I began teaching this novel in 1983; 27 years have come and gone, most of them with me still reading and thinking about Huxley's nightmare. What I did not know in 1983 ( nor did any of my students) was that the weapon of mass destruction he chose, Anthrax, would, in fact, be one that soldiers, postal carriers, and the general public today also fears. Huxley writes that the ingenious method of destruction was the Russians' infecting the water supply. Eco-terrorism does not seem so fanciful in 2010.
In 1932, when he wrote this work, we were in that not so calm lull between the World Wars. Huxley, like many other authors, was horrified by the brutality of the world at hand, and in his fiction gave this worst-case scenario shape. Other parts of the novel, the cloning, which was rather a ludicrous notion for the readers of the 1930s now exists in many places, and we seem just a few steps from the engineered babies he describes. The feelies, his version of virtual reality, seems like Sims or Second Life on steroids. The Malthusian Drill eerily resembles birth control methods available today. In fact, the more I teach this novel, the more prophetic Huxley seems. As I spend the next week or so discussing this book with the seniors of 2010, I am anxious to know how they will feel about the world Huxley creates. With what lens will this group, who were born in 1992, 60 years after this novel's publication, read Huxley? I will let you know.
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