Customer Reviews

Island

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you judge this book solely on its literary merit, you will be disappointed. There isn't much of a plot here, and characterization lacks adequate depth. If on the other hand, you regard this novel as a way to frame a whole set of ideas, you'll be greatly rewarded. Along with Thomas Mann, Huxley is perhaps the most intelligent and well rounded man in the world of 20th century literature, and this work is a culmination of a lifetime of thought about society, science, and the relationship between them. Huxley was a man who actually cared about humankind, and in this book he tells us what it would take to create a perfect society. He seems to have taken great pains to stay clear of science fiction and wrote the most practical utopia he could conceive based on the scientific and technological achievements of his day. Forty years later, the world of Pala lies well within our realm of technological possibility. So why don't we build it? What Huxley indirectly shows is that even when we can do it, we are not willing to pay the price for it. In a world where the market is king, and freedom without responsibility is seen as a given, Pala looks as distant and quaint as the SF worlds of Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke. Even if Pala is not feasible on a nationwide or worldwide scale, this novel has important things to teach us as individuals. It convincingly shows how we are conditioned by our environment and upbringing to behave a certain way. If we change or overcome that conditioning our lives will be transformed, even as we are encroached by the cruel world around us. Island is sure to give food for thought for a long time to come.

Island, in my opinion is probably Aldous Huxley's best work, and also one of the best books I have ever read. For those of you interested in spirituality, this would probably be the book to get started on. It has a good way of telling you what peace and the "Buddha Nature" really does feel like. The book is about a utopian society on an island called Pala. Will Farnaby, 'suffering from the disease called Civilization', lands on the island, in the hope of getting the bid for a lucrative oil contract, but the more of the island he sees, the more he realizes that the island must be saved from civilization at all costs. To say more would be to spoil the story for those of you who have not read it. Needless to say, I liked this book a lot more than I liked Brave New World, or any of his other books. I feel that this was his most pointed attack on our way of life. It can be read and re-read a million times. The ideas contained in it are really refreshing, so refreshing and original that I'm still trying to come up with well founded criticisms. This book is well worth the price, now if only there were more authors who could write like this.

I found this book lying in a closed dusty box in the basement where all of my dad's old books are. I had heard tons about The Doors of Perception so decided to give this one a try. If I say that this book changed by whole life it would be saying too much. But if definitely makes me wonder why we, the entire human race, are rotting away to glory when a "formula" for better and more fulfilling way to live is out there for us to take. It's in this very book. After reading this book I doubt there would be anybody who would not question the existing, decadent values and morals that bind us all. What a perfect mixture of eastern and western wisdom! I really recommend that this book should be a part of the curriculum in schools throughout the world. Oh ya the part about the mushrooms in that temple as part of the initiation process and the accompanying Shiva Vedic chants...it really can be the most awesome out of body experience you can have. Trust me I am from India. Bottom Line: Go read it and ask everyone you know to read it too. Spread the message and who knows maybe one day we could all experience Huxley's Utopia.

If you are not familiar with Huxley's other works, this book may not be the best place to start. Don't get me wrong, this book is a VERY intriguing examination of what sort of social structure would constitute a human utopia, and also of the sorts of human attitudes that tend to prevent this utopia from coming about. Taken as a work of philosophy, it is a definite winner.

This book has a story, complete with characters, motivations, and plot. However, the story is quite thin, and serves largely as a hypothetical background setting for the illustration of some of Huxley's reflections on human nature. The story is not exactly gripping, and won't provide the sort of entertainment value that some may want.

This book is written, in my opinion, for people who are familiar with the study of philosophy. Philosophers always tend to be a bit long-winded, and frequently make use of analogies (complete with characters and plots) to try to illustrate a lofty and perhaps complicated point. In this book, the characters (and the narrator) spend the vast majority of their time in the exact sorts of long-winded speeches one would expect from a philosopher.

If you are expecting another "Brave New World," you will be disappointed. If, however, you just want to have your imagination stimulated, and to provide yourself with food for thought, then I whole-heartedly recommend this book.

It is a fitting tribute to the great thinker that his last novel was his best and it gave him a lasting legacy to honor, as I see it, his long lived hope of a better world by presenting the human condition in all of it's fine and/or hideous attributes and motivations.

A good summation of the overall picture that Huxley is painting in Island, is right on the back cover of the book although to make it more accurate, I`ve added the missing words in the bracket: "A mirror in which modern man can see all that is rotten [and good] in his society and himself... Should be read and reread." (Saturday Review of Literature)

To emphasize the various personalities, the main characters are either protracted, conniving greedy bums or thinking, sensitive intellects; the rest are on the fence and waiting to see which way the wind blows and when presented with contrasting, colliding circumstances, which emotions will pull them in which ultimate, life altering direction?

I have read this book a few times now and it is always thought provoking and engaging. Huxley's prose are flowing and captivating, leaving one with a sense of longing for an undisturbed version of Huxley's Island to move to with it's beautiful, conscious inhabitants and their intriguing, life enhancing, experimental social structure lived in a harmonious, loving and literate by choice social setting.

Unfortunately, they are under siege by forces beyond their control- we think, for had Huxley lived, he might have followed this book with a sequel that ultimately had the "Islanders" triumph over their greedy, evil opposites. As it stands, we're left with an apparent sense of impending doom for the island paradise- an attempt to "civilize" it with a new, materialistic society based on competition and greed. Gee, sounds like the real world!

Those who love a well crafted, moving story line will appreciate Island just for the intrigue and flow of a good novel, regardless of the socio-psychological ramifications involved.

A note of interest on alternative, experimental communities is that B.F. Skinner's block-buster book, "Walden II" was possibly, as many people believe, the inspiration for Huxley`s Island and there are many parallels in their respective story lines. Dialogue in Island mentions alternative communities such as Oneida. The famous "Twin Oaks Community" was designed around Skinner's fictional Walden II utopian farm.

This is the work of a social planner - and not the kind that coordinates seating arrangements and makes out guest lists. The culmination of several explorations in cultural engineering, Island is a how-to book describing the requisite customs, attitudes, and institutions for a society devoted to the positive development and individuation of its citizens.

In this book Huxley subverts all the conventional storytelling devices to make his points. Plot and characterization really are afterthoughts here unless they assist in some way to get an idea across. All the relevant conclusions that have been carefully and thoughtfully arrived at over an entire lifetime are given airing here mostly in awkward asides. Huxley is reaching the end of his life, and there's an urgency in the prose that resembles a harangue. But if we recall the ambitious intention here - to lay out a blueprint for a society truly dedicated to individual liberty and liberation - it seems inane to complain about the lack of conventional storytelling devices.

In this book we can see that Huxley has done all the heavy lifting long before the hippies came on the scene and turned drug-taking into a recreational activity - invalidating drug use for any other purpose in the minds of a majority of people. Many of these same people now seek to invalidate Huxley's crowning achievement because the writing can't be enjoyed as an escapist, recreational activity. This paradox is the result of an all-too-human tendency to manipulate facts and use them to argue against any idea that might contradict their ingrained beliefs.

Of course, some will argue that their problem with Island is not that it can't be enjoyed recreationally, but that it is the leftist ravings and ramblings of a drugged-out kook. My response is that this argument is not supported by a careful consideration of the points Huxley makes. Perhaps, given more time Huxley would have polished this work into a more easily-accessible form; but that didn't keep me from appreciating it.

I first read this book when I was 15, and it had a profound and lasting influence on my life. Rereading it now, more than twenty years later, I still find it moving.

The characters in this book are a bit too good to be true: nobody is that well-balanced, that reasonable, that much in touch with themselves. And yet, when you read this book, you can't help feeling that people could be that well-balanced, could be that reasonable, could be that much in touch with themselves and with others if only they were given the chance, if only they were given the right sort of upbringing.

I can never decide whether this book is optimistic or pessimistic in its view of life. A little of both, I think. Huxley's optimism about human nature and the human spirit shines through, but it's tinged with a feeling of disappointment and concern for the future.

Read it. It's not some New Age psycho-babble crap. It may not be your cup of tea, but it's definitely worth the time it takes to read it and to think about what it's saying.

My wife and I have been preparing for next year's season premiere of ABC's hit series, Lost (Lost - The Complete Fourth Season), and decided to engage in one of our "movie marathons" by watching all four seasons' prior episodes over several weeks. As part of the experience, we perused the Lost Book Club offerings (on ABC's website) and noticed that Aldous Huxley's "Island (Perennial Classics) was included. The connection, for those die-hard Lost fans: the "Others" use the Pala Dock Ferry to travel to/from their barracks.

On seeing that online listing, I was reminded that I had read the book about a decade after it was originally published (in 1962), while I was in high school. Although most of us growing up in the 1960s were more likely to have read his more famous and successful Brave New World; his last novel, Island is also worth a read. One of the lasting memories from the novel involved the talking parrots that inhabit Huxley's idyllic island, Pala. The parrots had been trained to remind the Palanese inhabitants to pay "attention" and to concentrate on the "here and now." Very good advice indeed.

The book can be a bit tedious at times, but I certainly enjoyed re-living the transformation of the book's cynical and corrupt main character, Will Farnaby, as he gradually comes to understand and accept the more spiritual existence he finds on the island. Through his conversations with the islanders, Farnaby learns of group upbringing of children in what are known as Mutual Adoption Clubs; special religious traditions (based on a mixture of eastern religions, primarily Buddhist); the pervasive use of mind-expanding drugs, called "moksha medicine;" tantric sexual practices; and much more.

Go ahead and give it a try... whether it's your first time reading, or you're diving back in after a long absence, it's definitely worth a read. Maybe, just maybe, it'll help you figure out what "Lost" is all about as well!

John Cathcart
Award-winning author of "Delta 7"

Pala, the island in this book, is everything I've always wanted. Uncontaminated by the Western world, this island would have been an amazing place. I'm writing this review as I read the final pages of this book. However much of a cliché it is, I could not put it down, even at one AM. In the library, in my hometown, this book was classified as science fiction, but truly, it's more of a spiritual quest. The main character, Will started in the beginning of the book as a cynical, pessimistic man, but transformed drastically by the end. I think that throughout the book, I made a transformation too. If fiction can change one's life, it undoubtedly has changed mine.

For me, the most appealing feature of this work was the way Huxley combines great society-changes with personal development and joy. Too often people want to make the world better by being a pure and holy human being, which is off course impossible. In Huxleys Utopia society is completely adjusted to the best of human nature, but it's still human nature. This is what makes the whole so realistic and valuable. The obvious question now is off course: Why don't we put his ideas into action? In answering this I must agree with another reviewer, who poses that people in Pala are too earnest, too occupied with their happiness. Maybe Huxley forgot the part of human nature we call 'laziness'. Another possibility is that we're simply too stupid a race to put such obvious guidelines to happiness beside us. When i walk down a library or book shop i'm always having difficulties finding books that describe something positive. It seems we are animals that enjoy suffering as well as complaining about it. Untill we can put this drive for self-pity and misery aside, we're not ready for Pala. I can't help but wondering if we will ever be... .