Island (1962) - Aldous Huxley

Written by Aldous Huxley
Read by Simon Vance
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: September 13, 2016
Duration: 11:27:45

In his final novel, which he considered his most important, Aldous Huxley transports us to the remote Pacific island of Pala, where an ideal society has flourished for 120 years.
Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events are set in motion 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.

For listeners who revel in social critique and utopian philosophy, Aldous Huxley’s 1962 work will come alive, especially with Simon Vance’s energetic narration. Vance layers the narration with voices for a catalogue of characters–from precocious children to raspy elders, from East Indian students to robotic myna birds–all teaching a Westerner about the ideas and practices of a fictional Polynesian ideal society.

Will Faranby, a shipwrecked journalist, learns about the society’s notions of child rearing, education, health, and death, all liberally sprinkled with Eastern religion, psychology, and mythology. Like BRAVE NEW WORLD, this treatise intends to be mind bending and life changing, qualities that are emphasized in Vance’s passionate telling. Not a novel with characterization and plot, ISLAND instead focuses on conversations about compassion, awareness, harmony with nature and science, and hope. R.T. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine