This will probably be the only book I ever read by Huxley, a British philosopher who wrote prodigiously and died on the same day as C.S. Lewis. That event would have made headlines except it was overshadowed by something else. It was November 22, 1963 and JFK died that day, too.

At first I did not even think I would review Brave New World for Tab. Although it does not have explicit sex, explicit violence, or profanity, it describes a dystopian world in the tradition of several other books of the 1940's and 1950's. I read 1984 by George Orwell in high school; I read Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler last year. I still have Fahrenheit 451 and Animal Farm to go. These books have to be spread out because they are depressing.

In Brave New World, Huxley (who was not a Christian but not exactly an atheist either) describes what a godless society looks like. Like many philosophers, he appreciated the way Christianity/religion holds a society together, even if he did not personally believe in Christ. Brave New World is in the hands of a small group of controllers who have removed every conflict from the human race, including aging. People continue to look young and remain eternally childish until they die. Every want they have is immediately fulfilled. Sexually, their belief is "everyone belongs to everyone else." No marriage, no exclusive relationships, no jealousy. Babies are created in a laboratory, cloned to make dozens of twins from one fertilized egg. So no parents or families exist either.

Into this world in London comes a man who was raised among native Americans who had been left to their own civilization. He knows of native religions and he knows of Christianity. And he has read Shakespeare, which is now forbidden.

His showdown with one of the controllers is brilliant and is why I am glad I read the book. Only God can design a world without conflict (Heaven). If man does it, he destroys civilization. That is, I believe, the way a Christian would phrase what Huxley did with this book.