About this book

This review is of the book Island, written by Aldous Huxley. Aldous Huxley’s novel Island was written and published in 1962. I bought the paperback version from ThriftBooks, where I paid $15.74 for the book (new). The paperback is 354 pages long. The book has a nice binding and has a medium-sized font, making it easy to read. The quality of the pages is good, and the book is 8″ high x 5 1/4″ wide, making it a book that you can hold comfortably. In addition to the 15 chapters in the book, there is an About the Author, About the Book, and a bibliography of all his works.

Summary

As with all my book reviews, I won’t bore you with a blow-by-blow review of the contents, as I feel that takes away the pleasure you may experience reading it. Instead, I will provide a brief synopsis of what the book is about and the value it brings to you, the reader. My hope is that I provide you enough information to understand at a high level the plot, some of the characters, and most importantly, how reading this book can benefit and create a level of enjoyment that reading an outstanding piece of literature provides.

I’ve written three other book reviews of Huxley’s work, including: Brave New World, Brave New World Revisited, and Ape and Essence. The reason I mention this is that Island was Huxley’s last novel, and there is some value in reading Brave New World, for instance, to understand the contrast between the dystopian world depicted in Brave New World and the near-perfect world described in Island.

The main character of the book was the highly disturbed but inquisitive Will Farnaby, an Englishman who became shipwrecked on the island of Pala and was discovered by the native people who lived on the island. Much of this book is about his experience learning about the island culture that can only be described as a utopia compared to Western culture. There are heavy overtones of Buddhism and Hinduism in the culture, with an emphasis on education, not for the sake of creating little capitalists, but focused on fostering an environment that facilitates the development of aware human beings and community. One might say the antithesis of the UK or the United States of America. The Palanese culture was the creation of a Doctor and Elder from the island. The elder is called the Raja, and in some contexts, this is like royalty in this culture. As in Brave New World there is a drug similar to Soma, but without the negative side effects, called moksha. While in Brave New World, Soma relieves pain and helps whoever uses it endure their lives, but moksha instead creates visions and is used to help one see the world for what it is.

As Will Farnaby learns more about the culture, he is made aware of a desire by an offspring of the Raja named Murigan, who is more interested in exploiting oil resources than preserving Pala’s culture. Will Farnaby has relationships with the oil industry and is supposed to facilitate a transaction with one of the oil companies, and he becomes torn between brokering a deal and preserving the culture he has been learning about. The question is, will this utopia be subverted by the capitalists, or will Pala’s culture survive?

Recommendation

Aldous Huxley appeared to have a fondness for Mahayana Buddhism, as it is featured as a cornerstone of Pala’s society and culture. What struck me the most was the eloquence and mastery of language that Aldous Huxley possesses. Having read three other novels by him, this was by far the very best of his writing that I have read so far. He builds a case for a society based on virtue, self-awareness, compassion, and community that does not exist in the world today. He is able to bring this Utopian society to life in this book. I slowly devoured this book one chapter at a time, much like any activity that you look forward to. If you are interested in reading something that shines a light on what an ideal society would look like, then Island is for you.

About the author

Aldous Leonard Huxley; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.

Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.

Additional Information

About the Author – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley

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