Brave New World Book Club Questions
Welcome to the Buddy Book Club – we have a light-hearted comedic podcast that covers a variety of books. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is a classic dystopian novel written in 1932 but still has relevancy almost 100 years later.
We did a full breakdown of Brave New World on our podcast episode. On the episode we dive into what life would be like in the dystopian future, unlikeable characters, Judi Dench vs Marisa Tomei, and how to effectively govern your totalitarianism society. So, check it out if you’re interested.
Our book club questions try to be a little more outside the box/comedic than your typical book club questions – hopefully you enjoy them.
Book Club Discussion Questions – Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
-> What are your feelings about Bernard? Did you think he may be the lead character or the one to overthrow the government initially?
Unfortunately he’s one of those people that gets an ounce of respectability or power, he takes every single advantage of it, and he’s the quickest one to ditch a friend.
-> In this day and age did John the Savage come off a bit problematic/pretentious or more sympathetic?
He gave off ‘guy that shows up with the guitar at the party’ vibes to us. Who also is liable to get in a fight at the party if he can’t play said guitar. John quotes Shakespeare constantly, refuses to have sex with naked Lenina because she’s a “slut,” then beats her up, stabs his mom’s boyfriend, and whips himself. He’s the guy that wants all the attention but only on his terms.
-> Why is the society telling their citizens they’re being conditioned?
Once you get told that you’ve been conditioned, you now start to question all conditioning. If you never tell these people they’ve been conditioned… Are we missing something?
If you’re under 5’10” and reading this book, it feels like you’re constantly getting shit on. Don’t worry if you’re 5’11” (which doesn’t exist) or taller you’re okay. The book basically says people that are shorter are grotesque. This book Bumble before Bumble?
This book: ‘If you’re under 6 feet, don’t talk to me.’
Do you feel bad for Lenina? She seems to get absolutely shit on for most of this book. She wants to have sex with Bernard (he’d rather watch the ocean), gets naked for John (he calls her a slut and beats her up), was she just in the wrong era or are all the men in this book just terrible by comparison?
She gave us Elizabeth Banks from 40-Year-Old Virgin vibes. Tough book for her.
For the entire book, being sent to Iceland sounds like punishment. Then Mustafa Mond reveals: ‘the Islands is where we send all these smart people that are thinkers like you. So you actually might have some good conversations there.” Best twist or cop-out ending?
Iceland sounds like a pretty nice place, way better than what most dictatorships will do.
Did this book give you a new perspective on hippieness vs. being content? In the book they created happiness, and everyone is happy all the time. But without suffering it’s pretty empty. Does this book make you appreciate… being sad and miserable?
Living in this society would be like a child star. If you get everything you need and all the success when your young you really can’t appreciate it, which is why most child stars go crazy.
Would you be the person that stays in the Matrix or just takes their daily Soma or are you living with the harsh truth of reality?
I’m staying in the Matrix, the 90s were pretty awesome.
The New York Time still exists in this book, 650 years in the future… any chance they’ll be around in 650 years?
The New York Times is already on its last leg. Don’t get us started on the New York Times best sellers list (Gone Before Goodbye was recently on the list somehow).There is 0% chance it’ll still be around in 650 years.
Lot of big words in this book viscosity, sententiously, suffuse, pneumatic, viviparous… how often were you pulling out the dictionary for this one?
Me, I had it flipped open at all times, these 1930s writes did not mess around with their vocab.
-> Who would you cast in a movie version of this book? They actually did a show, which I didn’t mind (it got canceled after one season).
We do casting for books, check them out.
Did we miss some questions? Reach out to us or check out our podcasts.
