Will Farnaby is shipwrecked on the forbidden island of Pala. He is found by the Palanese and nursed back to health. During his convalescence, Farnaby discovers that the Palanese have combined the best of Eastern spirituality - especially Mahayana Buddhism - with the best of Western science and technology.
The Palanese seem to be the sanest people in the world, their way of life maximising their opportunities for self-actualisation and societal harmony. However, there is a serpent in the garden: the Palanese are sitting on a huge oil reserve that the West desperately wants to tap and exploit, and Will Farnaby is (secretly) working for a large oil company. Having come to know and admire them, does Farnaby betray the Palanese, or protect them?
Where Brave New World was Aldous Huxley's dystopia, Island is his truly utopian novel. It is also Huxley's last novel, reflecting a lifetime of thought in its themes. Some of it is plain wacky, much of it is profound. As Huxley himself acknowledged, the novel is not the best vehicle to convey this kind and amount of thought - at times the argument and exposition swamp the other literary elements of the story.
In short, Island is a good book but a bad novel. Despite its flaws, it should appeal to anyone interested in understanding power, venality, compassion and existence. Island seems as relevant today as it did when it first appeared in 1963. Read it and you may well understand why the Beatles placed Huxley on the cover of the Sgt Pepper album.
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