Island

   Will is trying to persuade Murugan to bring catalogs from the outside world and distribute them for free to the people. He thinks that it could make them enthusiastic about buying properties. They'll start to want more developments. Yet Murugan does not think so. Because of the yoga of love, nothing is similar to the outside world.  "No progress, only sex! And of course that beastly dope they're all given." says Murugan. "Scientifically cultivated dope."  Will is very surprised to hear that the people use drugs here. But Dr. Macphail believes that Murugan calls them as dope, because he grew up in Europe. In Pala, they call them with nice words: The moksha-medicine, the reality revealer, the truth-and beauty pill. What Murugan thinks about the moksha-medicine   Murugan has never tried this pills before and he has no intention of triying them. " All it gives you is a lot of illusions ," he says. " Why should I go out ...

"Nobody needs to go anywhere else. We are all, if we only knew it, already there." Utopia, is the idealized "no place" or "nowhere" first described by Thomas More. In Huxley's writing, the first time we come across the manifestation of perfection when Will encounters the two children of the island, describing their pure appearance: Will looked from one child to the other. How beautiful they were, and how faultless, how extraordinarily elegant! Like two little thoroughbreds. Like many other utopian literary examples, idealization is sustained by the basic principles that have been established. These are presented to our outsider character Will Farnaby shortly after he arrives: "It merely states the underlying principles. Read about those first... You'll have a better understanding of what was actually done if you start by knowing what had to be done—what always and everywhere has to be done by anyone who has a clear idea about what's ...

HOW DO THINGS WORK IN PALA?   Until his last novel, Island, Aldous Huxley was known as a counter-utopia author. One of the best known novel, Brave New World, is based on the assumption that science can dominate the world and bring happiness to humanity. But it is not good enough for people according to Huxley. As i researched, Huxley was watching the world and learning from the events how the science can be used to destroy humanity in the hands of bad managers, the rapid increase of the world population, the passion of consumption, the technology dependence of people. But he manages to maintain his optimistic look. He built this island, Pala. Thinking in Pala is as free as possible, there is no obstacle to human abilities and creativity.   What kind of an island is this Pala? In the region of the Indonesian archipelago, Pala is a fantastic island. It is a mountainous island, separated from the neighboring island of Rendang by a sea gorge. Pala has rich oil, gol...

     The book mentions a birth control system developed on the island. This system has been developed to keep the quality standard high and provide enough accommodation for everyone. Care is taken not to have more than three babies and usually two babies. In addition, some couples want to have good genes for their children, "deep freeze" method using the sperm of individuals with good genes prefer to reproduce. This idea is similar to one of Aldous Huxley's other important works, the methods of reproduction in the Brave New World. For example, in the book, Shanta and Vijaya seek to develop the artistic aspect of their children. So if we focus on some of the important questions that can be asked at this point, can children's good genes always play a role in the development of a country?    Is it possible to have a lot of different ideas that express opinions in the society, or to develop together?    In addition, if we take into account thes...

This is the first Utopian novel that I'am reading, in despite of questioning is this an Utopia? It is easy to read than I expected, except the some pages I readed over again. In the Island, there is a Utopian living with a fiction system which not so different from the ones we have today. Actually there are many things that has reflection in todays world. The characters have conflicts with the system, ısland has conflict between itself but also with the other countrys that want to use their petrol sources. They do not share their resources and do not allow their uses to the other countries in order to be stay away from a power war. In today's world,  countries have power wars between them mostly consist from energy and material resources like petrol and gold. The religion and believes of the people are tool for some of the people themselves the understand the world and live a meaningfull life in someway and tool for the governments to use to lead their public.  Thus ...

     On the island of Pala, the form of government is constitutional monarchy. The aim of the Pala civilisation is to create a free and happy country which is self-sufficient. We can observe this through the Experimental Station, which was found after a famine to produce everything in the island. "How on earth were you able to choose?" Will asked. "The right people were intelligent at the right moment," said Ranga. "But it must be admitted—they were also very lucky. In fact Pala as a whole has been extraordinarily lucky. It's had the luck, first of all, never to have been anyone's colony. Rendang has a magnificent harbor. That brought them an Arab invasion in the Middle Ages. We have no harbor, so the Arabs left us alone and we're still Buddhists or Shivaites—that is, when we're not Tantrik agnostics."      However, as the Ambassador Bahu states in his conversation with Will, he thinks that this was in the past.  Will: "Ar...

     After reading half of the book, we may start to question the term "utopia". We say that an utopia is the ideal way of living where everyone is happy and everything is perfect. But if there is even just one person that doesn't like the situation, can we still say that it is an utopia?      For example, let's look at Murugan Mailendra's words to get an idea. He is highly affected by his mother and Colonel Dipa. In the speech between him and Will Farnaby in the hospital, he says that he wants to process the petroleum under the island when he becomes the Raja. His thoughts and style gives as a clue about the little dictator inside him. He also wants to create an army in Pala, and emphasizes that people in Pala are pacifist and peaceable with a face full of hatred. When he talks to Will about the previous and the present government, he uses these sentences: Murugan: "But at least they did something. Whereas nowadays we're governed by a set of do-...

     Here are some book cover designs of Island from Turkey, USA, UK, Germany, France, Russia, Protugal, Spain, Italy and Poland. Let's have a look at them!           We can say that the talking mynah birds are iconicly used in these covers. Personally, my favourite is the first one. Some other examples are below:                                                            And the worst cover in my opinion is a spanish one. Because it does not give any clue about the book at all, and the island on the cover looks like a very small and classic island image, whereas Pala is much more developed than this.                                           ________ After f...

           Aldous Huxley was an English literary author who is renowned for his novel,  Brave New World , which was published in 1931. Apart from writing novels, he also wrote a few travel books, poems, plays and several essays on religion, art and sociology.      Island is Huxley's final novel. We can see the effects of his interest in philosophy and religion on the book. However, it is not as famous as Brave New World. As I understood from various sources, Huxley was later convinced  that he had imprisoned the reader in dystopia in "Brave New World". And he always had a utopia in his head. According to some comments on the Internet, he was so obsessed with writing the anti-thesis of his own book that fiction vanished alongside intense knowledge. I personally find the book interesting to read, but I also accept that some parts include too much philosophical and sociological critisism that you can forget you are reading a story....

RANI  She is the Queen Mother. The Crusade of the Spirit created by her. She says that she sees things with her heart. She is following the life of the Spirit. In her opinion, while she was not in Pala, the other people tried to change Mailendra’s thoughts about his mother. So Rani and Mailendra left the island for couple years. SUSILA MACPHAIL  The mother of Mary and Tom, Susila suffers from losing her husband. She thinks that she should love, think, live for both herself and her husband, She has a sedative side which helps her when she is helping to treat people. With a method named indirect suggestions, she shows that the body is huge and his pain is too little compared to the body. LAKSHMI   Doctor’s wife for 37 years. A tender mother. But she is dealing with a disease now and her death is only a matter of time. She had always tried to be better, but she thinks that she was not able to reach to his husband’s standards. Still, ...

We started to get to know Will. What about the other characters? So far we met some of them. Let's look. WILL’S MOTHER  We don’t know much about his mother. She suffers from rheumatism, had an unhappy marriage. In his memories, she is faded, tired. She was a priest’s daughter. WILL’S SISTER, MAUD  She lived her life surrounded by the adoptive responsibilities. Will thinks that if they would hear Will’s relationships with these two woman, they just could not understand why he did something like that. MARY SAROJINI MACPHAIL  A little girl from the island. Mary and his brother Tom are the first people which Will met in Pala. Mary is a very clever girl, she shows Will that the way he comes to Pala is not important. She says that if he talk about the things he fears, they will not be able to scare him anymore.  His father died from a mountain-climbing accident only a couple months ago. DR....

  Because the story goes on from Will’s perpective, we can see so many different sides of him. The story starts with a memory, he remembers his ex wife, Molly. They are in the hospital, because she had an accident. Just before a couple hours from the accident, Will broke up with Molly, that’s why he feels guilty. He feels  guilt more then sadness . This is an intimate confession that he makes himself. He cheated on his wife too many times. If in one side there is the woman who he care about and his pleasure in the other side, he chooses his pleasure. He is not exactly a loyal man. He had an another affair with a woman named Babs. But now, they are very far away from him. They are in an another world. Will, he is in  Pala  now, the forbidden island.   And it all begins.  We can see that he is affected by the arrival to Pala. The storm, the snakes… He feels fear and despair, until the little girl...