Huxley,Hesse and Camus

I’ve recently decided to re-read a few books that I read ages ago. One of the first books to warrant a re-reading was Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I’ve been thinking of reading the book again for quite a while, but after learning that George Orwell believed that Huxley had been influenced by Russian writer, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We, I downloaded copies of the two works from Amazon.com.

After the re-read of Brave New World, and the first time reading of We, I’d say that I can’t agree with Orwell’s claim.

It had been more than 40 years since I first read Brave New World and of course, I had forgotten many of the finer points. Memory can be tricky, but I was more impressed with the book when I in my 20’s than I am at 62.

Another novel that has received a re-read this year is The Stranger by Albert Camus. Reading that book has put Camus’ The Plague on the re-read list-probably in a few weeks.

I’m currently re-reading Herman Hesse’ Siddhartha. I’ve finished 92% of the re-read, but I have to say that I’ve forgotten so much of it; I have to question whether or not I ever read it the first time. I know I have…….it was just before I read Steppenwolf (which will also receive a redo soon) but I was a bit bumfuzzled in 1971/1972.

I suppose it’s my youthful bumfuzzlement that has prompted this desire to re-read these books. The books I’ve chosen are ones that I remember being influential in my life and I want to see if my view of these works justify my putting them on a literary pedestal.