Part way through the book, I'm still unsure as to where this is going. Bernard is obviously a central character, which I didn't expect. I'm sure it was deadly serious when it was written, but in a modern light the whole thing reads almost like a parody of an apocalyptic novel. It's like it was meant to be fantasy/sci-fi, but it's slowly turning into realistic fiction. Obviously, genetic manipulation wouldn't happen exactly like the book portrays it, but we're definitely getting there.
I think Bernard definitely is becoming the central focus here. What I found more interesting, though, were the small details of the world that Huxley is building. The Semi-moron, and the Savage reservation, and the death conditioning. Especially that. How they refer to death as "a matter of course... like any other physiological process." The author is driving home how little personal attachments matter. Dying is a bodily function, like breathing or sleeping, and the loss of a life matters startlingly little.
I'm not 100 percent sure about the significance of the Semi-moron, but I did find it meaningful when the one operating the escalator said, "Oh, roof!" in a 'voice of rapture' and then 'dropped back into the droning twilight of the well, the twilight of his own habitual stupor.' It represents the twilight of the world's existence, pierced by occasional sanctioned rays of light- neither light nor dark, hovering forever in the middle. The people are so unknowingly deprived that they are profoundly grateful for any tiny little blessing.
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