Subject:
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Re: A Brave New World
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 22 Jul 2001 16:17:59 GMT
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Viewed:
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222 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Jason J. Railton writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Kirby Warden writes:
> > > I wonder how many people here have read Aldous Huxley's *Brave New World*.
> >
> > Nope, not me. American, was he?
>
> 45 seconds of Googling gave:
>
> http://www.primenet.com/~matthew/huxley/huxbio.html
>
> Born in the UK, went to Eton and Oxford. Wrote BNW in 1931. Moved to the US
> in 1937. So, no, sorry, not American.
He didn't appear to have any particularly heartfelt national allegiance from
that bio. Now, I'm fairly sure I know what you mean by 'Googling', but
somehow the expression still worries me. :-)*
> BNW is no longer required reading in English schools? It's still a fresh and
> interesting read (and jumped out at me as having been authored by a Brit the
> first time I read it, lo these many years ago, even without the variant
> spellings that gave it away as non US). Give it a go.
I might well do. There wasn't much 'required reading' when I was at school.
I remember being told to read certain books which were deeply dull, but
these weren't a national requirement. I also remember a holiday reading
list including Lord of the Flies and 1984 (which, I admit, were of
interest), but again no one book that I knew of prescribed nationally. I'm
not sure what balance you can strike between intellectual stimulation and
indoctrination there. I just wished we'd been given something more recent
to read.
We were given free choice later on, to do work on texts we selected (though
still subject to approval by the teacher). I remember particularly that
reading Shakespeare was incredibly dull. I realise now it wasn't so much
the language as reading something that was meant to be watched. Shakespeare
himself didn't ever want anyone actually reading his entire scripts (they
were supposedly chopped up into individual characters before the actors ever
saw them, though this probably had more to do with the lack of copyright
protection at the time).
It does occur to me that opinion on artefacts of a foreign culture can
differ considerably to those in its country of origin. That the above is a
remarkable work to you in the US, but not so great here, is one such
example. Another would be that you probably think Dick Van Dyke did a
really good Cockney Accent... :-)*
Anyway, what's this about 'civics' class - you've mentioned it twice now.
What is it?
Jason J Railton
*Smileys have been included for the benefit of those who need an 'Applause'
or 'Laughter' light to come on in order to see the lack of seriousness involved.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: A Brave New World
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| (...) I'm willing to go with "really funny". But since I've had the "privilege" of riding in a taxi driven by a Cockney I know that for the accent to be even close to correct it has to be completely unintelligible to an American. (...) It's a (...) (23 years ago, 23-Jul-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: A Brave New World
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| (...) 45 seconds of Googling gave: (URL) in the UK, went to Eton and Oxford. Wrote BNW in 1931. Moved to the US in 1937. So, no, sorry, not American. BNW is no longer required reading in English schools? It's still a fresh and interesting read (and (...) (23 years ago, 22-Jul-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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