brave new world, that has such people in it

Twenty hesitant English honors students walked into Roger Smith's notoriously unpredictable classroom the first day of eleventh grade and sat down, waiting for him to enter the room and tell us what to expect. His classically plain name belied his frazzled appearance: glasses on the end of his nose, grey hair a little too long to sit comfortably behind his ears, wildly traveling eyes, one finger a little shorter than all the others from the time he'd cut it off in a carpentry accident. The chairs had been arranged in a circle, so we were all able to see each other, and--most importantly--Mr. Smith could see all of us. He handed out a packet of Native American creation myths, and informed us that the course, "American Connections" would begin here and journey on through the evolution of American literary thought, through Puritan literature, the Romantic Period, the Transcendentalist thinkers, political satire and modern poetry. Without wasting a moment we opened the packet to the first myth, "The Earth on Turtle's Back," and began reading together. After finishing the first paragraph Mr. Smith stopped us and asked our thoughts. Years of literature classes had all taught us to search for the "deeper meaning," and so one brave soul, a brilliant girl named Emma, said she was frustrated with herself; past teachers had all said that she was horrible at finding the "deeper meaning," and she sure as heck couldn't find it here.

"Fuck deeper meaning, Emma!" Mr. Smith roared, as we all sunk a little bit lower in our chairs, wide-eyed at his flippant use of such crassness. "That's not what literature's concerned with. That's not even life! What I want you--all of you--to think about when you're reading is a very simple question: what does this piece, this story, this poem, say about the human experience? What does this particular thinker have to say about what it means to be human?"

Grateful for a clean slate, we eagerly dug into the class. Poe, Fenimore Cooper, Anne Bradstreet, Jonathan Edwards, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Bishop...all these were read with this question in mind, and we were all better for it. Literature, I've learned--and am learning--is about the human experience, not about what our enlightened intellect can pull out of it. Certainly there is room for discussion, for insight, for poetry, but literature stands alone, stands on interpretation, not on what secrets it conceals. The most enduring works are enduring not for their "deeper meanings"; if that were the case the discovery of such enigma would signify the end of all appreciation. But it doesn't, because the value of literature--works classic and modern--lies in the human experience, interpretation, response. The works--our Bibles, our Shakespearean volumes, our Dante--have their value manifested in us. Narcissism? Egoism? Perhaps; but human history has deferred story to the individual.

On that note, I recently finished Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and promptly had a dream about it (because of it? within it?), one in which I was walking along a foggy beach with hazy figures. There were people all around, but none had any concrete shape, their edges all obscured. I reached out to grasp hands for proof of being, but couldn't feel anything. There was movement, sound--the low murmur of discontented groaning--but nothing to touch, no physical presence (a fitting element given the utopia's penchant for administering a drug called soma, Greek for body, to its inhabitants). After quite a bit of time in that strange place I was very grateful to be woken up by a phone call, wonderful reassurance that there are real people to be found.

One of the most powerful passages in the book speaks to Mr. Smith's question:


"What you need," the Savage went on, "is something with tears for a change. Nothing costs enough here...isn't there something in living dangerously?"
"That's why we've made the Violent Passion Surrogate compulsory," the Controller replied. "Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete psychological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences."
"But I like the inconveniences."
"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence.
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.


Mr. Smith, I do think being human looks something like this: to claim the right to be unhappy. To desire God, poetry, real danger, freedom, goodness, sin. To claim the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind. To be completely and utterly savage, as long as it means being alive.