, distinguished gentlemen in the twilight of his life. In actuality, the character is thirty-something but possesses the air of a much older man.

Needless to say, I was quite relieved to proceed to The Great Gatsby. Having been thoroughly challenged by Ulysses, I was in desperate need of a more enjoyable reading experience. Something that would rejuvenate my spirit and kick-start my enthusiasm. However, as I breezed through Gatsby, I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. Should I even be reading a novel this accessible, a novel this enjoyable? Am I failing to find the deeper meaning of Fitzgerald’s words? Should I somehow be further challenging myself as reader? However, as I read on, I realized it is perfectly acceptable to just sit back and admire the craftsmanship of a master storyteller. Besides, compared to Ulysses, the rest of the books on my list are all “quick reads.”