This is one of those books that you see referred to in countless other books. One that people assume you've read if you do any reading at all... along with 1984 and Animal Farm, Catch 22 and most of Dickens. So I thought I'd better get on and read it. After keeping my eyes open for it for a long time, I finally bought it on Green Metropolis - the best second hand book market on the web in my humble opinion.
The world portrayed in this book is both fantasy and horribly familiar. It makes you question your very existence, and the amount of "conditioning" we are subject to all the time. The manipulation of the population to like sports which involve spending, as this supports the economy - you wonder if this is why so many people like football - along with the millions spent on players, the costs of the latest football strip and the ever increasing costs to get in. Leisure has indeed become capitalist and commodified. And what about people being pre-conditioned to be happy with their social status - where does our current society and education leave us with that? We seem to be edging ever further from social class mobility, and increasing charges for university, while still expecting everybody to go in order to get any sort of decent job is only going to make things worse.
I read this book with a sort of macabre fascination, wondering what would happen next and how it could ever come good in the end. Without wishing to spoil it for you if you've never read it... it doesn't.
This is one of those books that anybody who thinks about anything must read and ponder.
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