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Island (Perennial Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Aldous Huxley
Publisher: Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $7.43
You Save: $7.52 (50%)
Rating:  59 reviews
Sales Rank: 6555
Media: Paperback
Edition: Perennial classic ed
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.3 x 0.9
ISBN: 0060085495
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780060085490
ASIN: 0060085495
Publication Date: August 1, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Ships next business day. NEW/UNREAD!!! Text is Clean and Unmarked! --Be Sure to Compare Seller Feedback and Ratings before Purchasing-- Has a small black line on bottom/exterior edge of pages. May have light shelf wear to cover from storage, if any. In House Upgrade to Expedited shipping for items valued at or totaling $40.00 or more!
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Product Description
In Island, his last novel, Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala and events begin to move when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and -- to his amazement -- give him hope.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 54 more reviews...
 A tool to living... December 24, 2007
Jeremy Prizzy (San Diego, Cali)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was a fan of "Brave New World" as well as Huxley himself and without hesitation picked up this enlightening book. I believe this book invokes numerous topics of discussion be it politics, capitalism, individuality, spirituality, etc. I personally feel out of all those components I listed above Huxley emphasizes the concept of spirituality, particularly Buddhist philosophies. I believe Will Faranby was both a protagonist and a antagonist, but thats open to interpretation. Huxley wrote this book giving the reader an opportunity to see how spirituality shapes and impacts a persons perception of him/herself (the being) and the world. The book centered around the progression of Will Faranby's introspective of consciousness. Huxley incorporated hallucinogenics aka moksha-medicine as being totally appropriate and relevant to the characters development, thus solidifying Farnaby's introspective of himself. In essence, the moksha-medicine was an eye-opening, yet intense experience that ultimately gave the main character a deeper awareness to the world and his own personal existence (the being).
 Island November 1, 2007
Rachel
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Island
Aldous Huxley
354 pages
13.95
ISBN 0-06-008549-5
HarperCollins Books
I was browsing around Borders, looking for a book to get for this personal reading assignment when Island by Aldous Huxley caught my eye. I assumed from its title and cover that it was some type of survival book about a group of people stranded on an island, struggling to make a fire and to get some food. However, I was completely wrong. Island is actually a book about Huxley's idea of perfect society. This isolated island in the story called Pala, receives only limited outside influence, making all of its unique culture possible. The story begins when Journalist Will Farnaby crashes his sailboat and washes up on the island's shore. Throughout the story Will learns all about this unique society, while Huxley articulates his view about human nature and the possibility of a utopia.
When Will arrives on the island he's confused and upset, not only at himself but also at the world. However, as he sees more and more of this unique society during his stay in Pala, he discovers a lot about himself. This completely changes his outlook on life, "revolutionizes all his values and - to his amazement - gives him hope." While the reader learns about Pala, the existence of its unique philosophy, customs and policies are being threatened. Its soon-to-be-leader Murugan plans to change Pala entirely. Like his idol Colonel Dipa, military dictator of a nearby country, Murugan has an obsession for power. He wants Pala to be an industrial, strong and powerful country. This means he aims to build up a huge army, sell Pala's oil reserves and modernize the island completely.
Huxley does a great job developing characters which helps support his theme about the complexity of human nature. And while explaining how this utopian society functions, Huxley raises some interesting points that make you re-think our surprisingly twisted way of life. Though it's not difficult to read, there are a fair amount of long dull parts, so I don't recommend it to those who want an exciting story. The New York Times book Review stated that, "In this book, Mr. Huxley has said his final word about the possibility of the good society. Island challenges the political scientist, the psychologist, the philosopher, and the theologian." I agree, in that it's a good book for people interested in this subject, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.
Less than Magical, and Weak as a Work of Literature July 26, 2007
Steve Koss (New York, NY United States)
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
OK, let's for a moment disregard the Robinson Crusoe-like opening where the hero, a reporter named William Asquith Farnaby, is discovered by two children lying injured on a deserted beach of the mystical, forbidden island of Pala, located somewhere in Indonesia or Micronesia (perhaps a wordplay on the real island of Palau?). Let's also forget that the hero's seemingly inadvertent arrival in Pala happily coincides with his robber baron boss Joe Aldehyde's intentions that Farnaby visit Pala for reasons having to do with giving Aldehyde's companies access to the island's reputedly rich but untapped oil supply. What are we left with?
In Aldous Huxley's last published novel, he returned to the notion of creating his own (micro-) world. Unlike the futuristic nightmare of BRAVE NEW WORLD, however, Huxley's Pala is a veritable nirvana. For over 120 years, Pala has largely closed itself off to the outside world and developed its own form of ideal society. Pala is characterized by free love, communal child-raising, shared manual labor, an educational system based in part on Zen Buddhist principles, adoption of technology only where the essential needs and benefits vastly outweigh the costs, and consciousness-raising through hallucinogenic drugs. A certain amount of religious mysticism has also held sway, particularly as regards the afterlife.
Now, at the time of Farnaby's oddly convenient arrival, Pala's peaceful calm is threatened from within and without. From within, the prince and future ruler Murugan favors modernization, exploitation of Pala's oil resources, and crass materialism (represented by a Sears, Roebuck catalog over which he salivates like a teenager with his first copy of Penthouse); his mother favors the same policies as a means to finance her own cultish, self-promoting religious program to save the world. The external threats are most clearly embodied in Colonel Dipa, the industrialize-at-all-costs leader of the nearby island of Rendang-Lobo. Of course, Dipa is only a puppet of the true threats to Pala: big oil and other avaricious Western corporations and governments that would cannibalize Pala's utopian world in the name of profit. In this story, Farnaby is their front man.
While Farnaby recuperates for a month on Pala, he is given full access to the workings of their society. He is educated in Palan ways like a child would be taught, exposed to Zen notions of not-ness, suchness, and experiencing of the here and now. Farnaby is taken to visit schools and learn about Palan health care, and over time, he is led to the point where he is guided through his first alternate reality encounter with the help of the local hallucinogenic, the so-called "moksha-medicine." His moksha trip forces him to confront his own personal demons of divorce, infidelity, and a fear of death that he melodramatically refers to as the Essential Horror.
Can Will become a new and better Will and master his demons in just 30 days on Pala? Will he see Pala in a new light and reject his old ways and the wishes of his economic marauder boss, Aldehyde? Can he convince Prince Murugan that his notions of development and modernization will destroy the very things that make his country unique? Will Farnaby somehow act to prevent the Aldehyde-backed Colonel Dipa from leading the Rendangians in an invasion of Pala that will mirror the Italians entering Ethiopia or the Chinese entering Tibet? Or will he be so drugged up on the moksha-medicine that he won't care one way or the other?
Regretably, Huxley fails to achieve the sense of identification that would generate enough empathy for the reader truly to care. Palan society reads today like a quaint rendition of a hippie commune thirty years after Woodstock. At the same time, Huxley's characters are wooden, one-dimensional caricatures of what they represent, from the robber baron Aldehyde, the psychologically scarred Farnaby, and the enlightened Westerner Dr. Robert MacPhail to the fiberglass boat, Italian motor scooter-grubbing Prince Murugan, the despotic Colonel Dipa, and the inscrutably oriental Susila (now a MacPhail, naturally). By the end, I found myself recalling fondly my better high school readings: Hilton's LOST HORIZON, Goldings LORD OF THE FLIES, Swift's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, Voltaire's CANDIDE, even Huxley's own BRAVE NEW WORLD. Unless you are an avid Huxley fan or a zealous Zen Buddhist, I'd recommend taking a pass on ISLAND.
 Tendentious and tedious April 25, 2007
Stephen Hitchings (Sydney, Australia)
5 out of 18 found this review helpful
It is difficult to believe Huxley was almost seventy and a highly regarded novelist when he wrote this piece of adolescent rubbish. It is also difficult to believe that so many reviewers think his ideas here are new and interesting. Well, I suppose they weren't so cliched when he wrote them, but they certainly look very tired now.
The first couple of chapters are actually very good, as we are gradually introduced to the protagonist, Will Farnaby, finding himself shipwrecked on an island and encountering its inhabitants. His confusion and his obsessive thoughts about his failed relationships are very well portrayed. Unfortunately, after this the book degenerates into a very boring talk-fest, with a minimal plot that surfaces from time to time before coming to a fairly predictable end.
Island is, so we are told, Huxley's idea of utopia, but from a modern perspective, it looks more like a very idealistic view of a hippie commune: free love, child-sharing and family planning via sexual yoga, all under the benevolent influence of consciousness-expanding drugs. It's difficult to believe he really believed it could work, but the whole thing is explored without a hint of sarcasm, and Will is so convinced by it all that he undergoes a total conversion experience.
The last chapter is well-written, apart from the flat ending, but Huxley had lost me long before then.
I disapprove of a writer using his novel as an excuse for preaching. I do believe that novels should have themes, and the more serious the theme the better, and I know that it is sometimes difficult to locate the precise line between thematic concerns and preaching - but this book is clearly way over the line.
OH SHI- March 22, 2007
Bradley WS Carps (Sacramento, CA United States)
4 out of 8 found this review helpful
This book is epic and will change your outlook about how you live.
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