/lit/ - Literature

>"(...) In the course of my prison visiting I'd begun to see evidence of some kind of a built-in pattern—or rather of two kinds of built-in patterns; for dangerous delinquents and power-loving troublemakers don't belong to a single species. Most of them, as I was beginning to realize even then, belong to one or other of two distinct and dissimilar species—the Muscle People and the Peter Pans. I've specialized in the treatment of Peter Pans."

>"The boys who never grow up?" Will queried.

>"'Never' is the wrong word. In real life Peter Pan always ends by growing up. He merely grows up too late—grows up physiologically more slowly than he grows up in terms of birthdays."

>"What about girl Peter Pans?"

>"They're very rare. But the boys are as common as blackberries. You can expect one Peter Pan among every five or six male children. And among problem children, among the boys who can't read, won't learn, don't get on with anyone, and finally turn to the more violent forms of delinquency, seven out of ten turn out, if you take an X ray of the bones of the wrist, to be Peter Pans. The rest are mostly Muscle People of one sort or another."

>"I'm trying to think," said Will, "of a good historical example of a delinquent Peter Pan."

>"You don't have to go far afield. The most recent, as well as the best and biggest, was Adolf Hitler."

>"Hitler?" Murugan's tone was one of shocked astonishment. Hitler was evidently one of his heroes.

>"Read the Fiihrer's biography," said Dr. Robert. "A Peter Pan if ever there was one. Hopeless at school. Incapable either of competing or co-operating. Envying all the normally successful boys—and, because he envied, hating them and, to make himself feel better, despising them as inferior beings. Then came the time for puberty. But Adolf was sexually backward. Other boys made advances to girls, and the girls responded. Adolf was too shy, too uncertain of his manhood. And all the time incapable of steady work, at home only in the compensatory Other World of his fancy. There, at the very least, he was Michelangelo. Here, unfortunately, he couldn't draw. His only gifts were hatred, low cunning, a set of indefatigable vocal cords and a talent for nonstop talking at the top of his voice from the depths of his Peter-Panic paranoia. Thirty or forty million deaths and heaven knows how many billions of dollars—that was the price the world had to pay for little Adolf's retarded maturation.

...Was Hitler a sperg? This was written in 1961, before autism was barely known to exist. It's funny how typical schizo behaviour this is, basically half of 4chan could be described in a similar way. Though Huxley's later 'resolution' for this problem is also quite hilarious -- he thinks it can be 'cured' just with the right medicine and some psychological help when the child's stil young, after the problem is detected. I know the book's about an utopia, but the sentiment nonetheless remains in public expectations.

>*writes the blueprint for the modern distopic technocratic state*

Why did he do it? it's all his fault

>>15624922
It's only a dystopia for three characters, Marx, Watson, and John.

For Marx, he lives his life on hard mode. He is incapable of meeting the expectations of his peers, and thus feels alienated and unable to enjoy life the same as everybody else.

In Watson's case, he lives life on easy mode. Extremely handsome and clever, he is a top civilian. But he is capable of more, and society handicaps him from reaching his true potential. He is thus forced to degrade himself to be like everyone else.

John of course represents us, if tomorrow we were to wake up in this world. A sudden whiplash that many (John included) are not able to handle.

How should I start reading his bibliography?

Thoughts?

>J. G. Ballard quoted Aldous Huxley as having said of the United States entering the First World War, "I dread the inevitable acceleration of American world domination which will be the result of it all...Europe will no longer be Europe".[17]

Dare I say it?

In which order shall you read his books?
Do you have to read anything before him?