Island is the final book by
English writer Aldous Huxley,
published in 1962. It is the account of Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist who is shipwrecked on the fictional island of Pala.
Island is Huxley's
utopian counterpart to his most famous work, the
1932 dystopian novel Brave New World, itself often paired with
George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four. The ideas that would become
Island can be seen in a foreword he wrote in 1946 to a new edition of
Brave New World:
Plot summary
Englishman William Asquith "Will" Farnaby deliberately wrecks his boat on the
Polynesian shores of the Kingdom of Pala, thus forcing his entry to this otherwise "forbidden island." Farnaby, a journalist, political
huckster, and lackey for the oil baron Lord Joseph "Joe" Aldehyde, is tasked with persuading the island's current queen—the
Rani—to sell Aldehyde rights to Pala's untapped oil assets. Farnaby awakens on the island with a leg injury, hearing a
myna bird screaming "Attention", when a local boy and girl notice him and take him for medical treatment to their grandfather, Dr. Robert MacPhail. Dr. Robert and a young man named Murugan Mailendra carry Farnaby to Robert's house for a surprisingly successful
hypnotherapy session led by Susila, Robert's daughter-in-law and the mother of the two children. Susila's husband (Robert's son) recently died in a climbing accident, and Susila is still grappling with the grief.