Golovacheva, I. A guide to ’Brave New World’ and beyond

Abstract

Golovacheva, I. (2017). A guide to ’Brave New World’ and beyond. Moscow: Izd. dom YASK. 344 p.

The review deals with I. Golovacheva's Guidebook to works by A. Huxley, and particularly his best known novel Brave New World. The monograph discusses the ways in which the scientific context of the period influenced Huxley's writings and their specific imagery: he is known to have had a keen interest in natural sciences and utopian social projects. On a separate note, the review examines

Golovacheva's argument that Huxley's complicated attitude to the theories and ideas reflected in the novel impeded its reception, both in terms of meaning and genre attribution: Brave New World traditionally inhabits a space between utopia and dystopia. Although admitting that the novel has all the makings of science fiction or Menippean satire, Golovacheva still denies the possibility of an unambiguous genre definition.