Island (1962)

(spoilers ahead)

Aldous Huxley’s last novel, Island, could be viewed as a counter novel to Brave New World. Whereas BNW is a dystopia, Island is arguably a utopia. Whereas BNW shows a society where people numb themselves from reality, Island shows a society where people live in the most mindful way possible.

Later in his life, Huxley became extremely interested in eastern philosophy, mysticism and explorations with psychedelic drugs. Island represents the culmination of years of immersion into these fields of knowledge. In the novel, Huxley envisions an island society, named Pala, which is structured on the most profound and beneficial aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and Tantrik Philosophy, while still embracing the positive aspects of modern science. Huxley’s understanding of these traditions is deep, nuanced and accurate. He seems to have apprehended those aspects of these traditions which are, as far as I’m concerned, the most beneficial to humanity. From what I’ve gathered, he was deeply influenced by Jiddu Krishnamurti in this regard. Krishnamurti was a long-time friend of Huxley’s.

On the island of Pala, a society has been devised which produces people who are able to live in the most healthy, positive accordance with reality itself. Now this doesn’t mean that they live in some idealised world where no grief or sadness exists. This is partly why the word utopian might be misleading in describing Island, as I feel this word has connotations which suggest some kind of unrealistic, perfect place. But the novel isn’t unrealistic at all. Take one of the main characters for example, Susila. Even though she is an inhabitant of the island who is incredibly intelligent, mindful and one could say awakened, she still feels deep sorrow for her husband Dugald, who died. During the profound ending passages of the novel, in an intimate exchange between Susila and the protagonist, Will, it is written:

“She broke off, and suddenly Will found himself looking at Incarnate Bereavement with seven swords in her heart. Reading the signs of pain in the dark eyes, about the corners of the full-lipped mouth, he knew that the wound had been very nearly mortal and, with a pang in his own heart, that it was still open, still bleeding”

The book covers the most important aspects of the human experience in a poignant way. In this regard, Island puts an emphasis on death, which at certain points is called the “Essential Horror”. I think this description is largely true. Whether people are consciously aware of it or not, death lingers in our minds. We know on some level that we are finite (as are all our loved ones), and we numb and distract ourselves from this knowledge throughout our lives. Our egos, presumably, don’t want to admit that they’re fallible. But the novel tries to show that through a knowledgeless experience of Suchness (Tathātā), we can consciously arrive at an awakened state, and the underlying dread and anxiety that we carry around with us will fade away. We won’t be emotionless, we’ll still feel grief for example, but it won’t be as painful or unhealthy, we won’t amplify that grief by resisting it, but will accept it for what it is.

One of the main teachings in Pala is to pay attention, no matter what you may be doing, and that this is the essential form of Yoga. Just sit with what is present now, no matter what negative and/or positive feelings you’re experiencing. Thus, this explains the comical Mynah birds throughout the novel, who have been taught to squawk “attention” and “here and now”. Connected with this, the society of Pala is not remotely dogmatic. It does not enforce rules or ideas upon people. In fact, it actively guards against this happening. Pala encourages what Terence McKenna would call “the primacy of direct experience”. It encourages its inhabitants to value their own experiences and to think critically about everything. It encourages people to see the world for themselves, and not through the lens of some political movement or religious institution.

Even though the end of the novel is sad on a surface level, on a deeper level it is life-affirming. It is also realistic, one could say. The main character, Will, goes through a significant transformation. He starts off as a repressed, neurotic man who has a negative past. He has a “hyena-like laugh” which belies his repressed state. He is also haunted by aspects of his past throughout the novel, including some of his selfish, hurtful actions. Will, one could argue, symbolises a fairly average man of our consumerist, emotionally unintelligent, Western society. By the end of the novel, with the help of some of Pala’s inhabitants and the moksha-medicine they use, he comes to understand what reality is about, and he learns to see things as they are. This shows that there is hope for us, that the capacity for change is within all of us, even if we’ve done things that we’re ashamed of.

The novel ends in a profound way. Will, the protagonist, has a psychedelic trip aided by one of Pala’s inhabitants, Susila. During this trip he has a direct experience of the ideas he has intellectually learned throughout his time at Pala. During the course of the novel, Will is gradually exposed to Pala and its philosophy. It is one thing to understand such philosophy intellectually, for it to be explained to you, but another to directly experience it with the aid of a psychedelic drug. Even though Will has an experience of bliss, evil and wholeness during his psychedelic trip, the novel ends violently whereby the island is encroached on by people who want its oil reserves, and therefore presumably the island of Pala as we knew it is to be destroyed. But ultimately, we learn that this doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, as the capacity for wholeness is always present (no matter how bad our external conditions might be), and the ideas that permeated this society will always exist on some level. This gives me hope on a personal level, as sometimes when I look around at my society and the present world, I see a lot of evil and suffering.

One could spend a lot of time analysing the various methods that the fictional society of Pala uses to produce such healthy human-beings, but this isn’t the aim of my writing here. Huxley goes into a lot of detail in this regard, and demonstrates his broad knowledge not only of eastern philosophy but also of societal organisation. Huxley, it is clear, was extremely knowledgeable in a plethora of subjects.