Brave New World (Part 2)

a little bit more sense. Today. Jennifer Wright, Karamadaqua, Tan Trent, Melissa Hunter and I will get into the thick of Huxley's story about sex, drugs, and a complete lack of rock and roll. One more tiny good thing that again levels don't go this far, but non violent de escalation

of violence, but every in line. Yeah, I mean, I would be much happier if they instead of tear gassing protesters, they were blown out weed smoke like that would be and they played an audio tape that was just like, just be nice to each other, Come on nice cool. That's scary. Yeah, it sounds like the music festival they

used to have at my college. That's not fun. I'll just jump us off and then Jennifer, I'm gonna give you the climax, but I'll lead us up to there, which is uh, John h has you know, had these ideals of this brave new world his entire life, hearing about it from his mom Linda. But he's conflicted. People have no feelings. No one has read Shakespeare here, and he's very um confused by this strumpet Lunina because he has feelings for her, but she's a strumpet and and

what is what is going on? So he has these this this crisis of faith, and he goes to visit his mother at just said dirty word dying in the hospital um on Soma on a Soma holiday. Um in a hospital where a Booknovski group of like a million twins are being death conditioned. Because another pretty good thing about the society is people aren't scared of death, which genuinely is a is a positive thing that I think that humans should be less scared of death of all

the things that they were conditioning the young children. I was like that one fine, because it's also like a lot of Latin American cultures have that too, with like Dan Dalis Moritos, where it's like death is something to celebrate and not to be as afraid of. I think that there's a there's a line, and I mean that's the whole thing of this book, is that there needs

to be a line somewhere between the two worlds. But I think that like eating a chocolate and Claire of being like, is she dead a little much CAUs yes, it's a little cavaliering, callous and uncaring and unfeeling because they don't have these strong relationships. And so I think that being unafraid of death is important, and accepting that death is a part of life is important. But also seeing that person as a person who people cared about is what's missing in this and that's what John gets

upset about. That's also it it's like people also don't see people as individuals. They're like, you're just part of the organism, like you're not a person. So to bring us into the climax, John witnesses his mother die and see sort of the taunting and just like sneers and and repulsion of this Bukanovski group twins and John has a freak out, a justifiable freak out because his mom just died. Uh, and Jennifer, why don't you take it. At this climactic moment um, John decides that he's going

to liberate this world. So he sees saw being handed out to a huge group of people. I think they're guilta's. They've just been used working for the day, and they're getting their ration of selma. They're all lining up and John runs back behind the station, screams from Shakespeare at them, and throws away all the selma. Understandably, everybody is furious. There's a riot. They tried to you understand, they've set you free, and no, no, that's not how they felt

about that. They just did like eight hours of work in a factory. They thought we're going to get a drink. People are very angry at him. It's gonna jump in real quick. At this moment, I thought the plot was going to be that he was like that guy from the movie Yesterday where he starts like reciting Shakespeare's and everyone's like, oh my goodness, Sonnets, he's a god. But because it's like lend me your ears, and he's like, oh shit, I've never spoken publicly before, so it's very unfortunate.

But they can't even really rebel because I thought, wow, that's some strong emotion, like that's certainly curious anger resulting in riot. It's only a very strong emotion because they release clouds of so much into the air to calm everybody down. And they played this very soothing, automated message saying like you should all be good to love each other.

Wouldn't that be nice? So apparent general orgy, one more tiny good thing that again levels don't go this far, but non violent shutting down of de escalation of violence that they have like a nice little recording. They're like, oh, we're gonna play Riot number two, alright, but everyone in line like like, yeah, I mean, I would be much happier if they instead of tear gassing protesters they were blown out weed smoke like that would be And they played an audio tape that was just like, just be

nice to each other, come on, nice cool. That's scary, Yeah, it is scary. It sounds like the music festival they used to have at my college. It's not fun. Wait, wait what spring weekend? They did not play creepy saying there was like a bunch of music and weed smoke and it was all right. So hem. Holtz and Bernard are also present for this. They are worried the savage is going to get killed him. Holtz like restless to defend him because him Holtz is good at everything and

that's made him different. Bernard it's like a shitty little weasel about this because he's a shitty little person. So they all get called in to stand before and also sorry, one more interruption when they were like, is this are you guys friends with John? They whatever, and Bernard was like trying to come up with a way he could say no, reading him around. The best part of that was when help comes and it says that he starts shouting help to give the illusion that he's helping. He's

the worst. So they're all called in before the World Controller and the world and Groler talks about how these people can't be in civilife society anymore. The World Controller has also read Shakespeare. Uh. He also loved doing true science when he was young. He wanted to do real experiments, but they weren't conducive to society's happiness. So he had a choice when he was young where he could either accumulate a huge amount of power or he could be exiled to an island, and um, he's like, so all

of you are going to be exiled to islands. You're you're right about that assumption, if that's what you think is going on. And Bernard begins sobbing controllably breaks out things to be allowed to say, like becomes inconsolable and has to be taken and given so many in the other room and the world control. He's like, well, that hasn't dumb reaction, because if you think about it, you're gonna meet the most interesting people you've ever met in your life. Uh, it's everybody who was a little bit

too weird to function here. And also he really nicely lets how Lant's choose what island. I love that party. He says, you want one with a good climate and him holds so snow. I think I'd do better writing if I was in a really bad climate. Yeah, he's like, the storms will inspire me. I feel like there's you don't get a lot of writing done in Hawaii and it works for the Russians. Um. Yeah, also goes to the Falkland Islands, which is I also really like that.

It's basically an artists colony. That's the punishment. Yeah, amazing. Also, I gotta say I'm really bummed for Helmholds that he is banished to an island with his toxic friend that he just can't get rid of. Oh I don't think they're going to the same island. Yeah. And at the end that chapter when he freaks out him home, Helmholds is like, I'm gonna go check on my friend, even though it's them just being a stem, make sure he's okay. It's like, you can do better. As brand is gonna

be a lot of interesting people. He's gonna be. Yeah, he's gonna be He's gonna have a great time at the He's going to have a lot of sex. He's gonna thrive. One of the things that I did think was this is a little separate from the rest of the plot. But they talked about how at one point Alpha's wanted to have their own island, so they gave them an island, and they had an Alpha only island, and it went terribly because none of them wanted to

do menial labor. They were all just constantly jockeying to be the most powerful person there. Devolved into like wars of revolutions every few years. It fell apart of media, Like, um, how would this sign might be different? Like are there a lot of poets who wanted to do a lot

of me? I think I had the idea that maybe it's this this society doesn't understand that not all like poets and and like what I'm saying is there's a flaw with how they're making alpha pluses, you know what I mean, Like because not all poets are like straight smart or good at engineering, and so like the things that they were breeding in their alpha plus is probably also weren't the best things for like fun people all ways.

That was my understanding where I was like, maybe instead of just being like the best and smartest people, they're specifically breeding alpha plus is to be like engineers for their society, and so that makes them all kind of shitty. Yeah, it feels like in Cyprus because it was the experiment with all the alphice happened in Cyprus. It feels like they were like, Okay, we want you to replicate this society exactly. And also you're being told, hey, you have

to do absolon work. So the things that you have been conditioned to think are beneath you are the things that they now have to do. So they gave them all the means of production and they were like, yeah, socialism and they were like but no, no, no, we are capitalism, and we want capitalism because that is good, right you buy new clothes when they get holes in them and all that good stuff, and it's like, no,

I'll figure it out. So I think that's sort of the breakdown because they weren't willing to be cooperative because they had not been taught that that was the thing that you do. Yeah, they've been conditioned totally against that, which is why love that. Like John's outburst, not outburst, but that he's like going to liberate everyone. Starts off with quoting Shakespeare and then he's essentially just like an

emo boy in high school. That's like, I want to be unhappy, so so you want your unhappiness and he's like yeah, and they're in pain. He's like, I'll take that to all of them, give it all to me. I just want to feel okay. So John is not allowed to go to the Falklands with his other friends. He goes off into the far reachers of the territory in takes over an abandoned lighthouse, decides that he'll just go on this little Walden adventure and live completely cut

off from the rest of society. It looks for like two days until reporters find them and they're like, it's interesting what he's doing. Um John is horrible to them and attacks them, and he also starts whipping himself whenever he has sexual thoughts about when he so. Um so, reporters also see him whipping himself in the wilderness and take pictures because that's a crazy story. And then a bunch of tourists come out to see him and they want to see him whip himself, and eventually maybe Lanina

is among them. And in any event, there is some blue eyed woman who goes up to him. I think it is Lenina because she's with Henry Foster. I assumed it was belongs to everyone else, So who knows who that lady was. I think it's implied to be Yah. I think it's implied to be Lenina. But I do think it's interesting that he didn't name her and that it's like to me, that implies it could have been any like it probably is Lanina, but it could have

been any woman in place of her in that moment. Yeah, there is also an interesting part that doesn't have that much to do with the blood, but we get this neat little dig aggression into a camperman who is filmed, very excited about using this as a premise for a feeling, and he thinks it's going to be as good as like the sex Life of a sperm Whale, which would really he's saying something like he really really thinks he's gonna he's gonna take the film medium to a new place.

That made me laugh. And people seem to take a lot of satisfaction in their jobs. I will say I did find it interesting that that specific photographer slash cameraman, he spent like four days in a tree, where I was like, isn't that a feeling of like wanting a thing and committing and then getting the thing? Like why did they let him do that? That seems like way

too much satisfaction to go to island. He's gonna go to an island where he's gonna make his documentary seen to me, And also the addition of the reporters felt out of place too, because I'm like, why would you need someone to be documenting some like all the things that you know are supposed to be regimented, like do you need competing also seem to want questions. It would call their world view into questions when they asked him, okay,

you know the kind of questions we're gonna ask. It's like, what do you think of civilized which is a normal question for a tabloid publication. But if somebody says I think they're all strumpets women should only sleep with one man, that is an incredibly controversial point. Are going to read that and be like, wait, ship, wait, just does this brave new world have freedom of press? Apparently? Yeah, and

like a thriving entertainment industry. If that's why it was, I was like, wait, where the hell did these reporters come from? Yeah? Well, I think that throughout the book they do a good job of establishing that there's a level of awfulness that they'll allow because everybody's like, oh, Marx is so queer, and it's been establish he's kind of a weirdo. But there's a point at which he

becomes too weird. They're like, he's alone a lot. He's like starting to ask questions that we don't necessarily think are cool, and um, like Helmholtz is also kind of weird, which is why they're friends, because they've established that they're

both alf Us. They're both weird. But I think Helmholtz kind of kept it together more until he did that thing in his class where he showed them like unapproved rhymes, like the teacher that very very long pool, like understandably if and the kids are twelve years old, if your teacher suddenly just came in four science class. It was like,

I'm going to I want to tell you all. When I was a junior in an ap English class, my English teacher, I mean frek, my English teacher brought in a poem that he had written and he had us read it out loud, like line by line and like the poem again, a poem he wrote. And I remember specifically there was like a line of like home reading these inane essays from students who don't carry Oh, so he dragged you and then made you read you're dragging. But again that wasn't like the point of the poem.

It was just like snuck in there, like a little line of his own like home life where he's like I spend my night reading meaningless essays. Shot him out, very funny. I had an acting teacher do that once. He had a scene, uh, and it was like at a reputable acting school, but he had a scene that was from something that he had written that was not like it's not like he wrote something that was like produced by a major studio. It was like a thing that he wrote that he and his friends made some

like teeny tiny indie film like seventeen years before. And he's like, we're doing this in class today, and I was like, I don't want to. We are. Acting teacher in high school had an unpublished or self published play called On Stars Not Falling that was a autobiographical play about his coming out, which is, you know, a good play but very personal for like a teacher to be like, this is about me and my story, and like then to have students acted out in front of him like

we did his play that was autobiographical day. The problem is not that any of these people did creative endeavors. I think wonderful. I think everybody should do creative things. Happy. There's a you tried to turn your classroom for a little stadium of friends for my api. English teacher was this very famous English teacher in my school. She was like probably eighty When I had her, she was at

Pali High forever. She like donated. She was from very rich and like donated her salary to the school and stuff. But she was asshole. She like also will bullied half of her class. She would call people her fours and fives, like the ones that she thought were like the smartest. My god, wait, and then she's like has had life,

think a narcissistic personality sort of. And on the first day of class and we were all told this and I had her two years in a row, she turned on TV and it was like she was on sixty minutes or something as uh, like she like one Teacher of the Year one year, like twenty years before plays it for everyone to be like, this is what you're getting.

I just been imagining her rolling out the TV cart that you like keep for rainy days and days when you're hungover as a teacher, like popping in the homemade recorded vhs of her on sixty minutes and just the ti tik tik happening, and then her face, Oh gosh, can you imagine that you're going to watch the Road to El Dorado and watching sixty Minutes on your teacher Also just like thinking of like a mean girl English teacher walking around being like, okay, my fours and fives,

where are you? I know, it was very It was very very and that would be like I would be such an insecure little scholar in that room. I mean I was four, so I it was I was a forward to, but she was her fours and fives. And then I remember I saw her one day with like her two favorite students, like, oh, here they are my fives, and I'm like, oh, that's why you call us collectively fours and fives. You're listening to Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio, and we'll be back right after the break.

So we're back with Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio. Okay, So back to Helmholtz. Yeah, reads a long poem to his students, which is cute, and that was like his big act of descent. So I think that it was weird.

But the reported him those acts, but like those acts of descent don't seem to warrant like a full camera crew, which is which which was why I felt the reporters felt so odd that they were like on the ready, ready to record John, Like I think part of it is like John is so different that John is like

the only you know, but why the exist? I think that's what Like maybe it's I think it's part of that economy of distraction, right, Like it's it's the frivolity of the media, and like this society has well, yeah, it already it already assumes that people are so well conditioned that they're not going to do anything like wild you know what I mean, Like they're so regimented in their like brains everything. Also, like the guy who did

the whales thing or the nature thing. I wonder if that because it does feel like you wouldn't profile individuals because this society is so anti individual that I feel like you would profile nature or you would profile like the the the making of the Feelies or something like that. But I don't know, maybe they don't see John as an individual. Like that's also a big part of that, Like he's so outside the society that he's just like a curio. Yeah, I mean, and he's attempting to return

to nature. He's just thwarted in his attempts immediately and even during this period where he is attempting to do his walden bit where he is living alone unperturbed by the rest of the world. And he bought a few canned goods because they were irresistible, but he's not going to eat them. That that was very funny. Yeah, so

he's playing stove entirely alone. It okay. When I kept thinking about this book, and I think one thing that's interesting about any dystopia is we it forces us to think about what he's missing from that society and what's valuable to us. And sometimes that's something very obvious, like water is missing from this society, and that is something I care about. Um, the amazing that seems to be missing from this society's love, and John comes no closer

to be incapable of loving when he's living alone. At the end, he's still just whipping himself every time he thinks about Lanina when she actually comes back for him. I thought a happy ending was going to be, like he was going right to her. They were going to be together, She was going to live with him in his lighthouse, and they were gonna restart the family. And I hope be documented by that guy who is a documentary and I'm very passionate about his art, Treating Treat

Treat guy. Yeah, he works really hard. Everyone else. John also Eldest Huxley, does that thing where he wants to make an argument, so he has two characters argue opposing points for ten pages. And that's the argument that John has with Mustafa Amount, where it's like two smart people with opposite perspectives talking and John's perspective is like, what

about art and truth and beauty? And Mustafa a Mount goes, Okay, well, those are fine, but they're not empirically more important than comfort and happiness, and we prioritize comfort and happiness and

that is a compromise. Look, it's an argument. Some people say that, you know, comfort is better than than beauty and truth, And I thought it was really nice when him Holt says that he's suffering because he wants to make art and he can't, and must Amount says that actually he's working with very few dramatic situations and he's still turning them into feelings and making art, and maybe

that's more impressive than something shakepeare having experience. But I guess what I was saying is like, even John is not a hero in the sense of like this book where it's like he's not doing anything for truth, or beauty or art and or love. He's just like whipping himself and being alone, Like he really doesn't do anything other than a spouse. These ideas to make us the

reader route for him. I think that this book is a cautionary tale about what happens when you read too much Shakespeare, but you don't understand it because he doesn't understand it. And I feel like these people, like he talks a lot about Romeo and juliet because he fashions himself to be Romeo and Lenina to be Juliett And like, first off, you didn't read the end of that. Second of all, I feel like there is a choice that

is made. And he is again saying because Juliette could have chosen to be with Paris and to take the easy road. But to quote Shakespeare in another of his plays, the Course of True Love Now or did run smooth? And he's saying like, well, everyone would be better if they did this, And it's like, well, no, there's no way that everyone would have been better, which is why they have this island for these misfit toys where they send them are several islands. Because he's like, oh, it's

good that we have so many islands. I don't know what we did without him, and um, so it's sort of like I feel like Mustaf Ahman is actually the most realistic person, and he's like, this is the society that we have. And I think that you have some valid points, but this is the society that we're in. Your society that you come from is not inherently better than ours, and you need to stop acting like it is. Your society is fine. Ours is not necessarily better than yours.

And he's kind of the only one who, even while referring to it as civilization and savagery, does concede that savagery is not inherently bad. It's just different and it's old. Yeah, And that's exactly why he's like, yeah, we don't not teach this because it's bad or are scared it just it doesn't reinforce the society we've built that prioritizes comfort above all. And they wouldn't understand it, like that was

the other piece of it. They wouldn't understand the lot like Helmholtz laughs at the idea of like the mother and this true love and why wouldn't you in marriage? And it is so disconnected um, I will say, you know, Jennifer, you're talking about these kind of dystopian books, and the one and the other part of it that I usually take from them is, you know, what are the things

in this dystopia that feel familiar? And a lot of it feels very familiar, especially now, like the idea of never being alone with your thoughts and like always having constant distraction, and how constant distraction is a way for like the systems of power to keep working and also for consumerism to keep working, to like feed the beast, and there's always something to buy, there's always something to consume.

And I did feel like that helm holds thing about solitude and that like no one there is ever alone is it was just really compelling to me and kind of world that we like, Oh my god, it made me.

I mean, I'm someone I'm alone in quarantine, but I'm on Twitter constantly, and I also keep like my TV on in the background when I work, just like and I always have like two screens up, like I'm always my brain is never quiet, and I'm clearly uncomfortable with just being alone with my thoughts, which isn't a good thing.

And the thing that I should work on. Yeah. I think there is also this idea that at least if you are someone who leaves in public at any kind of way, like someone who is on Twitter, there is

a notion that everyone belongs to everyone else. My husband often says that the thing that he thinks that our grandchildren will rightly mock us the most as a generation for was the idea that random private citizens had to issue like public apologies on it, Like the idea that you had to be like, I'm sorry, I didn't I was not aware of good year tires, poor politics. I do not. They do not stand with me. I am

a teacher from Missouri. Um. It is uh, it is somewhat unnecessary that we believe that we belong so much to everyone else that we have to constantly make it clear that we are standing together as a group. Um. Not that you shouldn't try to support, you know, companies to do good things and good people in general, and the right political causes. But I do think there is an idea that if you don't, you will be canceled

online very very quickly. Um, and well everybody, Yeah, I mean I not to bring up something personal from your Twitter, but the but that whole like book thing, like, yeah, is it's so enough with It's not political, it's just the way you organize your books and for you to get dragged by strangers and telling you you're an idiot because oh yeah, don't worry, I've readden Look, there is a very real chance that I have written more books than those people have read this. Yes, so I'm not

too worried. It is like that that they feel like they have a right to you know, your time and attention, says I didn't specifically want to invoke that example, but yes, do you feel like, what kind of insane world are we living in? Oh? No, no, it's fine. Honestly, it's better than me trying to make up an argument. Yeah, insane to me that people feel like they have a

right to do that. I think it's the same argument that Mustafa and John are basically having, where it's like you are prioritizing, in that specific instance, beauty and you're like, I like the way that this looks. These are books, they have information. I use the for information. I like them, but I am prioritizing the way I organized my books in a beauty sense. I wanted to look pretty and be a rainbow, which the same thing. Yeah, is the

first person I like. I'm like, I live in a studio apartment and my bookshelves take up a full wall, and so I want them to like look nice of my last book at friends, to have those built in bookshelves built and get the ladder and do everything they are in very important to me. Know, they're stunning. They're stunning. Okay, thank you, they are. This is Popcorn book Club. We'll be right back after this quick break. Okay, we're back with Popcorn book Club. We didn't say what happens at

the end of the book. Oh my god, Yes, okay, Lena runs towards him. I fully assume they're going to embrace and restart a family and they're going to have an interesting and different world. But that is not what happens. He runs out after her and tries to whip her, and I think successfully does sound like just fully attacks her. Yes, yeah, Henry Foster runs away because um, all men are cowards in this world. But yes, and Henry Foster runs away, and I think she might be dead anyhow. Then the

Sandwich goes back to his house and hangs himself. I think they also have an orgy on her dead body, yes, orgy porgy. Yeah. They have just like just overcome with like a motion, but their conditioned not to know how to handle it except in that way until they have an orgy, which John participates too, because he's like everything is so crazy, like I might as well just give

in to what's happening. And then the next morning he is so guilty that he had an orgy that yeah, yeah, which again, the scale of things that are bad and good about this world is like a certain level of sexual openness is I would say, on the better scale if you can also marry that with a commitment and love.

Um and John thinking that every woman who wants sex is a strumpet who should be beaten and whipped to death not a good thing kind of well, I mean, look, is is love incompatible with a society that is this calm and happy and prioritize has comfort as much? Well? I think they do love things. I think that they love things in a different way than we perceive love. Like they love electromagnetic and obstacle golf. They love it.

But I do think love monogamy is possessive, right, and there is inherent jealousy and like owning an object, not that you're owning a person, but possessing an exclusivity with a person, it does lead itself to jealousy and you want things that other people have and you can't have certain people, and well, feelings aren't quite it. I feel like it's toxic. Monogamy is that. I feel like monogamy doesn't have to be that monogamy doesn't have to be

inherently jealous. I think that recognizing that you can't be everybody to one person is important, and I don't mean that in terms of a sexual way, but like, your partner should be able to have friends. Your partner should be able to have a coworker where they make cheeky jokes and that's okay with you if that's something that they want. Like, I think that that there needs to

be a conversation about what monogamy means to you. But I think that there's this culture that exists, maybe more so back then but especially now where it's like, oh, you're my person, you're my person, that's it. And well, I also you really just have to be on the same page. Like I don't care if Mike Pens and his wife want to do they're thing that I think it's kind of weird for he's not allowed to talk to other women, and I'm sure she's not allowed to

talk to other men. And they're calling each other mother and father. Okay, it's weird to me. It's not what i'd want for my marriage. But it seems like they're both very much on the same page and that makes them happy. But so I think I think I'm speaking a little more abstractly where it's not about the actual nature of monogamy. It's the nature of strong feelings for anything and a possessiveness. Then like, even if it's not like cheating, it's like if the person die, like there's

a loss and and and there's pain and loving something. Yeah, well there's family to family is a kind of love. Yeah. I think they're also is that this is this is

last about all that. Yeah, it's more about familial love and romantic love, and those two things inherently as perfect and healthy as they it can be in the most healthy version, there is grief involved in those relationships, because if it's not through a divorce or a breakup, it's through someone dying or like with a child, it's them moving away, you know, like there's there's so much grief because the feelings are so intense, and that this society

has gotten rid of those griefs and losses in and but they've also gotten rid of deep, meaningful love. I mean, Dorothy Parker has this great quote where she says, it's so easy to be sweet to people until you love them, And I think that's true. I would never speak to like my postman the way I spoke to my mother when I was fifteen, when I told her that she was like full on destroying my life. Um, like it is. And you know, if if somebody killed my husband, I

would want to hunt them down and kill them. Those are not civilized rational feelings that lead to everybody is happiness and well being. And my biggest fear is my parents dying, and like that is that rue that ruins my life, the thought of that, And yeah, that is a pain because I have something good and I don't want it to go away. I just want to speak

to grief. And I think that having community is what makes grief bearable and what makes grief something that can be compatible with civilization, because it's like the moment when some you have somebody in your life die and we talked about this um or we don't talk about it, but it comes up in the hate you give. How everybody comes together after Khalil's death and they're all there for each other to support each other in this terrible

time where somebody has taken too soon. And I think that the problem with John losing Linda is that there's no template for it. They're like, why are you like this eating a Claire have some soma, Like it's not that deep. People die, and because I think it's just two world views being incompatible. So it is about, like

Jen just said, being on the same page. I really like the quote that John says in his sort of like monologue towards me Stop Amount where he's quoting the one book he's read and he's talking about Hamlet and he says like, you know, to bear the slings narrows aboutrage of sports, and he's like, well, you just made instead of bearing it, you just do away with the slings narrow So it's like, I totally, Karama, You're totally right.

Like our society has come up with ways to cope with that grief through like communities, and they're just like, well, what if we just didn't. I was so mad when he did that quote because he misquoted it, and I was, yeah, I had to double check because I was like, look, I don't know much, but I know to be or not to be when I used to work out. Hello, well, um, I used to recite to be or not to be when I was on the rowing machine so that it

would feel less traumatic. I'm making a face, Karama. That is the most taps concentrator ship I've ever happened, where I'm sorry. It's something that I remembered that I knew well that I could go through. And he says whether tis in the book all this? Huxley says whether tis better? And I was like, tis nobler? Motherfucker. I was like, that's wrong and I checked. It was like, there's no version of this that would have been really an amazing

power move. At the end of Bernard's speech must Off, it was like, tis nobler, Oh my gosh, Mike drop if I wrote that TV show, That's what I would Uh, That's what I would do. Is kind of dumb. John is definitely dumb, but I think he could he not be also because he doesn't. I mean he formulates his arguments well, but the fact that he thinks the solution is just go into a forest and pray all day on his knees, Like, that's not a productive use of

your energy. Also, I don't think that's also a weird narcissism, a weird distraction. Absolutely, he became very bernard like by the end, well, and like he had never really been shown much kindness except for that one old man at the reservation, and no one really taught him anything, like he had been taught how to read, but not to

comprehend fully what he's reading. And I think that so, like, genuinely, how could he not be bad at formulating arguments and bad at making these connections like he has he is learning, but he has no education. Well, that's almost the most interesting thing to me. As also, as we said, there's no protagonist in this book, like John is not a hero, and again he murders Learning at the end, and if

he doesn't, he maims her. But in a less nuanced or maybe even more modern dystopian book, usually there is a character who's meant to be like an audience placeholder, who always is like voicing things as if they're the reader from our world who just came into that world, you know, like Catanus and Hunger games, being like this

is wrong, we shouldn't have hunger games. Like yeah, they shouldn't have a Hunger game right where it's like someone who's like predor naturally wise and has a perspective on it. So none of these characters have perspective on their society. Honestly, I think the only one that does is missed off a mom mom, because completely saw that he knew the

old world. And whether you know, you agree with him or not about this dystopia, he gets both sides, Like he understands the benefits of not being in the society and having romantic love and art, but he like I chose not to, which makes his position as the resident

world controller pretty diabolical. Yes, absolutely, the fact that he can just sit there and talk to John about oh yeah, I see your side of things, and I saw it from that perspective as well, And he probably maybe would have ended up in the same position as John if

he just didn't wasn't offered a position of power. Well, that's sort of the scary thing is when you have someone like Mustafa Mound looking at a population and saying like, all right, we will predestined that everyone just lives a comfortable life and lives and does their job and plays golf and dies. You're like, well, why are these people

even living? It's like an ant colony, Like you could just kill Like if your life is just like a meaningless array of soma pleasantries, Like what is the difference between that and life and death? Like if to me it reads as Mustafa mind, like playing with an ant colony,

And that's what to me. I mean, maybe this is interpretation, but like propping up billionaires and making them to you to be rich and have their machines run and they buy their clothes and their soma and their perfumes and their feelies and and their mechanical golf and whatever that like they need all those people to do that because that He even mentions like the iceberg as the perfect example of what the society is that like the tip is that like at the very top, I was like,

your numbers are wrong. He was like, it was like one night about the water, eight nights below the water. But I think it's because I had like nine pasts or something. Maybe the wealth disparity was less less crazy, because now it is. But it did feel like he was describing late stage capitalism for sure. I wanted to talk about the epigram, the quote at the beginning, the epigraph or epigram, which one is it? Um? I think it's the epigraph. Yes, the epigraph, a word that I

knew for sure. Um. So it's in French um which in French. I was one of my teachers force um, so I just have to give me a French No. I definitely had to use Google Translate to get some of this though, because I was like, it's been a while, but it basically boils down to um. Utopias are basically becoming more realizable then we believed before, and we find ourselves actually in front of a more um agonizing question, which is, how do we avoid the definitive realization of Utopia's?

Utopias are realistic life marches towards utopias, and maybe in a in the beginning of a new century, a century where intellectuals and the cultivate, cultivated class can dream of a method of avoiding the utopias, we can return to a society non a non utopian society, less perfect and more free. And I think that that's a really interesting like little summary of the book and the idea of less perfect and more free and interesting that we are trying to form a more perfect union. I think that

have any of you read? Yeah, so that's another That's another book that is sort of compared to this a lot, because you know they I think that was written in the fifties, but like similar, similar eras and and both

dystopi into a degree. Even though nineteen four is like objectively a full totalitarian government, I would argue that, you know, Brave New World is equally totalitarian, but just like more pleasant where it's like the defectors in Brave New World when you're different, you just like go to the Falkland island and they're like great, we're in like breat In nine. They like torture you with rat which is bad. Um

yea difference rats are islands. Yeah, it's interesting. Mustafa does talk about that that like force, that they tried to kill people like you do this through force and fear and it didn't work, like it could just cause civil unrest and they're like, oh no, we can't have that. And I thought that was really interesting. And that's how you know that this is like every piece of this is designed by very evil people because they just want to control the masses. It's just that, like what is it,

you get get more flies with honey? Civil civil unrest like inspires heroism, you know what inspires glory? When really kissed me off about the misquoted Shakespeare was because he had just been talking about being noble and then he didn't even say the word noble where it was in the text. Like I was a big man about this tongue. But I think I used to public speaking. That's I mean, he's pretty private at that point. I think it's interesting that Mustafaman's last name is world in French. He's like

born to be the world's controller. Again, I took French. I don't know if you all knew I did. Like the little came as of all the of all the people with their with their names like um, the Malthusian belts, which is like the reproduction. But malthest is the the economist who talks about population and growth. So that makes sense that like to limit, just like Alice is like look at all the people. I know, I went to major and he did. He didn't even have Google. He

did not that's impressive. They were just up there in his noggin, but apparently not the correct version of to be or not to be. It was late in the book. Yeah, John is one book, his entire fucking life. Editor, I blame Elvis's editors. That's fair. Whoever you are, all this is editor. I hope you hear this from beyond the grave and you're ashamed of yourself. I bet they are. I bet they're hearing it being like we know it's

really it's one regret. That's why I'm stuck on earth because it's my unfinished we talk about the show at all. I was about to say most of us did not watch the show. The one thing that came up in the text chat that I want to bring up is actress Demi Moore playing Linda. Yeah, because Demi Demi is the antithesis of human age. She's the opposite of human Yeah, don't worry to make her into a sex symbol on

the show. Also, she doesn't like to to die slowly by taking soma she's shot is she heroically gets her son to safety so he can go back to the or likes her as just like this, this like tragic figure It was really interesting because in the show, the Savage Area is an amusement park. It's not a reservation. They love West World, it's our West World, but like it's got real quote unquote savages. But they're all like, um, they're all working class white people, what some might call

trailer trash. Is what is the that's the like vibe like that. But they're also if you like, yeah, yeah, it's exactly like that. But that's also interesting because then those people are also are they familiar with Do they know they're in a theme park? Yes? And it's like they're just we're that's weird because then they know about the outside world exactly though some force field that prevents

them from going out. I just watched the first episode, the first two episodes are free um, and I like it was very weird because basically they were like, oh, the regular people are not regularly. They didn't say regular, but the people from New London can walk in and out of that blue force field and it makes you wonder if they're even human. And I was like, wait, are they human? What is this blue force field? What's going on? When a lot of stuff happens in the

TV show that's not happened in the book. A lot of it is not good to someone really had to take some things that I do enjoy less racist off the bat, A lot of people of color characters seems like they are not They're not like mixing the They're mixing the casts up a little bit more. The C A S T E casts, not B C A st cast. Um, Henry's Asian. Okay, so everybody's sexually fluid. So everybody everyone truly belongs to everyone else. Yeah, um, yeah, so Henry's Asian.

Franny is black. Um. And then we already talked briefly about how Helmholtz is a woman named Wilhelmina. So Holm for sure does she is. She's still like a hot commodity. She's she's the Andy Warhole. She's doing Andy warhol because she wears the silver with yea this little haircut that she's. I don't think I saw him in the first episode. I I did look at the IMDb, and I think Mustafa is that they gender flipped that character too. I think dystopian modern dystopians love like a steely woman to

be in church. That's like the new trend of like a woman in a gray suit. Oh yeah, it's like totally Kate Winslett and Divergent, Yes, and from You and Julianne Moore. Yeah yeah, I think that or Tillington and Snow Piercer. Oh yeah, I love Snow for fun. That's a that's a good dystopia. That's a fun dystopia. All right, they're making it into a TV. Before we leave, let's go around and say, if you had to live in a dystopia, you have to live in it. You which one?

What do you want to live in? Wait? Do I get to choose? Like? Can I in charge? No, You're not in charge. You're just a citizen. It can be a book, TV show, anything, but we all have to sort of collectively agree to dystopia. What about the one we're in now? I just think it's clever, But now, oh this one is hot. It's hard, Okay. I mean I think, Um, if we lift in the Hunger Games, we live in America, and um, you know we live in wealthy parts of America, we would definitely live in

the capital. I doesn't feel bad about the games going on, but the clothing is very good. We could have like a protest. That is also true where it's like we are the coastal elites. And also in the Hunger Games, it's it's only ten eleven. Oh, you're not even going to come to my capital, lady pro it's tunny, so correct, I bet you there are the protests were going afterwards. I'll come to the protest, but I'll be like you, look, as long as if it keeps everyone. There's a lot

of deaths now, a lot of kids die. Be clear, kids, you're going to be moderate conservatives. I don't say that. I think I choose to live in the purge. Can I live in the purge? Yeah? I don't scar. I I was that's what I was gonna do West World, because especially are you a robot or are you a person? Either one? There they are benefits. The robots don't ever remember anything and then eventually suprising, and that seems very fun the robots or whatever if robots, but if you're

a human. But as a woman visitor, I feel like the men visitors are terrible, but the women visitors just a saloon like flirt with James Morriston. And I'm saying, what about friends? When the robot uprising happens and you're a human well, yeah, you would know I was already friends. Yeah, we were friends with the robots. We wouldn't be like we're Yeah, m if I'm just a regular person, I either choose the Purge or Dollhouse, because in Dollhouse, I

would be a regular person unaffiliated with the Dollhouse. I would not be rich enough to partake at the Dollhouse. I don't think that I am like conventionally hot enough to be a doll So I'm just like a person in Los Angeles. Yeah, you know, I think I did you guys ever read The Giver when you were a kid? Of course? Yeah, I think I know that that's a dystopia where like colors don't exist in like strong sexual feelings don't exist, but like they're all emotionally healthy and

your family and you like talk about your day. They kill all the twins, do they they have to murder? Yeah? God is not I said it happened. Yeah, I was like, it has to be a dystopia. Westly slaves sentient beings or I mean, honestly, runner up would be bring the World and that's sent to one of the tropical islands. Oh wait, I might be changing my opinion, which one,

would you be the bottom? Actually, stufford Wives would be great if you just like, don't live in Connecticut because I know man like I like, Oh jen Jennifer, Jennifer, Oh Jennifer, this is worse than making pies. It is Christians decorations. Jennifer. I would purchase shut out of you. You're going to be the first courage. The great thing about the purchase you get to save up for three hundred and sixty four days all of the rage that you have and then directed whoever ye with no consequences.

But every year definitely gets worse because they probably killed someone you loved last year, so now you've got to go run. And here's the other here's the other upside of the purge. All laws cease to exist on the night of the purge, which means like doing community gardens. I was like, not allowed unity gardens. Yeah, no, no, laws that are dumb extortion. I would extort people are going to we're going into purge discussion. This is too far. I'm very sweaty. I was like, I would build something

in my backyard without a proper permit. Yeah, I would park on the street. Sweeping side of the happens on the first I'm not paying rent. Uh, this was a delight. Thank you Jennifer, tan Mellis and Grandma for joining me. Brave New World is a series on Peacock if you want. But it sounds like it is not similar to the book. Uh, it has the bones of the book. I'm going to say it has the bones of the book, but it's got a real different muscles. That's our show for the week.

Thank you so much for listening. I'm Danis Schwartz and you can find me on Twitter at Danis Schwartz with three z s. You can follow Jennifer Wright at Jen Ashley Right, Karama Downqua is at Karama Drama, Melissa Hunter is at Melissa f tw and Tian Tran is smart enough to have gotten off Twitter, but she is on Insta at Hank Tina. Our executive producer is Christopher Hessiotes and we're produced and edited by Mike John's special thanks

to David Wasserman. Next week we will get some screen time and talk about how the Peacock adaptation of Brave New World diverges wildly from the novel spoiler alert, but like way different. All right, see you next week. Popcorn book Club is a production of I Heart Radio.