Hey Palestinian Jew

[Zhukov]

I noticed in your signature that you thought Brave New World was a classic.....

Now I've read 1984 and loved it. I read Zamyatin's We and loved that too, but I'm sorry, Brave New World was just god awful.

What exactly did you like about it? And, if you've read the other two dystopia books I mentioned, how do you think it compared to them?

 

[Palestinian Jew]

I'm going to read Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 just to go along with my nwo theme. I can understand why someone would hate "A Brave New World". I like books that are very different from other books, and BNW I thought was one of them, but I haven't read the two you mentioned, so my opinion of BNW could change.

One reason I liked it is because I'm into psychology and so it was interesting reading about how the children go through aversion therepy and classical conditioning to become robots.
And its also interesting because you see that a society that provides everything for its citizens, even every pleasure, can be a living hell for members of the society that think outside the box.

 

[Zhukov]

Zamyatin (who wrote We) lived in the Soviet Union until 1932. He had first hand experience with the psychology of a totalitarian state, and it is widely accepted that he inspired both 1984 and Brave New World. Between We and 1984 I'm not too sure which I liked better.

I found Brave New World, having read it last, to be the least interesting of the three. I found the characters to be shallow and uninteresting. I felt the novel was more a description of the apparatus of the society than it was about the psychology of the people who lived in it.

I've never read Fahrenheit 451 because I dislike Bradbury's writting style.

Off-track completely, a really good dystopia movie is George Lucas' THX 1138, which is a feature film version of a movie he made in college.

 

[Zhukov]

Incidentally, if you want a book about psychology try the one I'm reading now, Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment.

 

[Palestinian Jew]

Incidentally, if you want a book about psychology try the one I'm reading now, Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment.

I'll check it out after I read Woodward's book and "1984".

 

[MtnBiker]

Originally posted by Zhukov




Off-track completely, a really good dystopia movie is George Lucas' THX 1138, which is a feature film version of a movie he made in college. [/B]

Good movie, one of Robert Duvall's first films.

 

[Semper Fi]

My English teacher recommended that I read Brave New World after I did a book report on 1984. I havent gotten around to reading it yet. So Zhukov, other than character personality, what was bad about it? Did it focus more on big-picture ideas, or was it just poorly written?

I'll look into this "we", I'll look it up on amazon right now, actually.

 

[Comrade]

Originally posted by Zhukov
Incidentally, if you want a book about psychology try the one I'm reading now, Dostoyevski's Crime and Punishment.

Russian novels are soooo ponderous. PONDEROUS!

In one quarter for on class, we were assigned "Crime and Punishment", "War and Peace", and "Brothers Karamazov", and other texts which came to 2000+ pages.


Thank god for cribnotes.

 

[Zhukov]

So Zhukov, other than character personality, what was bad about it? Did it focus more on big-picture ideas, or was it just poorly written?

It was incredibly uninteresting, the entire plot was, quite frankly, stupid, and after having read We and 1984, it seemed by comparison quite unoriginal.

Russian novels are soooo ponderous. PONDEROUS!

In one quarter for on class, we were assigned "Crime and Punishment", "War and Peace", and "Brothers Karamazov", and other texts which came to 2000+ pages.

I think War and Peace was quite possibly the greatest novel I've ever read, and I'm reading Crime and Punishment right now and that's quite good as well.

You want ponderous, try Dickens. He's awful.

 

[Comrade]

It was incredibly uninteresting, the entire plot was, quite frankly, stupid, and after having read We and 1984, it seemed by comparison quite unoriginal.



I think War and Peace was quite possibly the greatest novel I've ever read, and I'm reading Crime and Punishment right now and that's quite good as well.

You want ponderous, try Dickens. He's awful.

I really need to pick up those books and finish them sometime. Hey, are you one of those who can read Russian? I'd love to get enough of my language back to read them in orginal Russian.

 

[Zhukov]

I can read russian, but not well enough that I would try to read complex novels of this sort. It would be too tedious, and I wouldn't be able to enjoy the book to nearly the same extent.