/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3318519]

I just finished reading A Brave New World. Great book really good. I dont understand the ending, especially the significance of the last lines, "the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south-south-east, east ..."

What did you take away from the book?

[Anonymous No.3318520]

It meant nothing.

[Anonymous No.3318526]

It's a dystopian vision of the inevitable result of patriarchy

[Anonymous No.3318532]

>>3318520
Jesus Christ, put out some caution tape before unleashing your edgy like that...

[Anonymous No.3318535]

[Anonymous No.3318584]

>>3318535
thats all well and good i get that.

by why where those the last lines? Why not just leave john hanging?

[Anonymous No.3318588]

>>3318584
Have you never actually seen a hanged man?
Feet dangling in the breeze?
Swaying too-and-fro?

[Anonymous No.3318601]

>>3318588
no i havent, but i can imagine what it would look it.

I dont understand why the most important lines of the book where wasted on a description. Does it have some symbolic meaning? why the directions? north to south and east.

[Anonymous No.3318638]

>>3318601
why are you assuming the most important lines of the book are the last ones?

[Smells No.3318695]

>>3318638

Zing!

Doubly true for novel ending mid-chapter or mid-sentence, like Gogol's Dead Souls and Kafka's The Castle.

[Anonymous No.3318720]

>>3318535
That's bullshit. Brave New World and 1984 are entirely different beasts. Huxley wrote Brave New World as almost a parody of Utopian fiction, and was more a critique of that than anything else.

1984 was written in direct response to Orwell's concerns about the direction that contemporary Socialism was taking in the modern world, such as the ties between the British labor party platform and Stalinism. In particular, his experiences in the Spanish Civil War greatly influenced it, and I personally believe one cannot fully understand Orwell's intentions with 1984 without reading Homage to Catalonia. So the reason the problems listed in 1984 never happened is a combination of the fact that socialism/communism never came to dominate the world as Marxism predicted (and to Orwell's dismay), and that any movement towards that sort of thing in the English speaking world was dispelled by a combination of anti-communist jingoism and because they were explicitly given as Orwellian.

[Anonymous No.3318723]

>>3318638
its whats expected of a novel, but i suppose it doesnt have to be. I had assumed and second guessed myself, i thought maybe something had slipped passed me.

It doesnt seem fitting that its meaningless

[Anonymous No.3318724]

>>3318720
How do I become as smart as you

[Anonymous No.3318733]

>>3318724

Boner pills?

[Anonymous No.3318740]

>>3318733
Indeed. I rail at least 3 a morning - you know, breakfast on a mirror and all.

[Anonymous No.3318742]

>>3318740

You hard, nigga.

Ha. Get it?

[Anonymous No.3318750]

>>3318723
That he hanged himself is not meaningless, your insistence that a description of dangling feet needs to mean more than that is.

[Anonymous No.3318855]

>>3318695
Am I alone, when I think, that the unfinishedness of The Castle is one of it's best aspects and makes it one of my favorite books of all time? I don't think that it could have gotten a better ending, the last few chapters and the book ending mid-sentence are perfect.

[Anonymous No.3319837]

>>3318519
The savage hung himself. He's dead. He's gone from the world he hates. He's free.

[Anonymous No.3319847]

>>3318855

Personally I like a bit of resolution, but since life rarely works out that way it's certainly a more realistic way to end a novel. You're probably right, though, an actual ending probably wouldn't have wrapped things up any more satisfactorily. Personally I still like The Trial better, but that's because it's so screamingly funny.