I still to this day thinks that this novel surpassed The Hunger Games and 1984 in terms of dystopian genre.
The novel itself potrayed a lot of symbolism to our current modern world uniquely and more stronger than the other books.
Why isn’t it being discuss in the same level as hunger games or 1984? I’ve seen countless memes about 1984 than I do for the Brave New World.
I’ve never read the Hunger Games but people use it to describe our current class struggles all the time. It’s a thing.
Really? Are they actually discussed as in “analyzing concepts and mechanisms shown in the books and applying them to current or historical events”?
Or rather as in “haha, look how fucked up our society is, I guess we will have the hunger games within 10 years max”.
Because that is just the very basic comparison that you can draw with more or less any dystopian setting that still caguely resembles our society.
It has been a while since I read the books. I didn’t remember them going beyond “government bad, rebels good intentions but shitty actions, upper/middle-class mindless consumers of media, lower class/districts fight for survival”. They were fun, but I’ve listened to punk-rock songs with a deeper message.
Sorry, I don’t want to sound smug. Maybe I didn’t catch a deeper level. I admit that I don’t follow the US-debate or anything on twitter or tik-tok closely, but I’d be really surprised.
Yeah, but you said it’s not discussed as much. It’s discussed all the time, on a regular basis.
No one said it’s superior to BNW, but it’s definitely part of the zeitgeist.
Ok, I see. I think I had a different interpretation of “being discussed”.
I’m not from the US, but from Germany. Here and, as far as I can tell, in Europe in general, we have college classes on bnw, essays and articles are written on “orwellian language”, comparisons are drawn between the current book bans and fahrenheit etc. (Not only those course. handmaid’s tale, clockwork Orange, the machine stops, the road etc. as well, but 1984, bnw and fahrenheit are definitely the big three.
Not every comparison is necessarily thought- or meaningful, but the idioms and themes are deeply ingrained within our discourse. Whereas the hunger games are widely seen as popular book series from 15 years ago that also had success at the movies.
Well, I guess TIL.
I understand, thankfully for you Germany has a much softer social safety net.
We don’t have paid family leave or strong unions or universal healthcare; it literally is more “Hunger Games-y” here. At least for wide swaths of the population. So maybe it’s a more pressing issue for us?
And I know BNW is an important book, it was required reading at my high school.
I see your point and the generalization I made based on my own experience was surely prematurely. Thanks for calling me out on that one.
However, while I understand how the theme of the books fits better to your situation, I fail to see what there is to discuss. If I recall correctly, the books offer little insight to how the whole situation evolved, very little on politics in general and a whole lot on survival, romance, coming of age and - granted - some media critique. I don’t want to belittle the books. I enjoyed them very much. It’s just…they didn’t seem to be exactly substantial to me. A fun, dystopian read, but that’s it. (And on the emotional level, Oryx and crake, the road or farherland had a much bigger impact on me, but I guess that’s totally individual.)
Did I miss something important? Or is it just the general vibes, the focus on dread, steuggle for survival that hit a nerve? What do you, or rather the discurse on society, get from it?
It’s not analyzed with the same rigor of BNW, that’s true.
It’s mostly seen as a useful metaphor for the way the poor and working classes fight amongst one another while being exploited by the wealthy.
It’s not very deep, but it’s not entirely inaccurate either. Like a useful shorthand.
Another redditor commented that it is used in school. I’m not a teacher, but I can imagine it’s easier to conduct a lesson that includes the majority of your class based on the hunger games than on bnw.
Anyway, thanks for the insights and the discussion.