I found this futuristic book fascinating. This classic was written in the early 30s. The book is about a Utopian society ruled by a totalitarian government. The government ruled society with science and technology. There was no such thing as marriage, and people did not have parents. In what is basically a factory, they produce many embryos. The society consists of many castes each of which is assigned a Greek letter (with alpha being the highest caste, then beta, etc.). Each caste consists of similarly made up people; both in terms of physical and intellectual characteristics. The higher casts are conditioned to be more physically and intellectually impressive. The people who are part of the society consider themselves to be "civilized," while they call people who are not part of this society "savages." In addition, when one is different from the rest of his/her caste rumors fly around about things happening to this person's embryo during their development. For example, since Bernard is "different" from the rest of his caste, people say that alcohol got into his embryo and that is the reason he has turned out the way he has.
Relationships in this society are also very interesting. It is not only accepted, but also encouraged for people to be involved with multiple people of the opposite sex at the same time. The concept of love is not known/accepted in the society.
The way the children learn is also very interesting. Instead of actually teaching the children, when the children are asleep they listen to lessons being repeated over and over again. They have done scientific experiments proving the fact that this is the most effective learning strategy.
Another interesting thing about the book is the characters' use of something called soma. This has a similar affect to alcohol and is used in the book as an answer to everything.
Hey Mike it's me Saumik. The book that you blogged on reminds me of the book we read in 5th grade: The Giver. Much like this book, the setting is the Utopian society gone bad. But what is bad but an opinion? If this was the normal society, our society would seem foreign and odd to us as well. The castes you mentioned remind me of the castes in India we studied last year. The upper classes were seen to be most fit and successful. I'll definatly pick this book up in the near future.
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