Aldous Huxley
Brave New World Revisited

LA RECENSIONE

"Brave New World Revisited" [translated as "Ritorno al Mondo nuovo"] is a commentary that Huxley addressed in 1958 regarding his well-known novel from 1932 ["Brave New World", indeed]. With a keen eye, the author retraces his steps to verify to what extent the extrapolations he made more than twenty-five years earlier had hit the mark.

Obviously, both "Brave New World" and "Brave New World Revisited" are influenced by the era in which they were written, nor could it be otherwise. Particularly "Brave New World Revisited", written in the years when the Cold War was raging (a few years after the end of the Second World War, a time when Huxley had significantly deepened his relationship with the American reality), manifests a very clear opposition to what was a deeply rooted specter in the entire capitalist Western world: the "Otherness" that materializes in the dual figure of the defeated enemy represented by the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis and the contemporary countries with communist economies. Huxley's evident stance, often even cloying in its insistence, demonstrates that he himself, despite his sharpness as a genius, could not be entirely free from the intense propaganda of those years.

Another element Huxley does not bother to conceal is a marked moralism. In this case as well, it is not difficult to see the signs of an era now quite distant, allowing us to evaluate it with efficient detachment. The very transparent evidence of this moralistic stance, paradoxically, neutralizes its effect, allowing the reader to easily separate the "universal" observations from the "personal" assessments of the author.

Despite what has just been noted, the value of Huxley's writing (purged of the effects of the contingency of the moment in which it saw the light) remains significant and has much to teach those who have never paused to reflect on the topics addressed. Certainly, many of the theories presented are now marked by the passage of time, but it is a dignified senescence, which suggests a still long period of vigorous health in the future.