Also, if a literature or philosophy teacher wanted to point out the immortality of human ideas, s/he might look at these two works. It's uncanny how similar they are, even though one was written within the first two centuries A.D., and the other was written a mere eighty years ago. Also, one is a history and the other is a hypothetical dystopian (utopian?) future.
Plutarch's "Lycurgus" is a sixteen-page, small-print summary of the life of the man who made Sparta what it was famous for: a perfected military state, a force to be reckoned with in the ancient days. After delving briefly into Lycurgus's background, Plutarch talks about how the man ruled Sparta and its people. There are the ordinances put in place, and then there are small anecdotes that demonstrate their value, and the sayings by the ancient Spartans, and the analyses of the differences in details of other historians' accounts of Lycurgus's life. It's a pretty varied account, and also a fairly interesting one, as histories go.
On the other hand, we have Brave New World. I'll put this out front: it's by far the best dystopian novel I've read since Fahrenheit 451. It's not as good as that one, because it peters out at the end (though that could have been due to the fact that I was hurrying to get through it, without savoring it as much as I did earlier chapters). In this novel, biological engineering has become commonplace in the conception and development of human beings. Everyone is conditioned from birth to enjoy being part of a certain social rung -- and there's no room left for error, so the creative stuff like books and religion have been banned. (Not, that is, that the civilians would enjoy doing such things if they encountered them.) As a replacement, humans are compelled to give in to any sexual desire they have, at any time; the consequence of having a baby has been eliminated through the means of birth control, and because the new conception methods eliminate the requirement of human reproduction to go through the sexual organs.
It's a mouthful, but that's the basic premise. The first few chapters set up the world, the next few bring some characters strictly out of their comfort zone into the savage lands (previously Nevada), and the last few detail the fallout when they return. Like The Golden Compass, the success here lies in the details provided in each scene which teach the reader about the world they've stumbled upon.
Meanwhile, "Lycurgus" is much more chronological and procedural. The biography is mostly chronological, but most of the middle talks about the development of children, also emphasized in Brave New World. And of course, Plutarch continually relates the state to the leader, whereas the identity and sentiments of the leader of Brave New World are largely a secret out of necessity to the society and to the story.
As I said, reading these two works back-to-back makes one think about the immortality of ideas. Could this really be the picture of a "perfect" society? Plutarch gushes over the accomplishments of Lycurgus, but Huxley isn't so keen on the utopia he presents. The French quote at the beginning of the novel surmises of a day when humans turn away from utopias and prepare to live in the imperfect yet much more alive present. Whatever the case, both pieces are superb visions of a society quite unlike ours.
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