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    Island
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    Island
    Ebook415 pages10 hours

    Island

    By Aldous Huxley

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    While shipwrecked on the island of Pala, Will Farnaby, a disenchanted journalist, discovers a utopian society that has flourished for the past 120 years. Although he at first disregards the possibility of an ideal society, as Farnaby spends time with the people of Pala his ideas about humanity change.

    HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 1, 2014
    ISBN9781443428583
    Author

    Aldous Huxley

    Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) is the author of the classic novels Brave New World, Island, Eyeless in Gaza, and The Genius and the Goddess, as well as such critically acclaimed nonfiction works as The Perennial Philosophy and The Doors of Perception. Born in Surrey, England, and educated at Oxford, he died in Los Angeles, California.

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    Reviews for Island

    3.5/5

    22 ratings24 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Apparently, I had no idea what a utopia was. Island is definitely no Brave New World and is rife with political and philosophical mentions and I was just never able to fully immerse myself in this tale.
    • 5/5
      Maybe THE book that has resonated most with me up until this point in my life. While the middle certainly could be perceived as preachy and overly propagandist, the content is nevertheless exhilarating and challenging. Many of my current beliefs are echoed in Huxley's word about his ideal society. I wish there were more out there like this.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to give this book a higher rating, but I have to be honest with myself. As often needs to be mentioned with GR ratings, this is not a tribute to the book itself but rather my enjoyment of the book. It touched on a lot of interesting points with respect to how we live our lives, eastern religions vs western culture, meditation, etc. Unfortunately, for this rating, this was ALL that it had and the plot/story with this novel was virtually non-existent.
    • 3/5
      I won an audio version from Library Thing in exchange for an honest review. I was driving home from a book club meeting the other night, listening away, not hitting a deer, and as I approached my home, bam! It ended. Just ended. I get it, it makes sense, but hardly anyone has the nuts to do it. It is actually going onto my list of books to re-read, something I rarely do. Half the blame for that goes to the mp3, my car or both. Sometimes it would go back over 15 minutes that I had heard while last in the car, at other times I felt it skipped forward. You can't navigate easily around an mp3 as far as I know. The novel fell into two distinct halves for me, the first being the easy to follow and predictable enough plot line - man shipwrecked in "paradise" with ulterior motives, .grapples with his conscience and the outcome is...well you have to read it. The reason I have to re-read it is the other half presenting Huxley's views on society and religion. They were inserted as rather lengthy lessons that were presented to the main character as a guest of this closed society. I really couldn't follow well enough in this format to fully reflect on and react to what I was hearing. Someday, when I figure it out, I'll post an update.
    • 5/5
      Despite the novel Island having almost no plot, it is still generally interesting. For the most part as readers, we're looking over the viewpoint shoulder of a disillusioned capitalist who gets shipwrecked off the Island (the tiny tropical nation of Pala). Thoughout the narrative, we're seeing his worldview slowly altered as he gets unofficial guided tours of the island, learns its peculiar history, and experiences its citizens. Huxleys ideals for this unique Utopian setting are generally compelling. The benefits of the culture, its educational system, exceedingly healthy attitudes toward sex, the economics, the widespread understanding and use of yoga, meditation, Tantra, the minimalist religion, and political isolationism are all explained or demonstrated in detail, and convinces the protagonist of the beauty of life and heals his inner demons.The only downfalls of the book are Huxley's (and thus Pala's) reliance on strong psychedelic "mind expanding" drugs. He foolishly designed Pala so that the use of such drugs is inextricably intertwined with their success at building a Utopian paradise. The secondary drawback of the book is that since virtually no action happens, it's full of sometimes quite long discussions and expositions about the various things that made Pala a utopia.
    • 2/5
      Ouch! This book bruised my brain a bit.

    • 4/5
      This is less of a novel, and more of an expanded philosophical treatise on Huxley's version of a utopia.

      The society of the island Pala is the inverse of, and parallel to, the society of Brave New World. Instead of a rudimentary caste system, jobs are assigned from personal interest and capability. Education is communal, in order to prevent passing of parental neuroses or flaws and ease socialization. The emphasis of sex is not solely to have a lot of it, but to enjoy it and make an experience out of it. Lots of ideas are derived from Eastern philosophy.

      Such a society does not shun all technology, however. Refrigeration and hydroelectricity are essential to keep the basic necessities of society going, as well as modern medicine. However, the overproduction of consumer goods is limited, so as to prevent outside invasion but also conspicuous consumption. Genetic modification and contraception are common, but to pass on good qualities instead of enforcing superiority or inferiority.

      Most notably, instead of soma being used to make the populace dumb and happy, they are used as a means of personal growth and experimentation. The most common drug is named moshka, derived from a mushroom and somewhat analogous to psilocybin or mescaline.

      Compassion and faith seem to be the cornerstones of this society, not ideology or advancement.

      Island's influence is very clear as an archetype of psychedelic drug fiction. However, it refrains from the sheer unbounded optimism which these thought experiments entail. At the end of the novel, the island is seized in a coup backed by dictatorial and corporate interests, and the fate of the islanders is uncertain. Huxley knows only too well what happens to the people of loving-happiness, eternal compassion and attention compared to the advance of the Other.
    • 5/5
      I quite enjoyed this book. Written in the early 1960s, Huxley has a great grasp of our modern idea of mindfulness. Birds remind Pala's inhabitants to pay "Attention" to the "Here and Now." Instead of saying grace at meals, everyone takes an initial mindful bite, chewing very slowly until the food has disintegrated in their mouths. Mindful meditation techniques are used in healing the ill and in intimate relationships. Great description of a conscious and aware education system.
    • 4/5
      This reminds me a lot of Brave New World: oh let's explain our society to this stranger + yay hallucinogenic drugs + yay population control, only with even less actual plot (which surprised me, since this was published much later than BNW). Also the society is a lot less dystopian, which for me made it a little less gripping. It was an interesting and relaxing read, though.
    • 4/5
      Huxley's last novel, 'Island', is something that I wouldn't have read except for a chance recommendation. It's also something that probably wouldn't have resonated with me, if I had read it years ago. But now I find it fascinating on multiple levels, and it addresses a number of highly relevant issues of today. It's not so much a compelling narrative as it is a series of essays couched as a novel, but I found it interesting and recommend it highly.
    • 4/5
      Compared to his other books, that I have read, this one seems somewhat trashy for lack of a better word, however well written it may seem next to more obviously trashy books. In some of his novels he slips in his philosophical and moral ideas subtly, with no detrimental effect to the book, yet here he pays complete disregard to elegance and tact, drenching the reader with his misplaced utopian idealising, while forgetting to to put in a story to support the fact that there is nothing else to keep the discerning reader interested. I wouldn't go as far as to say this is a terrible book, just that Huxley has done himself no credit by writing it. Not all of his notions here are wrong, (a few are very good), just the majority; this book feels self indulged, as if it was written by a child who has just found a novel toy, which is in this case Eastern religion, along with all the philosophy and ethics, or lack thereof, that it drags along with it. I don't mind reading Huxley's other books that lack plots because they make up for it in style and content, whereas here all three are either absent or insufficient. If you are determined to read this book, being a Huxley fan, or someone who thinks that they may enjoy it, I advise a large pinch of salt to be taken before reading each chapter; this was the last novel he wrote, and I don't think it would be unfair to suggest that his imagination may have overtaken his intellect in its influence on his writing. It would be far too easy to be duped by ideas in this book because it is so nicely written, aesthetically stimulating, and penned with expert sophistry; this does make it nice to read, though it is only superficially rewarding once one notices that it is only well polished wishy-washy psuedo-religion and nonsense. If you take the book at face value, as a description of an interpretation of the Utopian society then you may find it interesting. If you expect the interpretation to be accurate or well thought out, then you should be disappointed.
    • 2/5
      shame this is so awful being that it's his last book. just trying way too hard to be modern. I don't know, I need to re-visit it.
    • 4/5
      Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), a visionary author, attempted to imagine a utopian society in his final novel, Island, which gives its citizens all they require to live happy lives. The author of Brave New World attempted to present a hopeful picture of how people could live and prosper in this utopia, yet even here, evil lurks just around the corner.
    • 2/5
      Author's take on Utopia, with similarly non existent plot. Sounds like modern day anarchist who just keep insisting everything will just work out, never mind the details.
    • 5/5
      Wonderful contrast

      This book is a wonderful yet tragic follow up to BNW. A sequential read was very interesting. A. HUXLEY I
      Illustrates yet another example of humanity.
    • 4/5
      The utopian society which inhabits the island Pala is an eclectic one, a hybrid of Western and Eastern ideals. The East contributes religious diversity, Buddhist/Shaivite philosophy, and a spiritualism which broadens the mind. The West contributes advanced science (used in novel ways such as behavioural profiling), but the Palanese eschew industrialisation which conflicts with their way of life.

      Island is supposedly a pessimistic take on the survival prospects of an enlightened society. I disagree. It shouldn't be judged by its abrupt and bleak conclusion. Huxley's vision of a society appreciating and practising customs from such diverse origins is relevant to today's multicultural societies. That such a society evolved at all, notwithstanding the external drive towards industrialisation and armament, is a cause for optimism.

      The story itself is simplistic and involves only a few key characters. A better plot may have attracted the attention this novel deserves. It is largely a vehicle for monologues by Palanese locals who discuss their approaches to issues such as family structure; population control; crime prevention; education; stimulation of all sorts (physical, mental, emotional, sensual); lifelong development and learning. Death is a recurring theme and no doubt influenced by Huxley's thoughts on his own mortality: Island (1962) was his final novel and he was to die the next year.

      Highly recommended, and not only to contrast with A Brave New World.
    • 3/5
      This was a slog to read. A Westerner arrives on an island and goes about questioning the Palanese on how they live. Consciously they live the best life for themselves and the community. No weapons, taking the best philosophies from East & West, a reverence for ecology, free birth-control so that the environment can comfortably sustain its population, the practice of mindfulness, the encouragement of compassion & love... perhaps more controversially they go in for mind-expanding drugs, and the use of artificial insemination to improve the human stock.

      However, the way Huxley reveals this way of being is more a didactic tract than an engrossing story. So, a lot of interesting food-for-thought, but I was still counting off the chapters, wanting to escape the pages,it’s smug people, and being preached at.
    • 5/5
      Huxley's fictional island paradise is called Pala and it is where the journalist Will Farnaby is washed up on the beach. He has been sent to encourage the oil companies claim to exploit the oil reserves on the island. The first people he meets are Dr MacPhail and the young Raj Murugan. His mother is the Rani and controlling influence in his minority. She wants to use the oil reserves to finance a Crusade of the Spirit and so purge the islands of 'hypnotism, pantheism and free love.' Murugan seeks to establish his authority by siding with his mother against the 'old fogies' of the constitutional government in order to modernise and industrialise the island.

      Palanese life is simplicity itself. They grow food co-operatively in planted terraces. The only industry on the island is the cement works and people work there part time in-between the forest, agriculture and the saw mill. Pala has a system of self governing units, geographical, economic and political. They also have no established church, religion is based on immediate gratification and no unjustifiable dogma.

      Children and birth control become an important part of the system as the island does not produce more children than it can realistically feed, clothe and educate. In addition children are brought up in Mutual Adoption Clubs with between 15 - 25 couples who share responsibility in bringing up the children of the group. At 4 or 5 all children undergo a physical and psychological assessment to ascertain any problems with shyness or over aggressive behaviour. Steps are then taken to readjust this behaviour and integrate them into Palanese life. Crimes does not occur very often, but when it does it is dealt with through counselling in the MAC and if necessary medication.

      They see Western medicine as largely primitive, although they value antibiotics and sewerage systems for stopping the spread if disease they see our cure rather than prevention. Instead they look at a holistic system which takes into account what you eat, think, feel, hear, how you make love and how you view you place in the world. By looking at the person as a whole they take a more rounded and Buddhist influenced view of the individual.

      The final chapter is given over to Wills experience of what we may term 'magic mushrooms' explaining both the euphoric and terrifying experience associated with the hallucinogen. Despite the prospect of change for Pala, Huxley still ends the novel positively. Will has experienced something totally unique and credible and due to this experience his thinking has been changed. What ever happens to Pala, Will Farnaby will never be the same again.
    • 3/5
      I found this more interesting than satisfying.

      As a novel Island doesn’t really have much to offer. The story is simplistic and predictable. The characters are colorful but shallow. Most of the dialogue consists of various virtuous Palanese citizens explaining how their wonderful society works.

      As a utopia, I seem to have found it less compelling than many readers. I gather that Huxley is sincere in presenting Pala as a utopian vision, but I found it naïve and far from convincing. While I am sympathetic to Huxley’s anti-consumerism theme, providing hallucinogenic drugs for everyone, early screening for “Muscle People” and “Peter Pans”, and teaching the kids how to have bind-blowingly good sex at an early age just doesn’t seem particularly likely to be the answer to all of our problems to me.

      The really thought provoking thing about Island is the juxtaposition of concepts and themes that appear in this utopian society with strikingly similar concepts and themes from Brave New World’s dystopian world (a visit to Wikipedia article on Island provides a helpful listing of these elements—some are quite obvious and others subtler).
    • 4/5
      Perhaps the longest, most pessimistic, depressing, shaggy dog story I have ever read.

      This is the only book by Aldous Huxley that I have any recollection of reading.

      Being a contemporary, Huxley writes a bit like Waugh, sprinkling dryly humorous conversations in with the exposition.

      The basic plot is the typical one. A stranger encounters the utopia and takes a tour, having the functioning of the utopia explained by its inhabitants. This utopia is very much a reaction to modernity, which is pretty similar to today's modernity, except that today's modernity is far more effective, insistent, and intrusive.

      It was not clear to me whether any of the protagonist's actions had any effect.
    • 4/5
      This was probably not the best choice in books as an intro to Huxley, however I am anxious to read more of his work.

      I would have loved to give this book 4 or 5 stars; I find his ideas rather fascinating and I hope to try to take some of his philosophies found here, to heart. The trouble is, as he himself commented, "the story has too much weight, in the way of ideas and reflections, to carry," and I definitely agree with him. It was just too much crammed in & piled on, you can't absorb it all. But I am taking something out of it, I certainly found it worth the read. Though I can't say I'm not thankful to finally have finished it!
    • 5/5
      The rating is based on my memory of reading this book as a young woman. I suspect that today I would only give it 4 stars. I recognize all the weaknesses that other reviewers have mentioned. It is overly didactic. The plot is weak. Even if you accept all of his premises, there is no way the reader can move to (pre-coup) Pala. I want my mystical experiences pure, and not drug induced. Add another - Huxley seems to think that homosexuality is caused by bad upbringing.

      Having said that, there is a sanity in the Palan lifestyle that really appeals, but capitalism wins in the end. As we now know, even in the former communist countries. This has aged much more gracefully than many others of its era.
    • 4/5
      Island although dressed up as a novel is more like Huxley’s vision of a Utopia and as such shares many characteristics with earlier attempts by authors to paint their picture of a perfect world. The usual scenario is a voyage to a distant land or distant planet where a society exists beyond the knowledge of the other human beings, where they have developed a civilisation that has eradicated all of the perceived evils of the current world. In Huxley’s Island; published in 1962, Will Farnaby an oil company representative is shipwrecked and washed up on the Island of Pala: a place forbidden to journalists, but not of course unknown to the rest of the world. It is however, only too well known to Colonel Dipa on the mainland who is plotting to take over the Island.

      Will Farnaby is allowed to stay on the Island while he receives medical attention and he soon discovers that the Island is governed in such a way that sets it at odds with the consumer societies with which he is familiar. The Island people shun consumerism and industrialisation; they are guided by reason and ecological concern. They have no time for religious dogmas, but strive for a higher awareness of earthly life and the life of the senses. They search for improvements in medical techniques and are constantly in search of knowledge that will help them lead better lives, they spend much of their resources on the education of their children, believing that this is the key to their future. There are no secrets on the Island; it is an open society and Will becomes entranced by the Islanders way of life and much of the book describes his growing awareness of the possibilities for a new way of living. However Will does get involved with representatives of Colonel Dipa and does not forget that he is employed by an oil company and Pala has plenty of oil. Will’s crisis of conscience is one of the few devices that Huxley uses in making his book appear as a novel but it takes a back seat to his real purpose which is to present to his readers his idea of Utopia.

      Huxley’s enthusiasm for his Utopia is infectious and some very fine writing opens up the possibilities for a more fruitful and sensual life. I found reading this book an uplifting experience, which is curious because one of it’s major themes is death. Huxley wrote this book towards the end of his life when he was thinking very much about his own mortality. Will Farnaby we learn feels responsible for the death of his wife. Susila who becomes Will”s mentor is grieving for the recent death of her husband and in the process of providing care and support for her mother who is slowly and painfully dying of cancer. In the background, like an undercurrent there is the inevitable death of the Islands civilisation, but Huxley imbues all these deaths with an irresistible force for the joy of living.

      Pala does sound wonderful; a real Utopia compared with the dystopia of Huxley’s [Brave New World] written some thirty years earlier. But wait a minute! Many of those ideas in the original dystopia appear again in Huxley’s Island Utopia. Eugenics much vaunted in the 1930’s appears in Island, where they are working on methods of selective breeding. Drugs were used to keep the working population acquiescent in Brave New World and are used in Island, but this time administered to children as well as adults. In Island; hypnotism is an accepted tool for pain relief and for other disorders and the indoctrination of children takes place at an early age. Suddenly Huxley’s Utopia does not seem quite so wonderful and the line between Utopia and dystopia gets a little blurred.

      I could not recommend this book as a novel, but its depiction of an alternative way of life and its celebration of the joy of living makes this book for me an essential read. It made me think about my place in the world and my own mortality and for brief moments opened up the possibility of seeing the world differently. I don’t think you can ask too much more of a book and so four stars.
    • 4/5
      I have to admit that I didn't find this novel as transformative as some readers did, but I'm quite glad to have read it. Truthfully, it's not much of a story, but it sure will give you food for thought and I expect Huxley's ideas will stick with me for a long, long time.

      The protagonist of Island is British journalist Will Farnaby. Will isn't an entirely likeable character as the novel opens--as is so often the case in these tales of redemption. In an attempt to escape his troubles, or possibly to escape himself, Will takes a day off from a Southeast Asian business trip to go sailing. A sudden storm sweeps in, and in the novel's opening pages Will realizes he's shipwrecked and injured. Luckily, Will has washed up on the exotic and little-visited island of Pala. This island-nation is a modern (or the 1960s version of it) Utopia.

      Will is discovered by some children who promptly go for help. It arrives in the form of Dr. Robert MacPhail, one of the island's most respected citizens. Dr. Robert patches Will up, and he and other islanders indulge Will's curiosity about their home. Over the course of just a few days, they introduce Will to every aspect of their most extraordinary society. From family life, medicine, education, and rites of passage, Will learns about Palanese life from birth to death.

      He meets many islanders, including the future Raja who is about to come of age, and his mother, the Rani. These two members of the ruling class have some very different ideas about how things should be on Pala. And their agenda may just tie in with a secret agenda of Will's own... It is this loose storyline that the plot consists of, but it's actually a very minor part of the novel--just a thread that runs through a lot of philosophy and sociology. Personally, I had a very limited interest in and tolerance for a lot of Eastern religious (mostly Buddhist) philosophy. But I really loved the sociological ideas Huxley put forth in his Utopia. Really, really interesting stuff! For another reader, it might be the reverse. One way or another, I really have to believe the novel would be of interest to any thinking person.