Between Man and Beast

A colorful and exciting account of a chapter of natural history, Between Man and Beast by Monte Reel is the story of Paul du Challiu, "discoverer" of the gorilla.

du Challiu was an “adventurer” (or traveler, as his critics later denounced him) who - although ignorant of the scientific methods and painstaking research the larger scientific community demanded - set out into the African Bush, becoming the first white man to ever lay eyes on the gorilla. The long mythologized animal had been described by Africans as some sort of cross between man and beast or a hairy man among other fun descriptions. The creature was then duly shot by du Challiu, preserved and stuffed, shipped off to museums and lecture halls across Europe and America, making du Challiu a legend in his own time.

du Challiu was a lad of uncertain origins (those origins are later uncovered by Reel and their socially damning facts are revealed). He came of age in equatorial Africa, eventually falling under the care of protestant missionaries. du Challiu longs to create a new identity for himself. Under the sponsorship of The Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, he enters the African bush, ostensibly to collect birds for that institution. On his mind, however, was the creature he had heard the African people refer to as “nyega” – the gorilla. While away from civilization, he encounters and befriends natives, does a good deal of collecting for the museum, and at long last, “discovers” the gorilla. When du Challiu emerges from the bush, he spends some time in obscurity before finally publishing his book, Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, which details his journey and becomes a bestseller.

 Once they reach America, du Challiu’s gorillas seem to touch every part of society, from the base (PT Barnum had some interesting ideas about how to prevent the young gorilla hunter from upstaging him) to the more enlightened; Edwin Stanton used the term gorilla as the ultimate derision when describing Lincoln. Struggling between the worlds of science and entertainment, du Challiu’s gorillas never really get their footing in America. Eventually deciding to try Europe, du Challiu unveils his creatures at a lecture in London. From here, du Challiu is drawn into the world of Victorian London’s scientific circles. In the days when Darwin had just published on the On the Origin of Species, scientific clubs seemed to abound and men such as Livingstone and andkan were stomping all over the globe, the Union Jack in tow. du Challiu was plunged – gorillas and all – into the debates that were raging over evolution. Both pro-evolution and anti-evolution forces used his gorilla to prove their case. The gorilla was seen as man’s nearest wild relative and was therefore a lightning rod for the evolution conversation, which was taking place in the scientific journals and rarified clubs great men frequented. This was a world that was fascinating to glimpse. Reel does a superb job of setting us down into a pipe-smoke filled, oak paneled room fairly brimming with the great minds of its day. The mix of men of science, the cloth and great wealth and titles at the height of Victorian Imperialism was a tasty treat for me (a confirmed anglophile) and I devoured with relish such scenes as Huxley and Bishop’s historic debate (not as intense as history has claimed, alas) as well as Dr. Owen cozying up is his house provided for him by none other than Queen Victoria herself

Due to his total lack of education in the sciences, du Challiu was called, in some quarters, a fraud. His book’s directions were murky, his maps incorrect, his drawings unscientific – in all, what was originally seen as a book of science was, in short order, denounced as a book of travel, and an inaccurate one at that. These great British men of learning were, in many ways, jealous schoolboys. Their foibles leaves the reader chuckling sometimes at how “evolved” they were. Some of the criticisms leveled at du Challiu were legitimate; others were just weird. Yet, there was real work to be done here, and du Challiu takes the steps needed to gain the respect of the scientific community and at long last, create and identity for himself of which he can be proud.

What could be a dry account of a little remembered sliver of history is rendered delightful in Reel's hands. Although his prejudices shine through (he is clearly on board with the evolutionists and doesn’t hold much water with those who object on religious grounds), he never insults and he seems to want to give every person represented a good showing. The comic infighting amongst the scientists and explorers of the day is revealing and amusing. The stories from the African Bush are unique and enlightening. But what shines through the most is Natural History itself. One gains an appreciation for the art of discovering new terrains and new species, decoding the history of earth and its inhabitants, and all that we now take for granted as being long-known being discovered. A read of Between Man and Beast will make you want to renew your National Geographic subscription or take a walk through your local Natural History Museum. I sure did.

The Signature of All Things

The latest effort from blockbuster author from Elizabeth Gilbert is the novel, The Signature of All Things. I read it. I scratched my head. I read some more. Hmmmm….

It wasn’t that I didn’t like it. It wasn’t that I did. It was just…what an odd book. What a very odd book indeed.

Alma Whitaker is a woman born into privilege in 18^th century Philadelphia. Her father is the irascible Henry Whitaker, a low-born Englishman and amateur botanist who makes it his mission in life to acquire tons of money so he can thumb his nose at the high society types who snubbed him (mission accomplished, by the way). Henry is a tough character to like-his deathbed comments on the subject of sailing during his youth are just, well, icky. He is at least a character, though. Alma never really shines the way her father does. Bookish and intelligent, she spends her youth studying botany, languages, etc. etc. She adores geometry and Greek. She dedicates her life to the study of plants. She is deadly dull, frankly; not in itself a problem, but still….I mean, we are talking dull.

So, to assuage her dullness, Alma discovers a passion for a new hobby: locking herself in the binding closet in the library and, er, alleviating the tension that builds from reading certain risqué, banned books. Catch my drift? Well, this mundane activity that millions of girls the world over likely indulged in is apparently a very important part of Alma’s life, as it is referenced again and again in the book. That remains sort of the only thing that happens until Prudence shows up.

Prudence is the orphaned daughter of a prostitute. She is taken in by Alma’s mother, a staunch Dutch woman who is a bright spot in this strange tale. Once adopted, Prudence serves little purpose in the story aside from making the reader go insane over how dull and lifeless and nearly catatonic she is. Alma, too, nearly goes mad, for not only is Prudence cold as ice, she is also extremely beautiful, so she’s doubly annoying. Upon talking to the family housekeeper later in life, Alma learns some facts about Prudence that explain a good deal of her inscrutable character – but the facts are not interesting enough to justify the existence of the girl in this book.

Another character I puzzled over was Rhetta. I wanted Rhetta to have a point. I thought her entrance into the story was a signal that something was going to happen to Alma that was exciting. Alas, no. Although Rhetta has a fate that isn’t exactly as dull as Alma’s (cloistered nuns don’t lead a life as dull as Alma), she doesn’t seem to have an effect on the destiny of the central character aside from putting into relief some facts about her life (facts too revealed in that later conversation with housekeeper).

When a talented young man named Amos comes to White Acre, the family home, Alma’s days of locking herself in the binding closet seem to be at an end. After some unique experiences together, they marry and begin an unconventional and unhappy marriage that leaves Alma mystified. Here, one feels for Alma. She may be as boring as sin, but she is a woman after all and what transpires between her and Amos is sad. And sad for him as well. Not cry over it sad. Not, “I can’t put this book down” sad. Just sort of a downer. It at least propels Alma to do something at long last. However, what she does ends up being sort of odd. At any rate, she has an adventure and the story drags on with uninspired revelations (a person ends up having an unusual name she thought meant something else, for example) and somewhat dull characters. (A minister who simply does not see the harm in anything ever, oh-what-a-lovely-man.)

While I seem to be knocking this tale of…a middle aged scientist quasi-shut-in woman…I really am not. I am just figuring it out. It is a wonderful book and an awful book at the same time. The opening third of the story is quite nice. The saga of Henry Whitaker is terrific. Knowing Gilbert’s ways, we can be confident that whether in the parlor of a lord who is scoffing at him or on the deck of a ship piloted by none other than Captain Cook, Henry’s experiences could have been authentic. Upon making good and settling in America, he marries and has Alma. The second part of this book dries up a little to me. It is largely concerned with Alma’s research, her time in the binding closet and her relationships with her peers – namely Prudence, Rhetta and George, a colleague and friend who lives nearby. These four young people have overlapping and conflicted relationships with each other that come to light later. The final third seems to lag. Just what Alma is hoping to accomplish is okay, but not enough to propel a person across the world in a day and age when travel was extremely difficult. In fact, what  I enjoyed most was hearing about her journey from Philadelphia, around the Cape of Good Hope, through the South Seas to Tahiti – a woman alone on a boat with only men for months 200 years ago is a cool things to read about. But once she lands in Tahiti I lost it. I literally was falling asleep while reading half the time.

Yet something is making resist panning it. The writing was lovely. The language and mood were consistent with the time and place in which the story was supposed to have occurred. The book was jammed with facts and populated with smart people, so one feels smart while reading it. And becomes a little smarter too (I did not know, for example, that when starving it is better to eat bugs than to waste the energy hunting. Good to know). It’s an odd book about people who accomplish very little in their lives that benefits the world at large, an idea that is explored in the juxtaposition of Alma’s life and who Prudence eventually becomes. Gilbert’s voice shines through – her love of travel, her preoccupation with sex, her mile-wide feminist streak - and with Gilbert, you always get a good dose of humor.

 If you are a Gilbert fan (c’mon, who isn’t) then I actually would not not  recommend this. It’s a part of her body of work and her work is all united by how damn intelligently she writes. That shines through from Captain Cook’s ship decks to the darkness of a binding closet. Weird….but intelligent nonetheless.

If Today Be Sweet

I was eagerly looking forward to this book, since it was the only remaing one by Thrity Umrigar that I had not read. Ummm....while there were some things I enjoyed (which I will get to), overall it was an enormous dissapointment.

What was fundamentally wrong with the book in my eyes was the polt - there really wasn't one. The story revolves around Tehima, a recent widow who lives in Bombay, but is staying in suburban Cleveland with her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson. Tehima is trying to decide whether to stay in the States to be near her family, or return home to Bombay. Umrigar seems to think that - plus some side issues that are minor and extremely uninspired- is enough to keep a story rolling for XXX chapters. Well, although I am for unique subject matter, the musings of an Indian woman whiling away her days in a housing complex in the suburbs in December....it just doesn't do it for me. There is nothing there to work with. Will she stay in America or not? Natually, like any major life decision, it's a big one and there is a lot to consider. But....that isn't interesing - it isn't intresting at all.


I found the characters to be lacking, which was really surprising. Normally, I love Umrigar's characters, and I feel character developement is her best skill. Yet, the charcters in Today Be Sweet were unnatural. That these were living, breathing people never became real to me. The dialouge felt like a writing student wrote it. Especaily Shomabr, the son of Tehima. He is a 38 year man, but I just do not hear the men in my life sounding like that. He reads like a middle aged woman wrote him- which is the truth. Furthermore, I didn't like one single character in the book, although I could occasionally warm up to Susan, the daughter-in-law. Tehima was insufferable. Her thoughts and perspectives on America were lazy and so overgeneralized, it is surprising that Umrigar has lived here for over twenty years. Let' see: Americans are obsessed with money, think that good food is fast food, are clean freaks who worship their homes (which are all newly constructd and lacking in character). Tehima would be the most annoying mother-in-law ever! Everything about the lifestyle her son and daughter-in-law have created is unsatisfactory to her. Where they live, the style of house, the neighbors, the neighborhood, the way they spend their money, the way they spend their vacations- and what does she expect? Everyhing in America is compared, in her mind, unfavorabley to India, but guess what? This is America! It's not going to be like India. Dislike it, fine, but quit trying to figure out why the whole country is doing everything wrong acording to you. Trust me, this isn't a patriot's mad attempt to defend her country against anything. Bring on any criticism you like. I know it's not perfct here. But this...this is laziness. It's incorrect.


Take the farmer's market scene, for excample. Here, we have Tehima and her friend going to a farmer's market in Cleveland on a December day. Tehima laments that her son and daughter-in-law shop at the supermarket, where everything is not fresh and has no taste. Well, you are at a farmer's market in Cleveland in December. What fresh fruit and vegetables are you going to get? I guarantee every single thing you touch has been shipped in from someplace - could possibyt be the same place the wretched supermarket uses. But becasue Americans are tasteless, classless sheep who love everything to be dumbed down for us, we cannot appreciate a farmer's market like they have in India. And of course, whenever Tehima sees an unsavory characteristic in her son, it is that America has changed him. Did I mention I don't like this character? Her superiority complex is so annoying it nearly ruins the book. Perhaps Umrigar was not trying to make an appealing character. That very well may be, because she is too skilled of a writer for this to be an accident.


Thre are redeeming qualities to the book. Occasional glimpses into human nature. Lovely passages of writing. Most of the characters, although not appealing, have okay moments - even Tehima. As a Clevelander, I appreciated some references to places I know well. This was an easy read, although I didn't devour it like I normally do with Umrigar's writing. It simply didn't live up to her previous work. Maybe if Umriagr wasn't so good, this book would not be so bad. From a sub-par author, it would do. I am still looking forward to whatever she does next, and would recommend this if you are an Umrigar fan; it's not bad enough to skip if you're interested in her work. In my opinion, the order of her books, from best to worst, is: The Space Between Us; First Darling of the Morning and Bombay Time are tied for second; The Weight of Heaven and finally, If Today Be Sweet.

The Paris Wife

This book is so wonderful, it's only fair to warn you before you read any further - there will be gushing in the review. Unabashed, shameless, gushing. I'm a fairly picky reader, and have read a lot of good stuff over the years, so I consider myself fairly discerning. This book was better than I expected, every bit as good as some of the so-called classics that are out there, a page-turning story with plenty of "drama" going on and still, at the same time, a quiet look at the interior life of one woman.

Okay, let me catch my breath and explain.

The Paris Wife, by Paula McClain, is the fictionalized tale of Hadley Richardson, first wife of Ernest Hemingway. Before Hemingway was Hemingway, she married the unknown witer based on not too much more than dizzying adoration and sex appeal (on both sides). She traveled with him to live as starving artist ex-pats in Paris, she bore his son, she read his stuff and modestly entertained his freinds (folks like Gertrude Stein, so picture that after dinner talk). This is a quiet book about a quiet woman. She was not subserveint per se, just very traditional and supportive of her husband, because he was a genuis and she believed that. The love shared by Hadley and Ersnest is so real, so intimately portrayed, one fairly blushes at being allowed a look into their little story. For Hadley, the small and special life they share seems to be enough. She comes from a somewhat sad and dysfunctional family, and Ernest becomes her best freind, her family. Their life is Paris satisfies her, especially when she begins to seriously study the piano. But Hemingway being the man who we all know would eventually stalk big game in Africa and go fishing off Catalina and be a bullfighting enthusiast and all that - he has less success contending himself with a small life.

What happnes in this book, as even McClain says at the start, is no surprise. We all know the saga of Hemingway and his many wives and sad life. But when coupled with what he says in his own words in A Moveable Feast, this story is as tragic and beautiful and sad and moving as any I have ever read. Becaue he loved her and he never stopped loving her, it makes one take a moment to look at someone who, on the surface, is a simple housewife (ugh, hate that term) and say, "I want to know a little something about her." That is the strength of this story, too; the fact that, had she never married Hemingway, Hadley Richardson would likely be unknown to us today. But she was someone, someone with value, not just the Paris wife, or starter wife, who Ernest traded in when success and fame and money came. She was intelliegent and well read. She loved music and had a sophisticated ear. She was thoughtful and loyal. She never was judgemental, always understanding that men and women have a host of imperfections, and recognizing which of those she could endure, and which she ultimately could not. I identified with her strongly. Her story was a great one, respectfully told by a skilled writer.

Team of Rivals

Team of Rivals, by noted historian Doris Kearns-Goodwin has been on my bookshelf for years. My mother-in-law gave it to me when it as first published, after she had tried and failed to get interested in the story. It seemed I was doomed to the same fate, finding the large cast of characters to be confusing and just not being in the mood for it. Yet I always went back to this book, knowing that if I could just work through my initial inability to be captured by the story, I would be okay. And finally I did. And it was worth the wait.

The story of how Lincoln rather improbably became the nominee for the White House on the Republican ticket in 1860 is a fascinating one. The tale of what he did after - running a terrific campaign, working past the prejudices of those who saw him as unschooled hick, bringing together warring factions of his party to form unity - this is the stuff that has made the Lincoln legend so compelling to generation after generation. In a time unlike any other, with a country facing civil war, Lincoln was the man for the job. If one is so inclined - and I am - ordained by God, to navigate through what remain the darkest days of our history.

Kerns-Goodwin named her book Team of Rivals because, once elected, Lincoln made the master move of including his former rivals for the nomination as key members of his cabinet. He also maintained a balance in his cabinet that helped to placate the various states in the union and wings of the newly formed Republican party. There were the radicals; men like Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, who despised slavery and saw the war as a means of ending it. And, there were more conservative men like Montgomery Blair, a powerful figure in Washington whom Lincoln named as Postmaster General, and who remained loyal to Lincoln even after his forced resignation.

Secretary of State Henry Seward emerges as the most capable and ethical "teammate" for the President, as well as being simply a fascinating man. I walked away wanting to read a book about him and him alone, for he was so much what a statesman is imaged as and ought to be. Truly, Seward - who was a passionate anti-slavery advocate with a long, distinguished career in the Senate - was Lincoln's closet confidante, a friend who was often the sounding board for the President and who many times endured criticisms as being the power-behind the throne. Nothing could have been further from the truth - Lincoln was his own man.

Like Seward, Edwin Stanton (Secretary of War) shines in this story. Stanton was not the most likable of men, and he initially treated Lincoln with contempt. However, he quickly understood the genius of Lincoln and came to respect him enormously. The two men had a necessarily close relationship, since after all, the Civil War was happening for the entirety of the Lincoln presicedcy. One sees how they played off each other; Lincoln giving Stanton all the room in world to run his War Department as brilliantly as he did, but ultimately never relinquishing his role as Commander in Chief. It is a fascinating example of judicious use of Presidential power, and an example of what (I think) our founders would have envisioned.

The places these people inhabited during the 1850's and '60's come alive under Goodwin's skilled descriptive powers. One can almost feel themselves there at Kate Chase's elegant dinners or walking from one Department head's home to another's in Washington at twilight. Lincoln with his feet up at the telegraph office or on horseback visiting his beleagered troops is a sight I could easily see in  my mind's eye, thanks to Godwin's patient unfolding of scene after scene. She all but lights a fire for us to curl up to while she describes what the men and women of the day were doing. Conversations, moods and conflicts are as expertly rendered as at the hands of the most adept novelist.

It seems that, more than any other president, understanding Lincoln the man is essential in understanding Lincoln the leader. This book focuses on the workings of a war-time administration, so there is some biographical detail of the early Lincoln, Mary Todd and others, but not an exhaustive study, which is good. Anyone already familiar with the life stories of these figures would have no interest in, for example, walking back over the dreary boyhood of Abe Lincoln. But Lincoln's personality and life experiences influenced him profoundly as a leader, perhaps in no way more than his penchance for forgiving and even rewarding those who had done him ill. When things sour between Lincoln and Chase, Lincoln rightly accepts Chase's resignation. Yet he names Chase as Chief Justcice. A picture emerges of Lincoln as a man always thinking, always aware, always able to know where he stands and what will work, but not bloviating about it all the time. Even-tempered and kind, he never grossly asserted himself, but just was who he was and did what he had to do, always thinking of the welfare of those around him. When his beloved son, Willie, died in the White House, Lincoln was consumed with grief, but never once shirked his duties. Goodwin reveals the person Lincoln was and not the myths that surround him. She suggests he was not the depressed man scholars have thought but a complicated mix of cheerfulness, gregariousness and meloncholy. She reclaims the Lincoln marriage from those who would say it was loveless and that Mary Todd Lincoln was a long-mad, nightmare wife. Indeed, their relationship seems to be one of love, loyalty and tenderness.

No historical figure, with the possible exception of Napoleon, has ever been as examined and discussed as Lincoln. And yet Goodwin finds things that are new. To approach the subject in the way she has by lacing together the stories of dozens of men and women, the saga of a bloody war, the moods of a country divided and the character of a man at the center of it, was genius. A master work by a brilliant historian.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Before I begin my review - which I may as well say from the start is not good - let me begin with what I do like. Firstly, Ms. Niffenegger is a gifted writer. I hope she does not get discouraged by some of the negative responses to her sophomore novel. The Time Traveler's Wife was unlike anything ever written, and if she never puts pen to paper again, she would still have secured herself a place in literary history with that wonderful book.

Ms. Niffenegger is creative (a former art student, her drawings decorate the pages of Her Fearful Symmetry). She is unafraid of strange plots. She is brilliant at character development and can craft sentences that should be taught to creative writing students around the globe. And yet....

Her Fearful Symmetry tell the story of two sets of identical twins - two sisters and the daughters of one of those sisters. From the word 'go' it is hinted that the mother/aunt set have some terrible secret they are hiding. When this secret is revealed it is anticlimactic - not to mention obvious - and also adds nothing to the story. It's an uninteresting and unbelievable subplot overshadowed by an uninteresting and unbelievable main plot.

One of the elder sisters, Elspeth, dies and leaves her London flat to her nieces, the twin daughters of her sister Edie. In her will, Eslpeth dictates the girls must live there for a year - why this is her wish is unclear. The twins' new home is adjacent to a cemetery, which proves useful later on, as the story takes a madcap turn. When the girls move in, they soon discover three things: One, their neighbors, Martin and Robert, are both interesting men with whom they form relationships. Two, the apartment is haunted by the ghost of their aunt. And three, the quasi-incestuous, too-close-for-comfort sisterly bond they share is threatened by the newly found independence of one of the twins. Julia, the more dominant twin, wishes to have her sister by her side all the time and never do much except hang out together in the apartment. Valentina, the seemingly more meek twin, finds that it is impossible for her to form her own identity or assert herself in any way as long as she is joined at the hip to her sister. She therefor concocts a very, very ill advised plan for how she can ditch her sister once and for all.

It is at this point that the tale goes form being somewhat dull and a little uneven to being so incredible one cannot get past the oddities and enjoy the story. The sequence of events calls for a suspension of disbelief that I simply could not handle - and i didn't care enough about the characters to even want to. Valentina behaves in a way that is so selfish, thoughtless, juvenile and absurd it defies description. And the scenes during which she is with Robert in her "altered" condition are painful and twisted.

Believing that a man suffers form a condition which causes him to time travel is easy. Believing what Ms. Niffenegger asks us to believe in Her Fearful Symmetry is not. Having said that, there is a lot of beautiful writing here. The book evokes a mood and feeling that is distinct. And the story - flawed as it was - gets points for originality. The characters, while not likable at all - with the exception of Martin, who seems superfluous to the story - are well drawn. When Ms. Niffenegger's next book is released I will read it because I am still a believer in her talents. Nobody can pitch a perfect game every time.

A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

This is one of those books that I have been wanting to read for about twenty years, have started a few times, have been somewhat uneasy about my ignorance of - and now, finally, I did it. Was it worth the long wait? Did I spend my time wondering just what on earth had been the delay, delighting in a classic that had almost gotten away from me, ready to pass it on to friends and review it glowingly for you, my trusting public?

Not quite.

A Brave New World is, in my opinion, one of the most overrated books I have ever read. There are so many flaws in this story and silliness in the writing I scarcely know where to begin. It isn't that there are no redeeming factors to it - although there are few. However, to have this book anywhere near a list of classics or must reads, or (I can hardly believe it) greatest books of the twentieth century, is laughable. Yes, I do realize that sometimes a good book can suffer because of it's lofty reputation and often will not quite live up to what the reader expects. With that in mind, I tried to be objective and shelve any preconceived ideas I had about it. Even taking this rather liberal view, though, I just did not like it.

To start, my first objection is the lack of depth to this new world. The picture Huxley paints is incomplete. At no time does one lose oneself in this society, feeling the air the characters breath and tasting the food they taste. One doesn't cry when they cry or laugh when they laugh. It all remains sort of cerebral. The characters are weak, perhaps intentionally so. There is nobody to like or dislike, there is no protagonist. The whole thing reads like a first draft that desperately needs to be fleshed out a bit.

Furthermore,the one thing that Huxley seems to really want to hit us over the head with is sex. The characters all "have" each other all the time, having another person being as routine as going to coffee with them. The problem is this is quite literally the overarching idea of the whole book. If one can recall anything of A Brave New World weeks after reading the book, it is that sex is readily available (as are drugs). Apparently, if you glean nothing else from this book, you really, really need to glean that much. This free love is celebrated very easily because the theories of Freud have been manipulated and adapted to the point that the notion of mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers is obsolete; birth control is carried on a woman's person all the time and everyone is completely autonomous. It is an interesting subject and one that could have been explored much better if Huxley had wanted to; but he seems satisfied with an almost adolescent preoccupation with highly attractive women armed with birth control and ready to fornicate all the time. The concept never gets much further than that.

The world Huxley imagines is one where all languages except English have ceased to exist (although there are different castes of peoples which bear such titles as Alpha, Beta, etc.) This inconsistency is never addressed. What Huxley must have thought was a clever play on words in switching "Lord" (God) for "Ford" (creator of the assembly line) is repeated ad nauseam throughout the book. Laboratories produce scores of identical twins all designed to enjoy factory work, and children are reared in state-run nurseries where they are brainwashed in their sleep and - Huxley never avoiding a chance to mention sex - they are encouraged to engage in erotic play with another. These amateurish ideas are littered throughout the book and make it more of a comedy than a commentary. Further reducing the book's sophistication is the amazing coincidence of the main characters running into a "savage" on one of their trips who just happens to be the spawn of one their own kind (a civilized person). The odysseys of this savage into the modern world is a storyline for which I simply had difficulty drumming up enthusiasm. It revealed nothing of human nature other than pat, simplistic assertions that it is better to live life properly, pain and all, than to spend it having random sex and taking drugs. Which I do not find to be an earth shattering theses.

To compare this book to 1984, which many do, is an insult to a book that I consider to be a masterpiece. I have re-read 1984 many times and never fail to enjoy it; I had difficulty reading A Brave New World even once. While there is some enjoyment to be found in the ideas put forth in this "classic", it is about the same amount of enjoyment one would get from reading a paper written by a junior in high school entitled, 'What I think the Future Would Look Like,' - a paper that would, no doubt, be censored by her teacher for being too preoccupied with sex and excessive in uninteresting puns.

image from amazon.com