I recently read Aldous Huxley's 1962 novel Island, which is often seen as the utopian counterpart to Brave New World.
This was the first time that I had read any of Huxley's work seriously. I chose Island because the philosophies which seemed to underpin it appealed to me;it is a "novel of ideas", and the ideas propounded here increasingly accord with my own inclinations.
In short, the plot revolves around an English journalist, Will Farnaby, who is shipwrecked on the island of Pala. He is working on behalf of an oil baron. Farnaby is exposed to the way of life on Pala, all of this against the backdrop of negotiations over oil concessions in the region, and with the spectre of invasion by an adjacent, less enlightened, island looming.
Pala is a community which seeks to achieve a fusion of the most enlightened ideas from both Europe and the Orient (the best of both worlds?), standing in contrast to the relentless advance of industrialization, consumerism, tyranny and mass communication in the outside world.
Despite my admiration for the ideals and values which the Palanese espouse, one is left with a feeling of regret and sadness early on in the piece, because of the inevitability of this utopia being trampled on by darker forces, which are intent on bringing the island in line with the misery and injustice being inflicted elsewhere.
To me, there was a real poignancy in reading this story, knowing that noble projects such as that in Pala will find themselves crushed, and dreary and oppressive conformity will be (forcibly) imposed. I say this even allowing for the customary charge that such utopian thinking is naive and "impractical". The feeling of helplessness and resignation is acute . Perhaps the world needs a new "age of enlightenment" - although that would probably be crushed, too....
I had expected Island to contain some criticism of organised Western religion, but was surprised at the vehemence of that criticism. There is much emphasis on Eastern philosophy in the Pala mix. The concepts of "oneness", awareness, mindfulness and so forth are a constant theme here.
There is I think a case for saying that Huxley was slightly ahead of his time in tackling matters like globalization, ecology and corporatism in such a way. He also makes some prescient observations about the fate of the ex-colonies in the developing world. The Palanese attitude to science and technology is also distinctive - seeking to make it work for the benefit of human freedom and happiness, rather than allowing people to become its prisoners.
A recurring message which I absorbed from this novel was the manner in which fear and insecurity are the main tools by which malign and repressive forces are introduced and embedded in society. Exploiting weaknesses and vices as opposed to harnessing virtues. Cynical, but regrettably highly effective.
Some of the more intriguing aspects of the Palanese vision are the social policies, which differ radically from those seen in the West, especially those concerning population, birth control and the family unit. Considerable space is also allocated to the educational practices and medical procedures designed to minimize and diminish tyrannical and autocratic tendencies in the citizens.
The Will Farnaby character was a little enigmatic to me, although I found his occasionally cynical and sarcastic comments quite endearing. These remarks sometimes made it tricky to discern his true attitudes to what he was absorbing and observing as he spent time in Pala.
As a novel, Island is awkward to appraise, in the conventional sense, but the expounding of ideas is most stimulating. There was less "action" in the narrative than I had anticipated, with the majority of the text taken up by Farnaby's discussions with various Palanese people about how things worked on the island. The geo-political manoeuvrings were more of a backdrop than a centerpiece for the most part. The ending is predictably downbeat and sobering.
As a "novel of ideas", this book is well worth a read.
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