Island by Aldous Huxley

Island is a 1962 novel by English writer Aldous Huxley, the author's final work before his death in 1963. 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. The ideas that would become Island can be seen in a foreword he wrote in 1946 to a new edition of Brave New World: Englishman William Asquith "Will" Farnaby deliberately wrecks his boat on the shores of the Kingdom of Pala, an island halfway between Sumatra and the Andaman Islands, 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. Farnaby and Murugan recognise each other from a recent meeting with Colonel Dipa, the military dictator of a threatening country called Rendang-Lobo that neighbours Pala-another force coveting Pala's oil. In private, Murugan reveals to Farnaby that he is in fact the Rani's son and will be assuming control over Pala in a few days as its new Raja. Both the Rani and Murugan were raised outside of Palanese culture, however, and so both are largely westernised, with Murugan especially influenced by materialism and consumerist greed.