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Title: Island (Perennial Classics) |
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Review of Island (Perennial Classics)
In Island, his last novel, Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala and events begin to move when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and -- to his amazement -- give him hope.
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Comments for Island (Perennial Classics)
- Posted on 2008-08-26
Utopia Vs Dystopia
If you read a Brave New World you have to read also this one.
Is the more mature vision of a possible better world from Huxley totally different that the first dystopia.
It was written back in the 60's but the book remains actual...
Score: 5
- Posted on 2008-08-14
Published in 1962, but still relevant!
I absolutely loved this book! Eckhart Tolle in "The Power of Now" actually references this book and that is how I heard of it. Despite the fact that much of the book is ruled by long monologues from the characters, I enjoyed it all. Huxley had an interesting view of what a society can become when it takes the best of the Eastern and Western worlds combine.
Score: 5 - Posted on 2007-12-24
A tool to living...
I was a fan of "Brave New World" as well as Huxley himself and without hesitation picked up this enlightening book. I believe this book invokes numerous topics of discussion be it politics, capitalism, individuality, spirituality, etc. I personally feel out of all those components I listed above Huxley emphasizes the concept of spirituality, particularly Buddhist philosophies. I believe Will Faranby was both a protagonist and a antagonist, but thats open to interpretation. Huxley wrote this book giving the reader an opportunity to see how spirituality shapes and impacts a persons perception of him/herself (the being) and the world. The book centered around the progression of Will Faranby's introspective of consciousness. Huxley incorporated hallucinogenics aka moksha-medicine as being totally appropriate and relevant to the characters development, thus solidifying Farnaby's introspective of himself. In essence, the moksha-medicine was an eye-opening, yet intense experience that ultimately gave the main character a deeper awareness to the world and his own personal existence (the being).
Score: 5 - Posted on 2007-11-01
Island
Island
Aldous Huxley
354 pages
13.95
ISBN 0-06-008549-5
HarperCollins Books
I was browsing around Borders, looking for a book to get for this personal reading assignment when Island by Aldous Huxley caught my eye. I assumed from its title and cover that it was some type of survival book about a group of people stranded on an island, struggling to make a fire and to get some food. However, I was completely wrong. Island is actually a book about Huxley's idea of perfect society. This isolated island in the story called Pala, receives only limited outside influence, making all of its unique culture possible. The story begins when Journalist Will Farnaby crashes his sailboat and washes up on the island's shore. Throughout the story Will learns all about this unique society, while Huxley articulates his view about human nature and the possibility of a utopia.
When Will arrives on the island he's confused and upset, not only at himself but also at the world. However, as he sees more and more of this unique society during his stay in Pala, he discovers a lot about himself. This completely changes his outlook on life, "revolutionizes all his values and - to his amazement - gives him hope." While the reader learns about Pala, the existence of its unique philosophy, customs and policies are being threatened. Its soon-to-be-leader Murugan plans to change Pala entirely. Like his idol Colonel Dipa, military dictator of a nearby country, Murugan has an obsession for power. He wants Pala to be an industrial, strong and powerful country. This means he aims to build up a huge army, sell Pala's oil reserves and modernize the island completely.
Huxley does a great job developing characters which helps support his theme about the complexity of human nature. And while explaining how this utopian society functions, Huxley raises some interesting points that make you re-think our surprisingly twisted way of life. Though it's not difficult to read, there are a fair amount of long dull parts, so I don't recommend it to those who want an exciting story. The New York Times book Review stated that, "In this book, Mr. Huxley has said his final word about the possibility of the good society. Island challenges the political scientist, the psychologist, the philosopher, and the theologian." I agree, in that it's a good book for people interested in this subject, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2007-07-26
Less than Magical, and Weak as a Work of Literature
OK, let's for a moment disregard the Robinson Crusoe-like opening where the hero, a reporter named William Asquith Farnaby, is discovered by two children lying injured on a deserted beach of the mystical, forbidden island of Pala, located somewhere in Indonesia or Micronesia (perhaps a wordplay on the real island of Palau?). Let's also forget that the hero's seemingly inadvertent arrival in Pala happily coincides with his robber baron boss Joe Aldehyde's intentions that Farnaby visit Pala for reasons having to do with giving Aldehyde's companies access to the island's reputedly rich but untapped oil supply. What are we left with?
In Aldous Huxley's last published novel, he returned to the notion of creating his own (micro-) world. Unlike the futuristic nightmare of BRAVE NEW WORLD, however, Huxley's Pala is a veritable nirvana. For over 120 years, Pala has largely closed itself off to the outside world and developed its own form of ideal society. Pala is characterized by free love, communal child-raising, shared manual labor, an educational system based in part on Zen Buddhist principles, adoption of technology only where the essential needs and benefits vastly outweigh the costs, and consciousness-raising through hallucinogenic drugs. A certain amount of religious mysticism has also held sway, particularly as regards the afterlife.
Now, at the time of Farnaby's oddly convenient arrival, Pala's peaceful calm is threatened from within and without. From within, the prince and future ruler Murugan favors modernization, exploitation of Pala's oil resources, and crass materialism (represented by a Sears, Roebuck catalog over which he salivates like a teenager with his first copy of Penthouse); his mother favors the same policies as a means to finance her own cultish, self-promoting religious program to save the world. The external threats are most clearly embodied in Colonel Dipa, the industrialize-at-all-costs leader of the nearby island of Rendang-Lobo. Of course, Dipa is only a puppet of the true threats to Pala: big oil and other avaricious Western corporations and governments that would cannibalize Pala's utopian world in the name of profit. In this story, Farnaby is their front man.
While Farnaby recuperates for a month on Pala, he is given full access to the workings of their society. He is educated in Palan ways like a child would be taught, exposed to Zen notions of not-ness, suchness, and experiencing of the here and now. Farnaby is taken to visit schools and learn about Palan health care, and over time, he is led to the point where he is guided through his first alternate reality encounter with the help of the local hallucinogenic, the so-called "moksha-medicine." His moksha trip forces him to confront his own personal demons of divorce, infidelity, and a fear of death that he melodramatically refers to as the Essential Horror.
Can Will become a new and better Will and master his demons in just 30 days on Pala? Will he see Pala in a new light and reject his old ways and the wishes of his economic marauder boss, Aldehyde? Can he convince Prince Murugan that his notions of development and modernization will destroy the very things that make his country unique? Will Farnaby somehow act to prevent the Aldehyde-backed Colonel Dipa from leading the Rendangians in an invasion of Pala that will mirror the Italians entering Ethiopia or the Chinese entering Tibet? Or will he be so drugged up on the moksha-medicine that he won't care one way or the other?
Regretably, Huxley fails to achieve the sense of identification that would generate enough empathy for the reader truly to care. Palan society reads today like a quaint rendition of a hippie commune thirty years after Woodstock. At the same time, Huxley's characters are wooden, one-dimensional caricatures of what they represent, from the robber baron Aldehyde, the psychologically scarred Farnaby, and the enlightened Westerner Dr. Robert MacPhail to the fiberglass boat, Italian motor scooter-grubbing Prince Murugan, the despotic Colonel Dipa, and the inscrutably oriental Susila (now a MacPhail, naturally). By the end, I found myself recalling fondly my better high school readings: Hilton's LOST HORIZON, Goldings LORD OF THE FLIES, Swift's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, Voltaire's CANDIDE, even Huxley's own BRAVE NEW WORLD. Unless you are an avid Huxley fan or a zealous Zen Buddhist, I'd recommend taking a pass on ISLAND.
Score: 3
