September 21, 2020 • 57 mins
I know one thing I’m fond of saying is that this show is not English class — there’s no required reading... or watching for that matter. But this week we are diving into our first piece of bona fide English lit required reading — Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. There’s a pretty good chance you had to read this in 11th grade, and we are reading it now because it’s been adapted into a series on the NBC streaming service Peacock. But trust me, this will NOT be a high school English class discussion.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, they're Popcorn Book Club listeners. Oh my god, that's
a mouthful. That's uh p B PBC listeners. PVC ears
we should have a nickname, but it's lame to give
yourself a nickname. Colonels? Are we colonels? Oh god, that's
even more embarrassing. I forget I said anything. Sorry, super
caffeinated starting over. Hey, they're Popcorn Book Club listeners. I know.
(00:25):
One thing I'm fond of saying is that the show
is not English class. There's no required reading or watching
for that matter. But this week we are diving into
our first piece of bonifide, bonafide English Lit required reading,
Elvis Huxley's Brave New World. There's a pretty good chance
you already had to read this in eleventh grade, and
(00:46):
we are reading it now because it has been adapted
into a series on Peacock, the NBC streaming service. But
trust me, this will absolutely not be a high school
English class discussion. In terms of the sex, it is
one of the book with like the most amount of
sex but also the least sexy sex. Yeah. I mean,
(01:07):
when the only sound effect is zip zip, it doesn't
sound very sexy to me, in my opinion. Like they
all want to. They're all horny for zippers. It feels
like they're going to be horny for zippers. I finally
feel seen, Melissa. I mean, listen, no shade to anyone
who's into zippers. Welcome back to Popcorn Book Club. I'm
(01:27):
joined as always by our co host Jennifer Wright, Tantran,
Melissa Hunter, and Karladon Quall Los Angeles. You're all looking
quite pneumatic today. No, no, bros. Perfect transition to say
that we are talking about Brave New World. The I
(01:48):
Think two book by Alice Huxley, which has recently been
adapted into a television series on Peacock, which Jennifer was
just telling us, is very very different from the book.
They've made the television series a lot more action. I
watched one episode and I was like, what is this.
I'm reading this and I don't know what's going on.
(02:11):
I mean, I'll say that the book doesn't really have
until the end, which is action pact. At the beginning,
like the first chapter is just a slow tour through
a laboratory. I hated it so much. Okay, wait, I
love the beginning of this book. It does feel very
like Network executive bait in terms of the like future
(02:32):
dystopian work, but very like, oh, this is The executives
that wanted their own West World were like, what about
Brave New World. It's it's ninety years old, but it's
relevant right now. So it makes that's like actually, word
for word the pitch from the executive producer, it was me.
I was the executive producer, Melissa, you've caught me. O,
my god, Cora, I missed that deadline announcement. I used
(03:00):
the pseudonym. The question I was curious about is which
of it? Have any of you read this book before now?
Because I read this book when I was in high school. Yeah,
and I had barely remembered it. But I read this
eighth grade. M I remember not caring for it at
all at the time. I liked it a lot more now,
maybe because I'm more familiar with some of the topics
(03:23):
that they're talking about, and I don't think that men
like organs and by peeing into you, as I be
impressed they did when maybe more I also we have
a more bleak worldview. Also feels very early to read
this book in terms of the themes, and like does
(03:44):
everyone fucking each other and you know all of that stuff.
Everyone belongs to everyone else. In terms of the sex,
it is one of the books with like the most
amount of sex but also the least sexy sex. Yeah,
just know, I had six women last week. Great, I
don't care. It's never been so bored by constant fuckingly,
(04:07):
particularly pneumatic. But it's sex without any longing. That's what's
so interesting about it that whether or not sex is
still sexy if there are no barriers to obtaining it.
I mean, when the only sound effect is zip zip,
it doesn't sound very sexy to me in my opinion,
like they all want to they're all horny for zippers.
It feels like they're going to be horny for zippers.
(04:29):
I finally feel seen, Melissa. I mean, listen, no shade
to anyone who's into zippers. Um. At the time that
this was being written, though, a lot of people were
transitioning over to using zippers, because there had been months
before and zippers were considered by like serving Christian groups
in the nineteen thirties to be this tool of satan
(04:51):
that would enable licentiousness for everybody because you just be
able to zip. So yeah, you wouldn't have to get
laced in or up in yourself in anymore. It's also
very like technology. It is very amazing because like I
don't know how zippers work, becos are amazing. I feel
like I do know how zippers work. What sticks them together?
(05:12):
The zipper zip? It's like two it's teeth, it's teeth.
Here's my question. Could you make a zipper? Given plastic?
Could you construct a zipper? Could I made you anything
that I understand? And you handed me a raw chicken,
I don't know if I could cook the chicken like
I mean, I could, but I don't know if it
(05:32):
would be good. And I've been eating chicken for a
very long time. In COVID times. You need to step
up for meals. I am cooking my own meals, just
not a lot of chicken because I'm scared of salmonella.
I will say, reading this book and then remembering it
was written in does make it like, oh, he didn't
(05:53):
understand what genetic engineering was, but he nailed genetic engineering,
yeah in a scary way. Goot on you for figuring
that out before he understood genetic engineering completely. Yeah. One
of those things I loved about the introduction to this
book where they're talking about creating these embryos and using
different mechanisms to make the embryo stronger and better. Um.
(06:16):
I've been going through IVF for the past year, and
you end up thinking about your body in this incredibly
mechanical way. I was like, all right, I can't have
any hot pass this week because this is the week
where such and such chemical process has to happen, and
therefore I can't have any best and this is why
I can't have any mercury, so I can't eat any fish.
(06:36):
And this is the problem that could result if you
have teese. So UM, in a way, I wish I
could just have a detachable womb where they could just
put all the chemicals into it. Because you do. Maybe
it is because, um, because I'm going through VF and
(06:56):
because I just didn't have sex and then you get pregnant.
It has started to feel like an unbelievably mechanical process
to me, which is exactly the way they portray it here,
where yeah, it's just all chemicals and a big metal womb.
I wonder what old A Hucks would feel about IBF.
(07:18):
Was IVF around in the sixties when he no, not
even that's not that different. I feel like everybody looked
at me, like, but it didn't become like a thing,
you know what I mean. Like it maybe was a
thing that like labs were doing, but it didn't become
like a thing people were doing until like the eighties
(07:39):
or nineties. Right. But he's he's clearly invested in the
medical field and in science and technology, so um. He
Also I don't know if you guys read the same
version as I do, but my version has like interviews
and a biography and stuff. He wanted to be a doctor,
but he was nearly blinded for two years and that yeah,
(08:01):
he just like went blind because that's a thing that
happens to people. And uh, he recovered site later, but
always had site issues and it halted his dreams of
becoming a doctor. And that's how he sort of ended
up studying literature. That's sort of that's like one of
the stories that I feel like only happened in the
(08:21):
Victorian era and then it got better, Like just random
things like that happened. Well, it happened, and never have
I ever to Davy. She couldn't walk for a year
and then she could walk. But also that is fictional
What it's not Bendy Kalin's exact life. Oh my god,
(08:46):
mind blown. Yeah, that does actually inform the reading of
this book too, because it does feel like it's all
about predestination and things you can't control. Obviously there's a
lot of themes within that. But or someone who wanted
to be one thing but couldn't was like physically barred
from that. That makes sense. So let's I do want
(09:08):
to ask before we get into the plot and the
story of this book. The major theme at the beginning
is this idea that the eggs and the sperm are
put together into an egg, and that egg is not
genetically engineered, but engineered through the scientific process that I'll
just actually, you know, fictionalize is too predestined, likes, dislikes, contentment,
(09:31):
happiness level, which to some degree I think kind of
exists naturally. Like this is a big philosophical question. But
where do you guys stand on the idea of nature
versus nurture and that sort of thing. Do you think
sort of the way you come out is the person
you are. Well, I mean again, in like the world
(09:51):
of ivf um, something that doctors do that I think
is not especially nice to do to women is to
make you feel lie. You know, if you have too
much sugar during this pregnancy, first of all, the baby
will probably die, but if it doesn't, then it will
be unhappy forever. Like that's been showing to increase the
rest of depression. I think. I don't know if anybody
(10:15):
else is on the nightmares fertility train yet, but if
you get on it, you will be made to feel
guilty for eating anything other than you greens and like
maybe a little broccoli for punch for the next nine months. Jennifer,
eat a cupcake. Your baby will be fine, and you're
(10:37):
it's gonna make her, don't. I mean, your baby is
going to be so sure. Every need to eat a
cupcake to give everybody else an advantage to catch up.
That's very nice. You're welcome. My friend is eight months
pregnant and she went to home depot pick up something
(11:01):
and like it was like dropped off to her car
and she got out and the woman who dropped off
was like, oh you oh, how how far are you along?
You're getting an epidural? Like immediately act within one second
of seeing her, was like, are you getting an epidural?
She's like Yeah, everyone has an opinion on pregnant women
(11:27):
and how babies are made. Yeah, And I think that
part of that opinion is like the unknown. Also, people
are just so scared and they want to control it.
But I feel like for every study that's like, don't
do this, then there's another study that's like, oh, but
maybe if you do this, maybe It's like I feel
like the fact that we don't have clear cut answers
makes people more scared and more anxious to control it.
(11:50):
I feel like if men got pregnant, we would know
so much more. Let me, let me actually fix that.
Some men do get pregnant, yes, but if the majority
aready of people who got pregnant were men, I feel
like our research and our understanding of pregnancy and fertility
would be completely different. Yes. Absolutely. And when I when
(12:11):
I think of like nature versus nurture, I always think about,
like how when I was just coming out, I was
so obsessed with, like looking at all the research of
the gay gene because I was like wanting to have
an answer or like a definitive sort of like scientifically
backed reason as to why I was gay, or like
(12:32):
wanting to answer that. But like it just it feels
so Now as an adult, I'm like that just feels
so so so like just a singular mind to try
to think of things so explicitly in black and white
in that way that like that there can be a
gene to do that or like that everything you know,
like all of that that there is just like a
(12:53):
nature side of things, and it is such essential ism
in a way. That's what that really um props up
white supremacist patriarchal structures of like, oh, women are biologically assists.
Women are biologically designed to like stay home and take
care of their young or you know, they would use
(13:16):
that back in the day against like students of color
who are like, well they're just not as smart. And
you know, there's a lot of unpack in this book
about that, but it's like justifying all of that through.
It's just the biology of gender or race or ethnicity.
(13:38):
It's it's all women's heads are just smaller, smaller. Wonderful.
I have this wonderful quote from the eighteen forties. Um,
my next book deals with medicine. In the eighteen I
was gonna say, you just have one of those, and
I was like, that's the most darling thing I've ever.
It's my favorite quote because I've been saying it to
(14:00):
Daniel um every time I forget anything. There's a doctor
who measured women's heads and found that a woman's head
is too small for intellect, but just big enough for love. Oh,
that's the most adorable sexes. You know what I'm gonna.
(14:22):
I'm gonna cross stitch that onto a pillow for each
And I know what is your next book because I
am fast? Um Well, okay, first of all, I have
to sell it. Um so, if I'm working on the
proposal for all of quarantine, it's about Madame Rossell. She
was an abortionist in the eighteen forties and the first
(14:43):
female millionaire independently in America. Um so, she made a
massive fortune selling birth control pills and performing abortions. At
a time point abortions were still legal. Uh and then
the medical establishments started cracking down on them very hard
in eighteen fifty nine, in part because Madame Ristol was
(15:04):
just like buying a mention in New York. She was
unbelievably rich. She was a British self taught immigrant who
learned how to perform abortions, supposedly never lost a single
patient um got into a huge fight with the Catholic Church,
and the archbishop was planning to build a house right
(15:25):
across from the cathedral in New York, and Madame Rossell
I bedam for that lot by a hundred thousand dollars
and then built her mention there where she performed abortions
and she faked her own. She faked to ron gas
at the end. It's awesome, it's a great story. Question
she became a millionaire before Madame C J. Walker? Yes,
(15:46):
I interesting think so. I'm pretty sure c J. Walker
was like the eighteen seventies, right, I believe so because
she was born C J. Walker wasn't born ntil eighteen sixty. Yeah,
so Madame Rossell was eight and forties. This isn't Women's
Millionaire podcast. I know. Well, I think so going back
(16:07):
to the idea of like science and biology, I always
you know, the phrase a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I kind of always thought that with like meddling in
genetics and like genetic engineering, where it's like I bet
if you get down to like the electron level, there
might be a way to understand these things. But until then,
(16:29):
like thinking we know these certain things and like playing
God is uh a nightmarish? Eventually I think Ford, yes,
I'm so sorry playing forward of course Edith nightmares. You
can pick your baby's I color now well, which was
so fascinating playing, but only out of the colors if
(16:52):
you if you want, and if you want to play
an extra ten thousand dollars because you really came, they
can Testie Brieus that you have and they can tell
them all of the eye colors. So if you really
want a blue eyed baby, you couldn't pick the one
that has blue eyes. But again, only only if you
Jennifer and Daniela has recessive blue. I'm not getting a
(17:15):
baby that because I immediately said, okay, I'll hit ask
for ten thou dollars. I want violet eyes like Elizabeth Taylor. Violet.
That's what I'm going for. And it was explained to
me that that is not an option. It's a little
bit it's a little bit uh Jurassic Park like just
because they thought whether they could, they didn't think whether
they should. Well, look, I mean it immediately, okay, if
(17:38):
they can do that, um, I think when they told
me they could do that, I immediately said so like
theoretically can you tell me which one will be told
if if we take a boy like he's there going
to be one that's six four um. And they explained
to me that it was both illegal and entirely unethical
to do that. But yeah, but my question is why
(18:07):
is high color ethic but height isn't. And so as
soon as that's possible, don't we think on ethical? People
will pay you extra for it, like the yeah, I'll
kid that can wear bangs. This is Popcorn Book Club.
(18:35):
We'll be right back after this quick break. Okay, we're
back with Popcorn Book Club. All right, but let's get
into the plots. So yes, all right, Karama, you want
to take the first The first act of the plot
introduced us to the cast of character. Great. First of all,
(18:58):
this book really has no ptagonists. A thing that pissed
me off. Everyone is bad is trying hard, but she's
has a protagonist and more just a flat female character
at any resolution that pissed me off a lot. I literally,
no one is the main character in this book. So
we enter in a factory tour, as was previously established,
(19:23):
and that's sort of how we get the world that
we're in. We understand that things have changed. We are
using a different time system. It's the year after Ford.
It's like six hundred something after Ford. And the Ford
seems to be Henry Ford of model t Forward fame
and Built Ford Tough fame, um. And these babies are
(19:43):
indeed built Ford tough. They Ford is also the inventor
of the modernissembly line, which yes, correct, um, which is
how they make the babies. They are built Ford Tough.
And they have these different classifications or casts, and they
which is a fun, fun entry into the deep world
(20:05):
of racism that exists in this book. Uh So they
have these different casts, and they create different casts in
these bottles. And you find out that there is this
method that they use to bud these embryos so that
they create dozens and dozens of twins. And page nine
is when we get our first real, sort of very
(20:26):
racist explanation of this birth thing where it's like, oh, well,
we are able to create this many but in Mombassa,
which is for those of you who don't know, Uh,
in Mombassa they're able to make so many more. But
have you seen a Negro egg? And I was just like, oh, okay,
this is where we're at. And I'm glad that it
(20:46):
came up on the ninth page, but also I'm terrified
that it came up on the ninth page. So does
it keep coming And you're like, yes, yeah, that was
my first yikes that I highlighted. I'm so excited for
all of the yikes. I texted my friend and I
was like, I feel like, if you are a person
of color and you read a book that gets weird racially,
(21:09):
you should be able to stop at the first point
that it gets weird and then say to everyone, yes,
I did read that book, Like I feel like I
could have read nine pages and then told everyone I
read the book. I also want to remind everyone that
that Ford was the type of guy who had a
newspaper called the Darborn Independent. And there's a very famous,
a very famous headline, UH from the Forward International Weekly
(21:33):
UH called the International Jew colin the World's Problem. So
he is not a great guy in a lot of ways.
That's sort of like his famous, like big headline. Because
that's so terrible. I can't even make any of the
jokes that I would want to make if it were
like it's so bad. It's like and the chapters are
(21:55):
like exactly the type of things that people on like that,
like the neo Nazis on Twitter, uh, talk about where
they're like how Jews always played the victim, like you know,
how Jews took over the world, how they are not
American and like you know, like all the dumb like
greatest hits. So yeah, I mean is bad. I think
(22:17):
there's also a problem. One of my my prior books
was about treatment of diseases and it's and it's about
heros the bottom um and what do you read about
doctors practicing from I'm gonna say, like, do not thank
you thirty is fucking impossible to find ones that are
(22:37):
not at least enthusiastically interested in eugenics and what you
can do. Um. It felt like I kept going along
and I would be like, oh, this is great, like yeah,
they're they're working with orphans and oh ship, no, they're
sterilizing the note they're in Eugenicist No one. Alexander Graham
(22:58):
Bell was a eugenicist. Everybody to eugenis. They're all eugenicis.
It's bad. But so in this world we have the
director of the or is the director different from Henry
I couldn't figure that out. Yeah, I think, oh, yeah,
(23:19):
Henry the director is the one who then leaves at
the end. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So there's this
guy named Henry. He's introduced, Uh, we are introduced this
woman named Lenna who has lupus. That's super casually thrown
in there. Dude, we say Lenna. I was saying Lenina
on the show, they say Lenina, but in the audio
(23:39):
book that I listened to make this bearable, they said Lenna.
So I've been conditioned that comes up later to say Lennon.
I think it's considered it's after Lennon, And yes, it's
not exactly veiled. No, it's not. No, it's very very
(24:00):
clearly stated. And I was like, oh, okay, that's where
we're at. So we meet Lenina or Lenina however you
want to say. It is correct. She's not real and
she sucks anyway, not as bad as everybody else, but
she sucks at She's passive. She's just look, she wants
to get laid and travel and that's it. She's like,
(24:20):
she's like Daisy Buchanan and that she is just the
representation of the system, you know what I mean. She
like Daisy is actively bad in a lot of ways.
But when we do our great get of somebody in
the future, we will talk about her. But so we
meet Lenina or Lenina, we meet Um, we meet Henry,
and uh, we are realizing that this world is different
(24:41):
from ours, and that there's this conditioning that happens, this
um sort of hypno what did they call it? Paid it, Yeah,
hypnopedic hypnopedia, where it's basically like sleep training with sound,
where they tell you these platitudes um, and they enforce
the cast syst um where it's like, well, I'm so
(25:01):
glad that I'm not an epsalon. I would never want
to play with those children. They wear khaki or the
Gamas hate khaki. Ya, isn't it They reinforce racism in
your sleep. Yes, also a hatred of khaki, which feels unfair,
almost as unfair as the racism. Well, you know what,
no one looks good in khaki, so maybe that's a
(25:22):
good thing. Do you look good in khaki? I think
I look kai, I look bad. I don't. Maybe dold
you imagine you or me Dana and head to tokaki
and I feel like I feel like Laura drn looks
good in Khaki. Everything all right, She's an out liar.
(25:46):
She is no one can compare themselves to Laura Durn
and feel like it was a fair comparison. This is
just to say that I feel as if I had
been sleep told that Khaki is bad because I don't
think I look in Khaki. Yeah. So there they have
this peptic sleep training, and then we learn more about
how their destructions, and everybody's supposed to be doing activities
(26:08):
all the time and nobody's supposed to be alone. And
we get to meet Franny, who's Lenina's friend. Franny. I
think it's my favorite character because she's just like, she's like,
have you just been having sex with Henry? You need
to go do somebody else. Don't have another man. Also,
I love your foe Moroccan belt, like asked Henry where
(26:31):
he got it. She feels like Judy Greer would have
played her if they had made this in two three money.
So we meet these characters. Nothing really happens more than
just establishing characters establishing the world. And this future world
has no family structure, so they very quickly established that
(26:54):
the idea of motherhood is extremely vulgar and the idea
of being born instead of being canted is like almost smut.
I think they refer to it as like pornographic and
smutty and all this gross stuff, and they're like, Oh,
these people don't know the difference between science and smut
and the line where that exists, so it's really hard
for them to talk about it. And um, we also
(27:17):
learned that everybody has sex kind of without any feeling attached,
no real relationships attached, because if you make relationships, then
you're gonna want to make families. And uh, there is
this or at least attachments, not necessarily families in the
like nuclear family structure, but there are no real attachments
(27:37):
and the goal is to have everyone and everyone belongs
to everyone else, except not really because everyone's straight, which
was very funny to me. I was like, if everyone
belongs to everyone else, shouldn't everyone belong to every And
also the whole point is that they don't reproduce it,
so like most of the women, they don't they like
(27:58):
for sterilized, but like not all of them, you know,
for reasons that they explain. But then it's like, well,
why don't they just make everyone get yeah, or at
least like experimental people do experiment orgies with everybody, I think,
but the the orgies have meted out gender, so it's
(28:19):
like six of one six of the other. It does
feel like the I mean obviously was written in nine
so there's a lot it could have been updated, but
it feels like everything is so regimented, like everyone belongs
to everyone else. If you're a boy and you're a
girl and you're an alpha plus and you're an alpha plus,
like it had just still has to all like fit
in this totalitarian regime. I do think that that's also
(28:43):
important to start talking about the characters cast. So Lenina
is a beta minus in the book, but a beta
plus on the show, which I was like, I think
in the book I noticed in the book, I don't
think they specified she was here. Find it keep talking
else because because I just sort of filled it in
because she like made fun of gammas and so you're like,
(29:07):
she's not a gamma, and we know she is, so
I just sort of like you just sort of fill
in the blanks of the I was confused. I thought
she was an alpha because she was having That was
the thing. There's intercast sex. I don't think any women
are alpha's in the book, I think, and women Yeah, yeah,
(29:27):
I think you're I think it's like the professional women
are betas they have they have smaller heads, so they
can't think as much. They can only love, um, but
they cannot so creative. But his creativity stops at that,
like it's let me build this entire new world. But
nobody is queer and no women are alpha's. That's as
(29:50):
far as gay people didn't exist yet, right, Okay, so
then we need our hero Bernard Marks, who everybody hates
for a good reason. It turns out like the very
very good reason. Um. Despite a fact that everybody belongs
(30:14):
to everybody else in this brief new world, nobody wants
to belong to Bernard Marks because they all agree that
he sucks. So he's slightly he's an alpha plus, but
he's slightly shorter than the other alpha pluses. And there
is an ongoing and constant rumor that alcohol was spilled
into his bottle when he was being decandid, which is
(30:36):
such a shitty way to bully someone in this UM.
I think it's also important to know the reason that
is a rumors, because they do that to lower casts. Yeah, yes,
but yes, to make. Isn't it funny than even in
this dystopian future where everyone is constantly happy and distracted,
there's still ship. They figured out how to be shitty
(30:58):
to one another immediately short I hope they'll have to
lie on Tinder. There is one point where it's like
I heard that through a friend of a friend of
a friend that it really is the rumor is true.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she knew somebody was in the room.
Oh yeah No, it's just total shit talking. So this
future of huge amounts of distraction and drugs and orgies
(31:20):
has not made people stop being shitty to each other.
And it turns out it's okay to Polly Bernard because
he does suck. They're just going home for the wrong
reasons because he has a citty personality. He has a
really personality personality of a guy named Bernard. I also
(31:44):
think another thing I want to say, I'm still looking
because I could have sworn it that she was a
Beta minus, but I could have been wrong. So Danta
so carefully to you publicly, Mike, you can cut that
part out if you'd like. I love vigilant you were no, no, no,
I'm at the apology, not the not the beta minus part.
(32:07):
So um, the alpha's are born one egg, one person,
so each alpha is unique and every other cast is
born out of this buchanizization methods. Bakovski Y. It's named after,
it's named after. I looked this up. He was basically,
(32:28):
So basically this entire book was Eldess Huxley's like subtweet
to the British political system. And he was a French
like minister industrialist who like was an organizer in France,
and so that's what he was facing an Alpa. So
basically all the names and everything is like are real
(32:49):
people who are just like people that sort of embodied
these like I'm putting in air quotes like ideals of
like organization and empiricism. So we haven't heard and he yes,
uh so here's a cross on Lanina that's very pneumatic,
which I think means musty um woman think who it
(33:09):
very means like curving. I looked at it. I feel
like it's it's like but also the chairs are pneumatic,
but I think it's a fluffy, like justush a chair cushing. Yeah. Um,
so here's a cross on Lanina. She's very popular. Everybody
likes Landina Um, but she's been going out with Henry
Foster for a Whileie, it's starting to seem like they're monogamous.
(33:32):
It's been a few months, she hasn't seen anybody else,
so she feels like she should go out with somebody else,
and Bernard offers to take her to a reservation where
she'll get to see native people in their native habitat,
and she thinks that would be interesting because her other
offer is going off with Benito Hoover, who is very
(33:53):
nice and everybody likes him. But he took her to
the North Pole and the hotel that they stayed at
only had twenty five squash courts and his weird ears
and it's weird. He's a really nice person. Everybody agrees said, yeah,
the most redeemable person for sure. We all agree with that.
Benito is a super nice guy and Lenina should have
(34:14):
gone off with him. She goes on a date with
Bernard and first of all, he complains about having to
do anything. I guess I just want us to be alone. Yes,
he just wants them to be alone in a park,
which which is fine. But she wanted to go see
a sporting match, like she came up with a lot
of ideas of things that they could do. She was like, yes,
(34:35):
have to exist. I don't know, she's trying to come
up with the first date with the next day. It
means something to talk about. Don't play the hell out
of all. Oh my god, yes, the elector great. That
is the least sinister part of this society is that
like everyone after work like goes to play like the
equivalent of like dodgeball, like a dodge They got helicopters
(34:59):
to they get a little high and go like, God,
I wish we had in a society. We're after work
everyone like joined an adult sports league. Yeah, and it
seems delightful. So Lendi a super cool She takes him
to a women's wrestling match. They just kind of authentically
say that Bernard is horrible to all of her friends
(35:20):
and Franny, who again it's a wonderful character. It's like,
why would you go on another day with him? So
that's nice, Like people have some autonomy here. They don't
have to belong to everyone else to the extent that
they have to go out with people they don't like.
And Lindia is very clear, I just want to go
to the reservation. I think it'll be cool to see
(35:40):
well that also he's one of few people because of
his job and because of his position as an alpha,
who has permission to go to the reservation, So she
can't even do it with somebody nice like Benito. It
has to be with Bernard, which just feels like some
guys dream. Like some guy's dream is to be like
I can take you to Cuba and a rich boyfriend
(36:06):
who's like, okay, I'll date him just until we take
the trip to Paris, who would no one, no one,
but before we go onto the reservation, which is I
think going to be a topic. Uh, I just want
to talk about Bernard a little bit as a character.
To me, it was very funny that the character that
(36:27):
you read that you assume would be the hero and
protagonist of this story, which in a different story, the
alpha who's so smart he sort of sees through the
bullshit and he's a little bit shorter than everyone else
in another story would be the hero. Yeah, and like
like that would lead the revolution. And in any like
(36:49):
dystopian y a novel, it's always like the person who's
like a little different, who people don't really like. But
in this one, Bernard is almost immediately revealed to be
like a very petty asshole. He's insecure that he's short,
and he's like a whiny little asshole, and he's also
like a huge coward like later in the book to
(37:14):
his nice Friendholds, he's like a jealous book. So that's
what I found very funny that Bernard is set up
to be our first protagonist and then it's revealed to
be just like a little cry baby zero zero, I'm
protagonists here. Yeah, I found that I found his ark
to be very satisfying, Like I was very much into
(37:37):
him having like a crying whiny And yes, you're listening
to Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio and we'll
be back right after the break. So we're back with
(38:02):
Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio. Shout out to Helmholtz,
who is also the only other He's great, he's our hero.
He's my favorite character for sure, but like he's such
a side character and it's just so interesting. It feels
like that one episode of Master of None where we
(38:23):
just followed the side characters, Like I would love to
just follow Helmholtz and figure out what his day to
day is like, because we only see him in relation
to Bernard and then later in relation to John who
I'm just going to call him his name because his
nickname is not Great. No. Yeah, people get really excited
(38:44):
about that. Yeah, it is. It is so weird. I
really misread the opening of this book because I think
I've read enough y I dystopian novels, and I'm like, Oh,
it's gonna be Lenona and Bernard and they're going to
fall in love and they both are a little different,
Like it was the hint to me of she wanted
to be monogamous, and I was like, oh, maybe she
feels differently too, and she feels feelings of love and
(39:06):
she's gonna and Bernard's going to be the one. They're
going to together and lighten everyone. Nope, that was absolutely
not it. And neither of them are the protagonists. And
Leonida gets no conclusion, which really bothered me. Uh, she's
just out there, No no conclusion, Melissa. She is beaten
and left maybe alive or dead. Yeah, She's said with
(39:27):
Henry Foster at the end, but he runs away because
he's understandably pretty freaked out by the whole situation. Yeah
she is. I think this is the only situation. I
can remember spoiler jemming Head where a character is left
for dead by the author, where he's like, don't care anymore? Well, yeah,
I mean that's what I meant, and they like don't
they don't. He doesn't call her out by name, like
(39:49):
that was a choice is supposed to be because to me,
I wasn't sure if that was her because I also
said she had blue eyes, which is different than purple,
and they didn't call her by name, and he was
in this rage. I feel like it was intentionally left
like ambiguous. But I don't know even will get there okay,
(40:09):
but is better than everybody else and everything's he just knows.
He knows he'll never be as good as Shakespeare, but
he wants to be. Also, he's so awesome that they
changed this gender in the show. I thought, yeah, they
made yes, it's um, it's a really cool choice. It's
(40:29):
a woman who's in charge of making movies in the show,
feeling yeah yeah, and she's trying to do something new
with them. But what she's my favorite character in the show.
But we'll get to that later. So um, we meet
Bernard and then they go on their fun cool date
New Mexico to go explore a native reservation. Cool, and
(40:51):
they keep referring to it as like the Savage Lands
or something like that, something equally terrible, but the focus
is savage. And before they go, as previously mentioned, Bernard
needs specific permits and specific permission, so he goes to
the director and it's like, yo, can you sign my paperwork?
And then he's like, you're going to see the savages?
(41:13):
Oh my, what I was your age? I will say
this and then I will finish my voices. When I
was your age, I went to the reservation with a
young girl and then she went to missing and then
we're like, oh, that's weird that you don't care. And
then chump forward does carry his nightmare cboda, and then
he covers it up by being like like we were
a lover and up. And also it's just one person
(41:35):
who cares like that covers it like that, right, we're
all part of one large social being and she's gone,
but you know, that's life. So then we go to
the reservation in Tienne. You want to talk about the reservation? Ah, yeah,
I read this late at night, So let's go just
instead of we can sort of assume that people have
(41:55):
read it. What we're just your general impression. Great. So
they go to the reservation and like Lenona and Bernard
are just blown away by the fact that people are
aging and are not as fit as this their world
and are like compliment like not complimenting. Oh my gosh,
we're marking on their like hygiene and looks and bodies
(42:19):
in a really gross, terrible way. Um. They are they
witnessed like a very violent public ritual. And they meet
Bernard meets this woman Linda, who turns out to be
the lost woman from Um, the the who the director
was in love with. And we find out that she's
had a son, and that son is John, And we
(42:42):
also learned about him that he like even though he
spent his whole life on the reservation, he's kind of
the outsider. Um. Everyone treats him and his mother, which,
by the way, mother is a dirty word in this world.
Um treats his mother, uh like outsiders there. They mocked them,
they abuse them. UM. And one of the big things
(43:06):
about John is that he's learned to read because his
mother or maybe the collection of Shakespeare was in there
on the reservation, wasn't It wasn't his mom's right or
was it his lover his mom's mother's lover. And one
of the big problems with his mom is that she
wants to have sex with everyone because that was very
(43:26):
normal in the world person she grew up and everybody
hates her as a result. She's been conditioned being Yeah. Completely,
it's a lot of slut shaming. Yeah, in a way
where you're like, wait, eldest, is this are you in
favor of this? What is your because right? I gotta
say I thought there was some wonderful comedy, even though
(43:47):
it was so much slut shaming and the reaction was poor,
but just the funniness of like I sucked all your husbands?
Who cares? What is it? It's like a sick mom
of like, that's what we do? You want to My
husband's like, my god, oh silly Linda. She just doesn't
get it. But that's not how that happened. It was
(44:09):
a lot of violence. I thought. I thought it was
sort of funny. Um and also sit coming not in
a in a hahawey. Um had the way that jumping
ahead a little bit. John is like, oh, I love
Lenina so much. I love her, but she's a Harlot,
but strength it okay. Well, look, Lenia never gets to
have good sex. I hope she got to have great
(44:30):
sex with Benito Hoover and Henry Foster, because when she
first had sex with Bernard, he has sex with her,
and then afterwards she's like, oh, that was nice, and
he was like, yeah, but I wish we hadn't had sex, Like,
wouldn't that have been cooler? I couldn't wrote that up before. Yeah,
he's just so lame and like it is like the
(44:50):
guy you have sex within college that you immediately like
this was a mistake. Who like you think because he
thinks he's so smart, he's special, but it's not and
he's not even as smart as he thinks. Yeah, and
you just find out that that's smart. It's not smart.
It's just being mean. Yes, you learn the difference of
(45:11):
quickly at that age. Um, but Linda didn't don't do
anything wrong, She's been conditioned a certain way. So then
I feel like the next major plot machination, I'm sort
of then moving us forward so we can talk more
big big picture themes is Bernard you like his weird,
(45:32):
petty like selfishness, like really for purely selfish reasons is like, whoa,
won't it be a scandal and great for me in
my social life and embarrass the director if I bring
back Linda and John? Well yeah, I mean just He
also knows that that he's going to he hears it
through him helmeholds that he's going to be sent to Iceland,
(45:53):
and he's like, I'm going to get one over on
the director and actually send him to Icelander, you know,
cast him off. And that's exactly what happens um, which
is such a quick hint of Bernard's weaselness that like
what we hates this world so much. But even when
he gets a ticket out, which it later gets explained
that maybe getting sent out of this world is like
(46:14):
an okay thing is kind of like the best maybe
the best, are you kidding? Or even as we learned
to one of the tropical islands, it's just all the
smart people who just want to hang out. I want
a dream. Yeah, So he comes, he and Lenona come back,
but he like doesn't really care about Lenona anymore because
(46:35):
he's famous because he brings back John and uh and
everyone's fascinated by John and once once too. It's basically
like being friends with Beyonce or something where it's like, oh,
I can get you can meet Beyonce if you're friends
with me, Like I, she's my roommate, and it's like shop,
(46:55):
your roommate is Beyonce. So everyone wants to have sex
with him because he's roommates with Beyonce. Um and and
so he's like having a lot of sex now with
like but even started to interrupt, even like less than
it's like less than Beyonce. It's almost like the Fiji
water Girl, like a meme for the moment because as
(47:16):
we learned that like like John, celebrity does like Wayne
and then by default like Bernard's crash, as we'll learn,
but like he just is like the trend of the moment,
people like, oh, what's it? Like? I think if John
had played into the celebrity more and wanted to play
the game like everybody can come see me, then it
would have been different. I feel like it would have
(47:38):
been closer to Beyonce as opposed to Fiji water Girl,
which lovely throwback. Remember we're talking about it. I remember
her pictures. And and also something that's important is that
poor Linda also comes back and everyone is horrified by her.
They call her, they call her fat and disgusting. I
(47:58):
think she's like forty, I've um, and they're just horrified
by regular normal aging. And she is wants to be
on a permanent Soma holiday, which I don't think we've
really touched on exactly what Soma is, but it seems
like just an opiate some kind of like magical opiate
(48:19):
um where they just take a little bit to feel,
take a half a gramma day to like get your
worries away or whatever, but then you can have a
bunch and just it sounds like they're on Heroin. They're
like Heroin and holiday. Yeah. And so she goes on
a permanent Soma holiday and is going to die because
(48:41):
of it. Um. But she's just so sad and miserable
because she's been so cast away. She doesn't fit in
either world. Um. And then John at the same time
is starting to be very discouraged by this brave new
world with such people in it. And he's read all Shakespeare,
(49:03):
so he's like just in his room reading Shakespeare a
lot and really rooting, and he doesn't want to go
to a party with with with Bernard. And Bernard then
gets like completely cast out by all of the cool people.
I love that scene because they are they are in
Bernard's house talking trash about him. Oh yeah, they're drinking
(49:27):
his wine while they're talking about how he's deformed, and
they're like, oh, I heard from a friend of a
friend of a friend that it's super true that there
was alcohol in his bottle before he was decanted. Yeah,
and they are the most fair weather friends. I mean,
they're not even They're like, if the forecast changes, we're
(49:48):
not even sticking around. Yeah. They just really really hate him.
Even in that section too, I think he starts talking
about essentially like the nirties version of frenemies. I think
all this is called like victim friend or like friend
victim or something way more traumatic and traumatizing, which I
(50:08):
thought it was hilarious. And then they the Archbishop song
store whatever. Uh. It takes home Lenina and she's like,
all right if she doesn't want to, but it's like fine.
She was disappointed though, because uh, Lenna is developing feelings
for John, and John clearly has feelings for Lenona, and
(50:32):
but he doesn't know how to handle them, and she
doesn't know how to like operate with him because she's like,
why doesn't he just have sex with me? I don't
understand it, Like he likes me sometimes, but he doesn't.
And so they go on this one weird day they
go to a feeling uh, very racist feeling. I mean
everything's racist. He uses the word oct roon like eight times,
(50:55):
and I'm just like, if you use the word oct
roon and you're white, I have a lot of questions,
and none of them are good. I I have a
question about that word and not anything that I want
to ask, just because I genuinely don't know it was ever.
Was it ever used like in a as a non
(51:16):
slur to just like in a legal setting ensive? I mean,
I think that it was used as a classification, much
like the class the cast system that they have where
it's like, oh, okay, you get a little bit more
rights because you're a quadroon instead of a mulatto, and
you get a little bit more if you're an oct
(51:38):
roon instead of a quadroon. But it was because of
rights and because they were like if you're a little black,
that's naughty. It's like that one drop rule. So even
in its classification term as like terminology for just figuring out, Okay,
how much of a person are you? That's sort of
where it was. Oh, the word and the meaning is
(51:59):
super asist. I'm mostly just just curious because I don't
know that slur. I'm not very familiar whether it was
always There is a very funny Key and Peele sketch
where they use it, but other than that, I don't
think it's ever been used positively. Good to know, Yes,
you learned something new and it was not a slur
I was familiar with. It's a it's an old timey one.
(52:21):
But yeah, so the theory is interesting. Oh, it is
basically like a birth of a nation but future. Yeah. Yeah,
it's like sex, but sex the canting of a nation.
That's like facing a white woman, right, and then the
and then these three white male heroes come by and
(52:42):
a helicopter and I don't know it's but the black man.
The black man wants her so much that he wants
to have her exclusively for a weekend. Yeah, that's the
crazy thing. That's a crazy thing. The crazy thing is
that he gets hit on the head on the head.
She's in love with her now and wants to be
(53:04):
with her and them to have an exclusive relationship. Fortunately
she is safe by I guess three men who immediately
have sex with her. It is an instinct. It ends
with it ends with an orgy as all happy. Yeah,
A good movies do end group, you know. I do
(53:25):
feel like every movie should end with a dance number
of the whole cast dancing and having fun and like, momma,
here we go again. There just like slum Dog Millionaires
I have. But it's like that, but orgy and I
would be okay with that, like to show that the
cast has fun together, like I love the John sees
(53:49):
that and his immediate thought was a fellow. Yeah, He's like, oh, yes,
that's a blackamore another word used in the book, eldest,
what are you doing? Points for variety, I guess yeah.
(54:09):
But after the day, Lenona tries to make a move
and she like zips off her a little cute outfit
and he's like strumpet and runs away. I think she's
very sad about it and confused. She's just confused. She's like,
what's happening, Let's just have sex already. Um. Her outfits
(54:29):
do seem really cute, she seems very fashionable, and to
see more of that in the show. I will say,
there are some things about this world that sounds super fun,
Like the outfit seems very cute and cool, and the
sense that that's like all the perfumes of different things
(54:50):
like that sounds great, like the like orchestras of smells.
I mean, the pheely sound great, like if you know,
it's like three D. But like all sensory I go down.
I'd be into that. Soma is just alcohol without a hangover.
I mean, I'd take halfrica it would also I will
(55:10):
say I'm pro little mini personal helicopters. That's really fun.
I mean, what is the impact of that on the environment, though,
Like if they're electric helicopters, sure, yeah, my fantasy electric
and you go play some electric golf with your friends
after work. Yeah, it's electroc golf different from obstacle golf.
(55:31):
That's my question. Oh sorry, I think it was. It's
opted to both of them. There's electro magnetic golf and
then there's obstacle golf. Definitely. Okay. I have a serious
question when was miniature golf invented? Because did someone read
this book and say, obstacle golf that's what we gotta DoD. Wow, Okay, wait,
(55:53):
you know that the high five, the high five was
only invented. You went to the moon before people high five. Okay, guys, yeah,
eldest borrowed frum. Oh. I was really hoping it was
the other way around. But that's okay, that's very disappointing,
(56:14):
like almost disappointing. Is this whole book. That's our show
for the week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm
Danis Schwartz and you can find me on Twitter at
Danish Schwartz with three z s. You can follow Jennifer
Wright at jen Ashley Wright Karama, Donqua is at Karama Drama,
(56:36):
Melissa Hunter is at Melissa f t W and Tian
Tran is smart enough to have gotten off Twitter, but
she is on Insta at Hank Tina. Our executive producer
is Christopher Hessiotes and were produced and edited by Mike
John's Special thanks to David Wasserman. Next week we continue
our discussion of Brave New World, the book, and then
(56:57):
we will go into Brave New World series, which is
an experience. So uh, Papa Soma and I get ready
to listen. Popcorn Book Club is a production of I
Heart Radio. See you next week,
Hey, they're Popcorn Book Club listeners. Oh my god, that's
a mouthful. That's uh p B PBC listeners. PVC ears
we should have a nickname, but it's lame to give
yourself a nickname. Colonels? Are we colonels? Oh god, that's
even more embarrassing. I forget I said anything. Sorry, super
caffeinated starting over. Hey, they're Popcorn Book Club listeners. I know.
(00:25):
One thing I'm fond of saying is that the show
is not English class. There's no required reading or watching
for that matter. But this week we are diving into
our first piece of bonifide, bonafide English Lit required reading,
Elvis Huxley's Brave New World. There's a pretty good chance
you already had to read this in eleventh grade, and
(00:46):
we are reading it now because it has been adapted
into a series on Peacock, the NBC streaming service. But
trust me, this will absolutely not be a high school
English class discussion. In terms of the sex, it is
one of the book with like the most amount of
sex but also the least sexy sex. Yeah. I mean,
(01:07):
when the only sound effect is zip zip, it doesn't
sound very sexy to me, in my opinion. Like they
all want to. They're all horny for zippers. It feels
like they're going to be horny for zippers. I finally
feel seen, Melissa. I mean, listen, no shade to anyone
who's into zippers. Welcome back to Popcorn Book Club. I'm
(01:27):
joined as always by our co host Jennifer Wright, Tantran,
Melissa Hunter, and Karladon Quall Los Angeles. You're all looking
quite pneumatic today. No, no, bros. Perfect transition to say
that we are talking about Brave New World. The I
(01:48):
Think two book by Alice Huxley, which has recently been
adapted into a television series on Peacock, which Jennifer was
just telling us, is very very different from the book.
They've made the television series a lot more action. I
watched one episode and I was like, what is this.
I'm reading this and I don't know what's going on.
(02:11):
I mean, I'll say that the book doesn't really have
until the end, which is action pact. At the beginning,
like the first chapter is just a slow tour through
a laboratory. I hated it so much. Okay, wait, I
love the beginning of this book. It does feel very
like Network executive bait in terms of the like future
(02:32):
dystopian work, but very like, oh, this is The executives
that wanted their own West World were like, what about
Brave New World. It's it's ninety years old, but it's
relevant right now. So it makes that's like actually, word
for word the pitch from the executive producer, it was me.
I was the executive producer, Melissa, you've caught me. O,
my god, Cora, I missed that deadline announcement. I used
(03:00):
the pseudonym. The question I was curious about is which
of it? Have any of you read this book before now?
Because I read this book when I was in high school. Yeah,
and I had barely remembered it. But I read this
eighth grade. M I remember not caring for it at
all at the time. I liked it a lot more now,
maybe because I'm more familiar with some of the topics
(03:23):
that they're talking about, and I don't think that men
like organs and by peeing into you, as I be
impressed they did when maybe more I also we have
a more bleak worldview. Also feels very early to read
this book in terms of the themes, and like does
(03:44):
everyone fucking each other and you know all of that stuff.
Everyone belongs to everyone else. In terms of the sex,
it is one of the books with like the most
amount of sex but also the least sexy sex. Yeah,
just know, I had six women last week. Great, I
don't care. It's never been so bored by constant fuckingly,
(04:07):
particularly pneumatic. But it's sex without any longing. That's what's
so interesting about it that whether or not sex is
still sexy if there are no barriers to obtaining it.
I mean, when the only sound effect is zip zip,
it doesn't sound very sexy to me in my opinion,
like they all want to they're all horny for zippers.
It feels like they're going to be horny for zippers.
(04:29):
I finally feel seen, Melissa. I mean, listen, no shade
to anyone who's into zippers. Um. At the time that
this was being written, though, a lot of people were
transitioning over to using zippers, because there had been months
before and zippers were considered by like serving Christian groups
in the nineteen thirties to be this tool of satan
(04:51):
that would enable licentiousness for everybody because you just be
able to zip. So yeah, you wouldn't have to get
laced in or up in yourself in anymore. It's also
very like technology. It is very amazing because like I
don't know how zippers work, becos are amazing. I feel
like I do know how zippers work. What sticks them together?
(05:12):
The zipper zip? It's like two it's teeth, it's teeth.
Here's my question. Could you make a zipper? Given plastic?
Could you construct a zipper? Could I made you anything
that I understand? And you handed me a raw chicken,
I don't know if I could cook the chicken like
I mean, I could, but I don't know if it
(05:32):
would be good. And I've been eating chicken for a
very long time. In COVID times. You need to step
up for meals. I am cooking my own meals, just
not a lot of chicken because I'm scared of salmonella.
I will say, reading this book and then remembering it
was written in does make it like, oh, he didn't
(05:53):
understand what genetic engineering was, but he nailed genetic engineering,
yeah in a scary way. Goot on you for figuring
that out before he understood genetic engineering completely. Yeah. One
of those things I loved about the introduction to this
book where they're talking about creating these embryos and using
different mechanisms to make the embryo stronger and better. Um.
(06:16):
I've been going through IVF for the past year, and
you end up thinking about your body in this incredibly
mechanical way. I was like, all right, I can't have
any hot pass this week because this is the week
where such and such chemical process has to happen, and
therefore I can't have any best and this is why
I can't have any mercury, so I can't eat any fish.
(06:36):
And this is the problem that could result if you
have teese. So UM, in a way, I wish I
could just have a detachable womb where they could just
put all the chemicals into it. Because you do. Maybe
it is because, um, because I'm going through VF and
(06:56):
because I just didn't have sex and then you get pregnant.
It has started to feel like an unbelievably mechanical process
to me, which is exactly the way they portray it here,
where yeah, it's just all chemicals and a big metal womb.
I wonder what old A Hucks would feel about IBF.
(07:18):
Was IVF around in the sixties when he no, not
even that's not that different. I feel like everybody looked
at me, like, but it didn't become like a thing,
you know what I mean. Like it maybe was a
thing that like labs were doing, but it didn't become
like a thing people were doing until like the eighties
(07:39):
or nineties. Right. But he's he's clearly invested in the
medical field and in science and technology, so um. He
Also I don't know if you guys read the same
version as I do, but my version has like interviews
and a biography and stuff. He wanted to be a doctor,
but he was nearly blinded for two years and that yeah,
(08:01):
he just like went blind because that's a thing that
happens to people. And uh, he recovered site later, but
always had site issues and it halted his dreams of
becoming a doctor. And that's how he sort of ended
up studying literature. That's sort of that's like one of
the stories that I feel like only happened in the
(08:21):
Victorian era and then it got better, Like just random
things like that happened. Well, it happened, and never have
I ever to Davy. She couldn't walk for a year
and then she could walk. But also that is fictional
What it's not Bendy Kalin's exact life. Oh my god,
(08:46):
mind blown. Yeah, that does actually inform the reading of
this book too, because it does feel like it's all
about predestination and things you can't control. Obviously there's a
lot of themes within that. But or someone who wanted
to be one thing but couldn't was like physically barred
from that. That makes sense. So let's I do want
(09:08):
to ask before we get into the plot and the
story of this book. The major theme at the beginning
is this idea that the eggs and the sperm are
put together into an egg, and that egg is not
genetically engineered, but engineered through the scientific process that I'll
just actually, you know, fictionalize is too predestined, likes, dislikes, contentment,
(09:31):
happiness level, which to some degree I think kind of
exists naturally. Like this is a big philosophical question. But
where do you guys stand on the idea of nature
versus nurture and that sort of thing. Do you think
sort of the way you come out is the person
you are. Well, I mean again, in like the world
(09:51):
of ivf um, something that doctors do that I think
is not especially nice to do to women is to
make you feel lie. You know, if you have too
much sugar during this pregnancy, first of all, the baby
will probably die, but if it doesn't, then it will
be unhappy forever. Like that's been showing to increase the
rest of depression. I think. I don't know if anybody
(10:15):
else is on the nightmares fertility train yet, but if
you get on it, you will be made to feel
guilty for eating anything other than you greens and like
maybe a little broccoli for punch for the next nine months. Jennifer,
eat a cupcake. Your baby will be fine, and you're
(10:37):
it's gonna make her, don't. I mean, your baby is
going to be so sure. Every need to eat a
cupcake to give everybody else an advantage to catch up.
That's very nice. You're welcome. My friend is eight months
pregnant and she went to home depot pick up something
(11:01):
and like it was like dropped off to her car
and she got out and the woman who dropped off
was like, oh you oh, how how far are you along?
You're getting an epidural? Like immediately act within one second
of seeing her, was like, are you getting an epidural?
She's like Yeah, everyone has an opinion on pregnant women
(11:27):
and how babies are made. Yeah, And I think that
part of that opinion is like the unknown. Also, people
are just so scared and they want to control it.
But I feel like for every study that's like, don't
do this, then there's another study that's like, oh, but
maybe if you do this, maybe It's like I feel
like the fact that we don't have clear cut answers
makes people more scared and more anxious to control it.
(11:50):
I feel like if men got pregnant, we would know
so much more. Let me, let me actually fix that.
Some men do get pregnant, yes, but if the majority
aready of people who got pregnant were men, I feel
like our research and our understanding of pregnancy and fertility
would be completely different. Yes. Absolutely. And when I when
(12:11):
I think of like nature versus nurture, I always think about,
like how when I was just coming out, I was
so obsessed with, like looking at all the research of
the gay gene because I was like wanting to have
an answer or like a definitive sort of like scientifically
backed reason as to why I was gay, or like
(12:32):
wanting to answer that. But like it just it feels
so Now as an adult, I'm like that just feels
so so so like just a singular mind to try
to think of things so explicitly in black and white
in that way that like that there can be a
gene to do that or like that everything you know,
like all of that that there is just like a
(12:53):
nature side of things, and it is such essential ism
in a way. That's what that really um props up
white supremacist patriarchal structures of like, oh, women are biologically assists.
Women are biologically designed to like stay home and take
care of their young or you know, they would use
(13:16):
that back in the day against like students of color
who are like, well they're just not as smart. And
you know, there's a lot of unpack in this book
about that, but it's like justifying all of that through.
It's just the biology of gender or race or ethnicity.
(13:38):
It's it's all women's heads are just smaller, smaller. Wonderful.
I have this wonderful quote from the eighteen forties. Um,
my next book deals with medicine. In the eighteen I
was gonna say, you just have one of those, and
I was like, that's the most darling thing I've ever.
It's my favorite quote because I've been saying it to
(14:00):
Daniel um every time I forget anything. There's a doctor
who measured women's heads and found that a woman's head
is too small for intellect, but just big enough for love. Oh,
that's the most adorable sexes. You know what I'm gonna.
(14:22):
I'm gonna cross stitch that onto a pillow for each
And I know what is your next book because I
am fast? Um Well, okay, first of all, I have
to sell it. Um so, if I'm working on the
proposal for all of quarantine, it's about Madame Rossell. She
was an abortionist in the eighteen forties and the first
(14:43):
female millionaire independently in America. Um so, she made a
massive fortune selling birth control pills and performing abortions. At
a time point abortions were still legal. Uh and then
the medical establishments started cracking down on them very hard
in eighteen fifty nine, in part because Madame Ristol was
(15:04):
just like buying a mention in New York. She was
unbelievably rich. She was a British self taught immigrant who
learned how to perform abortions, supposedly never lost a single
patient um got into a huge fight with the Catholic Church,
and the archbishop was planning to build a house right
(15:25):
across from the cathedral in New York, and Madame Rossell
I bedam for that lot by a hundred thousand dollars
and then built her mention there where she performed abortions
and she faked her own. She faked to ron gas
at the end. It's awesome, it's a great story. Question
she became a millionaire before Madame C J. Walker? Yes,
(15:46):
I interesting think so. I'm pretty sure c J. Walker
was like the eighteen seventies, right, I believe so because
she was born C J. Walker wasn't born ntil eighteen sixty. Yeah,
so Madame Rossell was eight and forties. This isn't Women's
Millionaire podcast. I know. Well, I think so going back
(16:07):
to the idea of like science and biology, I always
you know, the phrase a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I kind of always thought that with like meddling in
genetics and like genetic engineering, where it's like I bet
if you get down to like the electron level, there
might be a way to understand these things. But until then,
(16:29):
like thinking we know these certain things and like playing
God is uh a nightmarish? Eventually I think Ford, yes,
I'm so sorry playing forward of course Edith nightmares. You
can pick your baby's I color now well, which was
so fascinating playing, but only out of the colors if
(16:52):
you if you want, and if you want to play
an extra ten thousand dollars because you really came, they
can Testie Brieus that you have and they can tell
them all of the eye colors. So if you really
want a blue eyed baby, you couldn't pick the one
that has blue eyes. But again, only only if you
Jennifer and Daniela has recessive blue. I'm not getting a
(17:15):
baby that because I immediately said, okay, I'll hit ask
for ten thou dollars. I want violet eyes like Elizabeth Taylor. Violet.
That's what I'm going for. And it was explained to
me that that is not an option. It's a little
bit it's a little bit uh Jurassic Park like just
because they thought whether they could, they didn't think whether
they should. Well, look, I mean it immediately, okay, if
(17:38):
they can do that, um, I think when they told
me they could do that, I immediately said so like
theoretically can you tell me which one will be told
if if we take a boy like he's there going
to be one that's six four um. And they explained
to me that it was both illegal and entirely unethical
to do that. But yeah, but my question is why
(18:07):
is high color ethic but height isn't. And so as
soon as that's possible, don't we think on ethical? People
will pay you extra for it, like the yeah, I'll
kid that can wear bangs. This is Popcorn Book Club.
(18:35):
We'll be right back after this quick break. Okay, we're
back with Popcorn Book Club. All right, but let's get
into the plots. So yes, all right, Karama, you want
to take the first The first act of the plot
introduced us to the cast of character. Great. First of all,
(18:58):
this book really has no ptagonists. A thing that pissed
me off. Everyone is bad is trying hard, but she's
has a protagonist and more just a flat female character
at any resolution that pissed me off a lot. I literally,
no one is the main character in this book. So
we enter in a factory tour, as was previously established,
(19:23):
and that's sort of how we get the world that
we're in. We understand that things have changed. We are
using a different time system. It's the year after Ford.
It's like six hundred something after Ford. And the Ford
seems to be Henry Ford of model t Forward fame
and Built Ford Tough fame, um. And these babies are
(19:43):
indeed built Ford tough. They Ford is also the inventor
of the modernissembly line, which yes, correct, um, which is
how they make the babies. They are built Ford Tough.
And they have these different classifications or casts, and they
which is a fun, fun entry into the deep world
(20:05):
of racism that exists in this book. Uh So they
have these different casts, and they create different casts in
these bottles. And you find out that there is this
method that they use to bud these embryos so that
they create dozens and dozens of twins. And page nine
is when we get our first real, sort of very
(20:26):
racist explanation of this birth thing where it's like, oh, well,
we are able to create this many but in Mombassa,
which is for those of you who don't know, Uh,
in Mombassa they're able to make so many more. But
have you seen a Negro egg? And I was just like, oh, okay,
this is where we're at. And I'm glad that it
(20:46):
came up on the ninth page, but also I'm terrified
that it came up on the ninth page. So does
it keep coming And you're like, yes, yeah, that was
my first yikes that I highlighted. I'm so excited for
all of the yikes. I texted my friend and I
was like, I feel like, if you are a person
of color and you read a book that gets weird racially,
(21:09):
you should be able to stop at the first point
that it gets weird and then say to everyone, yes,
I did read that book, Like I feel like I
could have read nine pages and then told everyone I
read the book. I also want to remind everyone that
that Ford was the type of guy who had a
newspaper called the Darborn Independent. And there's a very famous,
a very famous headline, UH from the Forward International Weekly
(21:33):
UH called the International Jew colin the World's Problem. So
he is not a great guy in a lot of ways.
That's sort of like his famous, like big headline. Because
that's so terrible. I can't even make any of the
jokes that I would want to make if it were
like it's so bad. It's like and the chapters are
(21:55):
like exactly the type of things that people on like that,
like the neo Nazis on Twitter, uh, talk about where
they're like how Jews always played the victim, like you know,
how Jews took over the world, how they are not
American and like you know, like all the dumb like
greatest hits. So yeah, I mean is bad. I think
(22:17):
there's also a problem. One of my my prior books
was about treatment of diseases and it's and it's about
heros the bottom um and what do you read about
doctors practicing from I'm gonna say, like, do not thank
you thirty is fucking impossible to find ones that are
(22:37):
not at least enthusiastically interested in eugenics and what you
can do. Um. It felt like I kept going along
and I would be like, oh, this is great, like yeah,
they're they're working with orphans and oh ship, no, they're
sterilizing the note they're in Eugenicist No one. Alexander Graham
(22:58):
Bell was a eugenicist. Everybody to eugenis. They're all eugenicis.
It's bad. But so in this world we have the
director of the or is the director different from Henry
I couldn't figure that out. Yeah, I think, oh, yeah,
(23:19):
Henry the director is the one who then leaves at
the end. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So there's this
guy named Henry. He's introduced, Uh, we are introduced this
woman named Lenna who has lupus. That's super casually thrown
in there. Dude, we say Lenna. I was saying Lenina
on the show, they say Lenina, but in the audio
(23:39):
book that I listened to make this bearable, they said Lenna.
So I've been conditioned that comes up later to say Lennon.
I think it's considered it's after Lennon, And yes, it's
not exactly veiled. No, it's not. No, it's very very
(24:00):
clearly stated. And I was like, oh, okay, that's where
we're at. So we meet Lenina or Lenina however you
want to say. It is correct. She's not real and
she sucks anyway, not as bad as everybody else, but
she sucks at She's passive. She's just look, she wants
to get laid and travel and that's it. She's like,
(24:20):
she's like Daisy Buchanan and that she is just the
representation of the system, you know what I mean. She
like Daisy is actively bad in a lot of ways.
But when we do our great get of somebody in
the future, we will talk about her. But so we
meet Lenina or Lenina, we meet Um, we meet Henry,
and uh, we are realizing that this world is different
(24:41):
from ours, and that there's this conditioning that happens, this
um sort of hypno what did they call it? Paid it, Yeah,
hypnopedic hypnopedia, where it's basically like sleep training with sound,
where they tell you these platitudes um, and they enforce
the cast syst um where it's like, well, I'm so
(25:01):
glad that I'm not an epsalon. I would never want
to play with those children. They wear khaki or the
Gamas hate khaki. Ya, isn't it They reinforce racism in
your sleep. Yes, also a hatred of khaki, which feels unfair,
almost as unfair as the racism. Well, you know what,
no one looks good in khaki, so maybe that's a
(25:22):
good thing. Do you look good in khaki? I think
I look kai, I look bad. I don't. Maybe dold
you imagine you or me Dana and head to tokaki
and I feel like I feel like Laura drn looks
good in Khaki. Everything all right, She's an out liar.
(25:46):
She is no one can compare themselves to Laura Durn
and feel like it was a fair comparison. This is
just to say that I feel as if I had
been sleep told that Khaki is bad because I don't
think I look in Khaki. Yeah. So there they have
this peptic sleep training, and then we learn more about
how their destructions, and everybody's supposed to be doing activities
(26:08):
all the time and nobody's supposed to be alone. And
we get to meet Franny, who's Lenina's friend. Franny. I
think it's my favorite character because she's just like, she's like,
have you just been having sex with Henry? You need
to go do somebody else. Don't have another man. Also,
I love your foe Moroccan belt, like asked Henry where
(26:31):
he got it. She feels like Judy Greer would have
played her if they had made this in two three money.
So we meet these characters. Nothing really happens more than
just establishing characters establishing the world. And this future world
has no family structure, so they very quickly established that
(26:54):
the idea of motherhood is extremely vulgar and the idea
of being born instead of being canted is like almost smut.
I think they refer to it as like pornographic and
smutty and all this gross stuff, and they're like, Oh,
these people don't know the difference between science and smut
and the line where that exists, so it's really hard
for them to talk about it. And um, we also
(27:17):
learned that everybody has sex kind of without any feeling attached,
no real relationships attached, because if you make relationships, then
you're gonna want to make families. And uh, there is
this or at least attachments, not necessarily families in the
like nuclear family structure, but there are no real attachments
(27:37):
and the goal is to have everyone and everyone belongs
to everyone else, except not really because everyone's straight, which
was very funny to me. I was like, if everyone
belongs to everyone else, shouldn't everyone belong to every And
also the whole point is that they don't reproduce it,
so like most of the women, they don't they like
(27:58):
for sterilized, but like not all of them, you know,
for reasons that they explain. But then it's like, well,
why don't they just make everyone get yeah, or at
least like experimental people do experiment orgies with everybody, I think,
but the the orgies have meted out gender, so it's
(28:19):
like six of one six of the other. It does
feel like the I mean obviously was written in nine
so there's a lot it could have been updated, but
it feels like everything is so regimented, like everyone belongs
to everyone else. If you're a boy and you're a
girl and you're an alpha plus and you're an alpha plus,
like it had just still has to all like fit
in this totalitarian regime. I do think that that's also
(28:43):
important to start talking about the characters cast. So Lenina
is a beta minus in the book, but a beta
plus on the show, which I was like, I think
in the book I noticed in the book, I don't
think they specified she was here. Find it keep talking
else because because I just sort of filled it in
because she like made fun of gammas and so you're like,
(29:07):
she's not a gamma, and we know she is, so
I just sort of like you just sort of fill
in the blanks of the I was confused. I thought
she was an alpha because she was having That was
the thing. There's intercast sex. I don't think any women
are alpha's in the book, I think, and women Yeah, yeah,
(29:27):
I think you're I think it's like the professional women
are betas they have they have smaller heads, so they
can't think as much. They can only love, um, but
they cannot so creative. But his creativity stops at that,
like it's let me build this entire new world. But
nobody is queer and no women are alpha's. That's as
(29:50):
far as gay people didn't exist yet, right, Okay, so
then we need our hero Bernard Marks, who everybody hates
for a good reason. It turns out like the very
very good reason. Um. Despite a fact that everybody belongs
(30:14):
to everybody else in this brief new world, nobody wants
to belong to Bernard Marks because they all agree that
he sucks. So he's slightly he's an alpha plus, but
he's slightly shorter than the other alpha pluses. And there
is an ongoing and constant rumor that alcohol was spilled
into his bottle when he was being decandid, which is
(30:36):
such a shitty way to bully someone in this UM.
I think it's also important to know the reason that
is a rumors, because they do that to lower casts. Yeah, yes,
but yes, to make. Isn't it funny than even in
this dystopian future where everyone is constantly happy and distracted,
there's still ship. They figured out how to be shitty
(30:58):
to one another immediately short I hope they'll have to
lie on Tinder. There is one point where it's like
I heard that through a friend of a friend of
a friend that it really is the rumor is true.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, she knew somebody was in the room.
Oh yeah No, it's just total shit talking. So this
future of huge amounts of distraction and drugs and orgies
(31:20):
has not made people stop being shitty to each other.
And it turns out it's okay to Polly Bernard because
he does suck. They're just going home for the wrong
reasons because he has a citty personality. He has a
really personality personality of a guy named Bernard. I also
(31:44):
think another thing I want to say, I'm still looking
because I could have sworn it that she was a
Beta minus, but I could have been wrong. So Danta
so carefully to you publicly, Mike, you can cut that
part out if you'd like. I love vigilant you were no, no, no,
I'm at the apology, not the not the beta minus part.
(32:07):
So um, the alpha's are born one egg, one person,
so each alpha is unique and every other cast is
born out of this buchanizization methods. Bakovski Y. It's named after,
it's named after. I looked this up. He was basically,
(32:28):
So basically this entire book was Eldess Huxley's like subtweet
to the British political system. And he was a French
like minister industrialist who like was an organizer in France,
and so that's what he was facing an Alpa. So
basically all the names and everything is like are real
(32:49):
people who are just like people that sort of embodied
these like I'm putting in air quotes like ideals of
like organization and empiricism. So we haven't heard and he yes,
uh so here's a cross on Lanina that's very pneumatic,
which I think means musty um woman think who it
(33:09):
very means like curving. I looked at it. I feel
like it's it's like but also the chairs are pneumatic,
but I think it's a fluffy, like justush a chair cushing. Yeah. Um,
so here's a cross on Lanina. She's very popular. Everybody
likes Landina Um, but she's been going out with Henry
Foster for a Whileie, it's starting to seem like they're monogamous.
(33:32):
It's been a few months, she hasn't seen anybody else,
so she feels like she should go out with somebody else,
and Bernard offers to take her to a reservation where
she'll get to see native people in their native habitat,
and she thinks that would be interesting because her other
offer is going off with Benito Hoover, who is very
(33:53):
nice and everybody likes him. But he took her to
the North Pole and the hotel that they stayed at
only had twenty five squash courts and his weird ears
and it's weird. He's a really nice person. Everybody agrees said, yeah,
the most redeemable person for sure. We all agree with that.
Benito is a super nice guy and Lenina should have
(34:14):
gone off with him. She goes on a date with
Bernard and first of all, he complains about having to
do anything. I guess I just want us to be alone. Yes,
he just wants them to be alone in a park,
which which is fine. But she wanted to go see
a sporting match, like she came up with a lot
of ideas of things that they could do. She was like, yes,
(34:35):
have to exist. I don't know, she's trying to come
up with the first date with the next day. It
means something to talk about. Don't play the hell out
of all. Oh my god, yes, the elector great. That
is the least sinister part of this society is that
like everyone after work like goes to play like the
equivalent of like dodgeball, like a dodge They got helicopters
(34:59):
to they get a little high and go like, God,
I wish we had in a society. We're after work
everyone like joined an adult sports league. Yeah, and it
seems delightful. So Lendi a super cool She takes him
to a women's wrestling match. They just kind of authentically
say that Bernard is horrible to all of her friends
(35:20):
and Franny, who again it's a wonderful character. It's like,
why would you go on another day with him? So
that's nice, Like people have some autonomy here. They don't
have to belong to everyone else to the extent that
they have to go out with people they don't like.
And Lindia is very clear, I just want to go
to the reservation. I think it'll be cool to see
(35:40):
well that also he's one of few people because of
his job and because of his position as an alpha,
who has permission to go to the reservation, So she
can't even do it with somebody nice like Benito. It
has to be with Bernard, which just feels like some
guys dream. Like some guy's dream is to be like
I can take you to Cuba and a rich boyfriend
(36:06):
who's like, okay, I'll date him just until we take
the trip to Paris, who would no one, no one,
but before we go onto the reservation, which is I
think going to be a topic. Uh, I just want
to talk about Bernard a little bit as a character.
To me, it was very funny that the character that
(36:27):
you read that you assume would be the hero and
protagonist of this story, which in a different story, the
alpha who's so smart he sort of sees through the
bullshit and he's a little bit shorter than everyone else
in another story would be the hero. Yeah, and like
like that would lead the revolution. And in any like
(36:49):
dystopian y a novel, it's always like the person who's
like a little different, who people don't really like. But
in this one, Bernard is almost immediately revealed to be
like a very petty asshole. He's insecure that he's short,
and he's like a whiny little asshole, and he's also
like a huge coward like later in the book to
(37:14):
his nice Friendholds, he's like a jealous book. So that's
what I found very funny that Bernard is set up
to be our first protagonist and then it's revealed to
be just like a little cry baby zero zero, I'm
protagonists here. Yeah, I found that I found his ark
to be very satisfying, Like I was very much into
(37:37):
him having like a crying whiny And yes, you're listening
to Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio and we'll
be back right after the break. So we're back with
(38:02):
Popcorn book Club for My Heart Radio. Shout out to Helmholtz,
who is also the only other He's great, he's our hero.
He's my favorite character for sure, but like he's such
a side character and it's just so interesting. It feels
like that one episode of Master of None where we
(38:23):
just followed the side characters, Like I would love to
just follow Helmholtz and figure out what his day to
day is like, because we only see him in relation
to Bernard and then later in relation to John who
I'm just going to call him his name because his
nickname is not Great. No. Yeah, people get really excited
(38:44):
about that. Yeah, it is. It is so weird. I
really misread the opening of this book because I think
I've read enough y I dystopian novels, and I'm like, Oh,
it's gonna be Lenona and Bernard and they're going to
fall in love and they both are a little different,
Like it was the hint to me of she wanted
to be monogamous, and I was like, oh, maybe she
feels differently too, and she feels feelings of love and
(39:06):
she's gonna and Bernard's going to be the one. They're
going to together and lighten everyone. Nope, that was absolutely
not it. And neither of them are the protagonists. And
Leonida gets no conclusion, which really bothered me. Uh, she's
just out there, No no conclusion, Melissa. She is beaten
and left maybe alive or dead. Yeah, She's said with
(39:27):
Henry Foster at the end, but he runs away because
he's understandably pretty freaked out by the whole situation. Yeah
she is. I think this is the only situation. I
can remember spoiler jemming Head where a character is left
for dead by the author, where he's like, don't care anymore? Well, yeah,
I mean that's what I meant, and they like don't
they don't. He doesn't call her out by name, like
(39:49):
that was a choice is supposed to be because to me,
I wasn't sure if that was her because I also
said she had blue eyes, which is different than purple,
and they didn't call her by name, and he was
in this rage. I feel like it was intentionally left
like ambiguous. But I don't know even will get there okay,
(40:09):
but is better than everybody else and everything's he just knows.
He knows he'll never be as good as Shakespeare, but
he wants to be. Also, he's so awesome that they
changed this gender in the show. I thought, yeah, they
made yes, it's um, it's a really cool choice. It's
(40:29):
a woman who's in charge of making movies in the show,
feeling yeah yeah, and she's trying to do something new
with them. But what she's my favorite character in the show.
But we'll get to that later. So um, we meet
Bernard and then they go on their fun cool date
New Mexico to go explore a native reservation. Cool, and
(40:51):
they keep referring to it as like the Savage Lands
or something like that, something equally terrible, but the focus
is savage. And before they go, as previously mentioned, Bernard
needs specific permits and specific permission, so he goes to
the director and it's like, yo, can you sign my paperwork?
And then he's like, you're going to see the savages?
(41:13):
Oh my, what I was your age? I will say
this and then I will finish my voices. When I
was your age, I went to the reservation with a
young girl and then she went to missing and then
we're like, oh, that's weird that you don't care. And
then chump forward does carry his nightmare cboda, and then
he covers it up by being like like we were
a lover and up. And also it's just one person
(41:35):
who cares like that covers it like that, right, we're
all part of one large social being and she's gone,
but you know, that's life. So then we go to
the reservation in Tienne. You want to talk about the reservation? Ah, yeah,
I read this late at night, So let's go just
instead of we can sort of assume that people have
(41:55):
read it. What we're just your general impression. Great. So
they go to the reservation and like Lenona and Bernard
are just blown away by the fact that people are
aging and are not as fit as this their world
and are like compliment like not complimenting. Oh my gosh,
we're marking on their like hygiene and looks and bodies
(42:19):
in a really gross, terrible way. Um. They are they
witnessed like a very violent public ritual. And they meet
Bernard meets this woman Linda, who turns out to be
the lost woman from Um, the the who the director
was in love with. And we find out that she's
had a son, and that son is John, And we
(42:42):
also learned about him that he like even though he
spent his whole life on the reservation, he's kind of
the outsider. Um. Everyone treats him and his mother, which,
by the way, mother is a dirty word in this world.
Um treats his mother, uh like outsiders there. They mocked them,
they abuse them. UM. And one of the big things
(43:06):
about John is that he's learned to read because his
mother or maybe the collection of Shakespeare was in there
on the reservation, wasn't It wasn't his mom's right or
was it his lover his mom's mother's lover. And one
of the big problems with his mom is that she
wants to have sex with everyone because that was very
(43:26):
normal in the world person she grew up and everybody
hates her as a result. She's been conditioned being Yeah. Completely,
it's a lot of slut shaming. Yeah, in a way
where you're like, wait, eldest, is this are you in
favor of this? What is your because right? I gotta
say I thought there was some wonderful comedy, even though
(43:47):
it was so much slut shaming and the reaction was poor,
but just the funniness of like I sucked all your husbands?
Who cares? What is it? It's like a sick mom
of like, that's what we do? You want to My
husband's like, my god, oh silly Linda. She just doesn't
get it. But that's not how that happened. It was
(44:09):
a lot of violence. I thought. I thought it was
sort of funny. Um and also sit coming not in
a in a hahawey. Um had the way that jumping
ahead a little bit. John is like, oh, I love
Lenina so much. I love her, but she's a Harlot,
but strength it okay. Well, look, Lenia never gets to
have good sex. I hope she got to have great
(44:30):
sex with Benito Hoover and Henry Foster, because when she
first had sex with Bernard, he has sex with her,
and then afterwards she's like, oh, that was nice, and
he was like, yeah, but I wish we hadn't had sex, Like,
wouldn't that have been cooler? I couldn't wrote that up before. Yeah,
he's just so lame and like it is like the
(44:50):
guy you have sex within college that you immediately like
this was a mistake. Who like you think because he
thinks he's so smart, he's special, but it's not and
he's not even as smart as he thinks. Yeah, and
you just find out that that's smart. It's not smart.
It's just being mean. Yes, you learn the difference of
(45:11):
quickly at that age. Um, but Linda didn't don't do
anything wrong, She's been conditioned a certain way. So then
I feel like the next major plot machination, I'm sort
of then moving us forward so we can talk more
big big picture themes is Bernard you like his weird,
(45:32):
petty like selfishness, like really for purely selfish reasons is like, whoa,
won't it be a scandal and great for me in
my social life and embarrass the director if I bring
back Linda and John? Well yeah, I mean just He
also knows that that he's going to he hears it
through him helmeholds that he's going to be sent to Iceland,
(45:53):
and he's like, I'm going to get one over on
the director and actually send him to Icelander, you know,
cast him off. And that's exactly what happens um, which
is such a quick hint of Bernard's weaselness that like
what we hates this world so much. But even when
he gets a ticket out, which it later gets explained
that maybe getting sent out of this world is like
(46:14):
an okay thing is kind of like the best maybe
the best, are you kidding? Or even as we learned
to one of the tropical islands, it's just all the
smart people who just want to hang out. I want
a dream. Yeah, So he comes, he and Lenona come back,
but he like doesn't really care about Lenona anymore because
(46:35):
he's famous because he brings back John and uh and
everyone's fascinated by John and once once too. It's basically
like being friends with Beyonce or something where it's like, oh,
I can get you can meet Beyonce if you're friends
with me, Like I, she's my roommate, and it's like shop,
(46:55):
your roommate is Beyonce. So everyone wants to have sex
with him because he's roommates with Beyonce. Um and and
so he's like having a lot of sex now with
like but even started to interrupt, even like less than
it's like less than Beyonce. It's almost like the Fiji
water Girl, like a meme for the moment because as
(47:16):
we learned that like like John, celebrity does like Wayne
and then by default like Bernard's crash, as we'll learn,
but like he just is like the trend of the moment,
people like, oh, what's it? Like? I think if John
had played into the celebrity more and wanted to play
the game like everybody can come see me, then it
would have been different. I feel like it would have
(47:38):
been closer to Beyonce as opposed to Fiji water Girl,
which lovely throwback. Remember we're talking about it. I remember
her pictures. And and also something that's important is that
poor Linda also comes back and everyone is horrified by her.
They call her, they call her fat and disgusting. I
(47:58):
think she's like forty, I've um, and they're just horrified
by regular normal aging. And she is wants to be
on a permanent Soma holiday, which I don't think we've
really touched on exactly what Soma is, but it seems
like just an opiate some kind of like magical opiate
(48:19):
um where they just take a little bit to feel,
take a half a gramma day to like get your
worries away or whatever, but then you can have a
bunch and just it sounds like they're on Heroin. They're
like Heroin and holiday. Yeah. And so she goes on
a permanent Soma holiday and is going to die because
(48:41):
of it. Um. But she's just so sad and miserable
because she's been so cast away. She doesn't fit in
either world. Um. And then John at the same time
is starting to be very discouraged by this brave new
world with such people in it. And he's read all Shakespeare,
(49:03):
so he's like just in his room reading Shakespeare a
lot and really rooting, and he doesn't want to go
to a party with with with Bernard. And Bernard then
gets like completely cast out by all of the cool people.
I love that scene because they are they are in
Bernard's house talking trash about him. Oh yeah, they're drinking
(49:27):
his wine while they're talking about how he's deformed, and
they're like, oh, I heard from a friend of a
friend of a friend that it's super true that there
was alcohol in his bottle before he was decanted. Yeah,
and they are the most fair weather friends. I mean,
they're not even They're like, if the forecast changes, we're
(49:48):
not even sticking around. Yeah. They just really really hate him.
Even in that section too, I think he starts talking
about essentially like the nirties version of frenemies. I think
all this is called like victim friend or like friend
victim or something way more traumatic and traumatizing, which I
(50:08):
thought it was hilarious. And then they the Archbishop song
store whatever. Uh. It takes home Lenina and she's like,
all right if she doesn't want to, but it's like fine.
She was disappointed though, because uh, Lenna is developing feelings
for John, and John clearly has feelings for Lenona, and
(50:32):
but he doesn't know how to handle them, and she
doesn't know how to like operate with him because she's like,
why doesn't he just have sex with me? I don't
understand it, Like he likes me sometimes, but he doesn't.
And so they go on this one weird day they
go to a feeling uh, very racist feeling. I mean
everything's racist. He uses the word oct roon like eight times,
(50:55):
and I'm just like, if you use the word oct
roon and you're white, I have a lot of questions,
and none of them are good. I I have a
question about that word and not anything that I want
to ask, just because I genuinely don't know it was ever.
Was it ever used like in a as a non
(51:16):
slur to just like in a legal setting ensive? I mean,
I think that it was used as a classification, much
like the class the cast system that they have where
it's like, oh, okay, you get a little bit more
rights because you're a quadroon instead of a mulatto, and
you get a little bit more if you're an oct
(51:38):
roon instead of a quadroon. But it was because of
rights and because they were like if you're a little black,
that's naughty. It's like that one drop rule. So even
in its classification term as like terminology for just figuring out, Okay,
how much of a person are you? That's sort of
where it was. Oh, the word and the meaning is
(51:59):
super asist. I'm mostly just just curious because I don't
know that slur. I'm not very familiar whether it was
always There is a very funny Key and Peele sketch
where they use it, but other than that, I don't
think it's ever been used positively. Good to know, Yes,
you learned something new and it was not a slur
I was familiar with. It's a it's an old timey one.
(52:21):
But yeah, so the theory is interesting. Oh, it is
basically like a birth of a nation but future. Yeah. Yeah,
it's like sex, but sex the canting of a nation.
That's like facing a white woman, right, and then the
and then these three white male heroes come by and
(52:42):
a helicopter and I don't know it's but the black man.
The black man wants her so much that he wants
to have her exclusively for a weekend. Yeah, that's the
crazy thing. That's a crazy thing. The crazy thing is
that he gets hit on the head on the head.
She's in love with her now and wants to be
(53:04):
with her and them to have an exclusive relationship. Fortunately
she is safe by I guess three men who immediately
have sex with her. It is an instinct. It ends
with it ends with an orgy as all happy. Yeah,
A good movies do end group, you know. I do
(53:25):
feel like every movie should end with a dance number
of the whole cast dancing and having fun and like, momma,
here we go again. There just like slum Dog Millionaires
I have. But it's like that, but orgy and I
would be okay with that, like to show that the
cast has fun together, like I love the John sees
(53:49):
that and his immediate thought was a fellow. Yeah, He's like, oh, yes,
that's a blackamore another word used in the book, eldest,
what are you doing? Points for variety, I guess yeah.
(54:09):
But after the day, Lenona tries to make a move
and she like zips off her a little cute outfit
and he's like strumpet and runs away. I think she's
very sad about it and confused. She's just confused. She's like,
what's happening, Let's just have sex already. Um. Her outfits
(54:29):
do seem really cute, she seems very fashionable, and to
see more of that in the show. I will say,
there are some things about this world that sounds super fun,
Like the outfit seems very cute and cool, and the
sense that that's like all the perfumes of different things
(54:50):
like that sounds great, like the like orchestras of smells.
I mean, the pheely sound great, like if you know,
it's like three D. But like all sensory I go down.
I'd be into that. Soma is just alcohol without a hangover.
I mean, I'd take halfrica it would also I will
(55:10):
say I'm pro little mini personal helicopters. That's really fun.
I mean, what is the impact of that on the environment, though,
Like if they're electric helicopters, sure, yeah, my fantasy electric
and you go play some electric golf with your friends
after work. Yeah, it's electroc golf different from obstacle golf.
(55:31):
That's my question. Oh sorry, I think it was. It's
opted to both of them. There's electro magnetic golf and
then there's obstacle golf. Definitely. Okay. I have a serious
question when was miniature golf invented? Because did someone read
this book and say, obstacle golf that's what we gotta DoD. Wow, Okay, wait,
(55:53):
you know that the high five, the high five was
only invented. You went to the moon before people high five. Okay, guys, yeah,
eldest borrowed frum. Oh. I was really hoping it was
the other way around. But that's okay, that's very disappointing,
(56:14):
like almost disappointing. Is this whole book. That's our show
for the week. Thank you so much for listening. I'm
Danis Schwartz and you can find me on Twitter at
Danish Schwartz with three z s. You can follow Jennifer
Wright at jen Ashley Wright Karama, Donqua is at Karama Drama,
(56:36):
Melissa Hunter is at Melissa f t W and Tian
Tran is smart enough to have gotten off Twitter, but
she is on Insta at Hank Tina. Our executive producer
is Christopher Hessiotes and were produced and edited by Mike
John's Special thanks to David Wasserman. Next week we continue
our discussion of Brave New World, the book, and then
(56:57):
we will go into Brave New World series, which is
an experience. So uh, Papa Soma and I get ready
to listen. Popcorn Book Club is a production of I
Heart Radio. See you next week,
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