That was an assignment for me in school. 1984. Definitely a classic. Never did read “Brave New World,” but Dems would like to make us live it these days if I’ve garnered comments on that work correctly.
Unlike ‘1984’ which is the classic dystopian novel whose message is this can happen if the Stalinoids are not stopped. As Orwell was writing this in the lat 40’s when one east European state after another were being steamrolled into ‘Peoples Republics’ . It looked like an irresistible tidal wave. Especially because the western democracies seen fatuously deaf and dumb to the threat of Stalin
s empire and all his little helpers in the west. It is difficult to be able to grasp how strong the communists and their fellow travellers were in the west at that, including particularly the US. Orwell's novel set off a huge campaign of vilification and intimidation. Fortunately he was a brave mand and had moved to one of the Hebrides Is;ands to keep his family from the dangers of a nuclear blitz.
Brave New World was written a different universe in the mid-1920’s. The emergence or the first real nationwide consumer state offered tantalizing hints of endless bliss filled consumerism just around the corner. BNW is in much of it a very funny satire on these attitudes interwoven with some very prescient concepts of what life in a couple hundred years could be like. The warnings are there of the manipulation of humans ‘for the good of the individual and society’ consequences. But it is a witty book and really funny.