world literature

If you are teaching Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel "Brave New World" in class, as I am with my Utopian Images: Fact & Fiction course, then the main thing you want to know about this CliffsNotes on that particular book is that the two critical essays that appear in the back of this volume deal with "Society and the Individual in 'Brave New World'" and "'Brave New World Revisited': Further Thoughts on the Future." So as long as you avoid or proscribe these topics in terms of any sort of major writing assignment associated with "Brave New World," you do not have to worry about students abusing this little black and yellow-stripped book.

The tag team of Charles Higgins and Regina Higgins begin with a section devoted to the Life and Background of the Author, that covers Huxley's early years, education, jobs, literary writing, and honors and awards. This sets up "Brave New World" as the work that changed Huxley from a satirist into a social philosopher. The Introduction to the Novel section introduces readers to the historical background of the novel, which gives an indication of the real world circumstances that Huxley was responding ot, as well as a brief summary of the field of utopian fiction, the way the structure of the novel defied the conventions of such fiction, and a brief synopsis of "Brave New World." There is also a list of a dozen characters, getting down to the level of Pope and Mitsmima, as well as one of those Character Maps with which the CliffsNotes folks are so enamored.

The Critical Commentary section goes chapter by chapter, providing a summary along with a section of commentary that denotes paragraphs devoted to (a) themes, (b) style & language, (c) character insight, and (d) literary devices. The look at each chapter ends with a glossary of difficult words and phrases, as well as allusions and historical references, which is extremely helpful. This is followed by a section providing Character Analyses of Bernard Marx, John the Savage, Lenina, Linda, The D.H.C., Mustapha Mond, and Helmholtz Watson. Then there are the two aforementioned Critical Essays, the CliffsNotes Review and the CliffsNotes Resource Center, which provides books, Internet sources, and films and other recordings dealing with Huxley and his novel. There is even an index, with is a nice addition (something they did not have when I was a mere lad).

As always, my view is that the best way of using this CliffsNotes volume is to go directly to the Critical Commentaries section after you read each chapter. Use the summary to reinforce your undersanding of what happened in the chapter along with the commentaries. If you are reading the novel you might look at the glossary for each chapter as you are doing the actual reading (which, of course, you know you should be doing), but that is really the only thing you want to look at ahead of time. The other sections of this book will be much more useful to you once you have read the book.