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Available
Call number
Library's review
Indeholder "Forord", "1. optegnelse. Skema: Det er kundgjort. Den viseste linie. Et poem.", "2. optegnelse. Skema: Ballet. Kvadraturets harmoni. X.", "3. optegnelse. Skema: En habit. Muren. Tavlen.", "4. optegnelse. Skema: Vildmanden og barometret. Epilepsi. Hvis.", "5. optegnelse. Skema: Kvadrat.
???
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Verdens herre. En behageligt-nyttig funktion.", "6. optegnelse. Skema: En tilfældighed. Det forbandede 'Klart'. 24 timer.", "7. optegnelse. Skema: Et øjenvippe-hår. Taylor. Liljekonvalen.", "8. optegnelse. Skema: Den irrationale rod. R-13. Trekanter.", "9. optegnelse. Skema: Liturgien. Jamber og trokæer. Den malmtunge hånd.", "10. optegnelse. Skema: Brevet. Membranen. Mit lådne jeg.", "11. optegnelse. Skema: ...Nej, jeg kan ikke! Denne gang - uden skema.", "12. optegnelse. Skema: Uendelighedens begrænsning. Engelen. Tanker om poesi.", "13. optegnelse. Skema: Tågen. Du. En aldeles meningsløs hændelse", "14. optegnelse. Skema: 'Min'. Umuligt. Det kolde gulv.", "15. optegnelse. Skema: Klokken. Det spejlglatte hav. Jeg er dømt til evigt at brænde.", "16. optegnelse. Skema: Gult. Todimensional skygge. Den uhelbredelige sjæl.", "17. optegnelse. Skema: Gennem glasset. Jeg er død. Korridorer.", "18. optegnelse. Skema: Logisk jungle. Sår og plaster. Aldrig mere.", "19. optegnelse. Skema: Et tal af tredje størrelses-orden. Den skulende. Ud over gelænderet.", "20. optegnelse. Skema: Udladningen. Ideernes materiale. Nul-klippen.", "21. optegnelse. Skema: Skribentens pligt. Isen svulmer. Den vanskelige kærlighed.", "22. optegnelse. Skema: Stivnede bølger. Alt bliver mere fuldkomment. Jeg er en mikrobe.", "23. optegnelse. Skema: Blomster. Krystallen opløser sig. Såfremt.", "24. optegnelse. Skema: Funktionens yderste grænse. Påske. Alt skal slettes.", "25. optegnelse. Skema: Fra himlen ned. Historiens største katastrofe. Det kendte er ophørt.", "26. optegnelse. Skema: Verden eksisterer. Udslet. 41 grader.", "27. optegnelse. Skema: Intet skema - umuligt.", "28. optegnelse. Skema: Begge. Entropi og energi. Den uigennemsigtige legemsdel.", "29. optegnelse. Skema: Tråde i ansigtet. Spirer. Naturstridig kompression.", "30. optegnelse. Skema: Det sidste tal. Galilei tog fejl. Var det ikke bedst?", "31. optegnelse. Skema: Den store operation. Jeg har tilgivet alt. Tog-sammenstød.", "32. optegnelse. Skema: Jeg tror ikke. Tanks. Bare en stump.", "33. optegnelse. Skema: (Uden skema, i hast - det sidste)", "34. optegnelse. Skema: De frigivne. Solnatten. Radio-Valkyrien.", "35. optegnelse. Skema: En jern-ring. Guleroden. Mordet.", "36. optegnelse. Skema: Tomme sider. De kristnes Gud. Min moder.", "37. optegnelse. Skema: En infusorie. Dommedag. Hendes værelse.", "38. optegnelse. Skema: (Hvad ved jeg - måske kun dette: en bortkastet cigaret).", "39. optegnelse. Skema: Slut.", "40. optegnelse. Skema: Kendsgerninger. Klokken. Jeg er sikker.".???
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Publication
Kbh, C. A. Reitzel, 1959 167 s.
Description
Set in the twenty-sixth century A.D., Yevgeny Zamyatin's masterpiece describes life under the regimented totalitarian society of OneState, ruled over by the all-powerful "Benefactor." Recognized as the inspiration for George Orwell's 1984, We is the archetype of the modern dystopia, or anti-Utopia: a great prose poem detailing the fate that might befall us all if we surrender our individual selves to some collective dream of technology and fail in the vigilance that is the price of freedom. Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than sixty years' suppression.
User reviews
LibraryThing member ChocolateMuse
Before I didn’t know this, but now I know, and you’ll know it too: laughter comes in different colours. It is only the distant echo of an explosion occurring inside you: it might be festive rockets of red, blue, gold, or it might be shreds of human bodies flying upward…
Never was a dystopian
We is of course a political satire. It attacks the Soviet Union as Zamyatin knew it, and the idea of the police state. Part of the philosophy of the One State is: Freedom leads to desire which leads to unhappiness; therefore the sure path to happiness is to remove freedom. So there in a sealed, controlled glass world, every cipher obeys the Table of Hours, doing almost absolutely everything in unison. There is no longer any concept of ‘the unknown’. Everything is clear, precise, mathematically predictable.
But our (anti)hero, D-503, falls in love with a rebel and develops a sickness, diagnosed with horror as ‘a soul’. And so begins the turmoil. We is in fact not only a political satire, it is more universal than that. It’s a kind of personal, every-person satire as well. This business of being a ‘person’ is at the heart of what We is all about. The uncontainable, painful, colourful, explosiveness of being alive, with an imagination, a heart, desires. Logic and reason, so clear-cut, so cool and composed, hits the white-heat of illogical humanity, and the fizz it makes is uncontrollable.
Sometimes what’s actually happening isn’t quite clear, but the sense of being there in it is. Emotions and reactions are full of colour here, through Zamyatin’s eyes. It’s supposed that Zamyatin had synaesthesia – I am sure of it. That’s what makes his writing so apt and vivid, even when it doesn’t make much sense.
We shouldn’t forget that the novel itself was a courageous political act. The manuscript was smuggled to New York, translated into English and published there in 1924, to the outrage of the Soviet State. According to Wikipedia, (forgive the blandness of that), Zamyatin apparently wrote to Stalin himself, pleading for permission to leave the Soviet Union in 1931. (Incredibly, permission was granted!) In that letter he wrote: “True literature can only exist when it is created, not by diligent and reliable officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics.” We can let that sentence stand as the ultimate description of this novel.
Never was a dystopian
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novel so brightly coloured, so jangled and vivid, so like a kaleidoscope. Never has a dystopian world been brighter – sparkling with glass and blue sky. And has any other dystopian hero (or anti-hero) been so turbulent, so vivid, so uncertain? We is of course a political satire. It attacks the Soviet Union as Zamyatin knew it, and the idea of the police state. Part of the philosophy of the One State is: Freedom leads to desire which leads to unhappiness; therefore the sure path to happiness is to remove freedom. So there in a sealed, controlled glass world, every cipher obeys the Table of Hours, doing almost absolutely everything in unison. There is no longer any concept of ‘the unknown’. Everything is clear, precise, mathematically predictable.
But our (anti)hero, D-503, falls in love with a rebel and develops a sickness, diagnosed with horror as ‘a soul’. And so begins the turmoil. We is in fact not only a political satire, it is more universal than that. It’s a kind of personal, every-person satire as well. This business of being a ‘person’ is at the heart of what We is all about. The uncontainable, painful, colourful, explosiveness of being alive, with an imagination, a heart, desires. Logic and reason, so clear-cut, so cool and composed, hits the white-heat of illogical humanity, and the fizz it makes is uncontrollable.
Sometimes what’s actually happening isn’t quite clear, but the sense of being there in it is. Emotions and reactions are full of colour here, through Zamyatin’s eyes. It’s supposed that Zamyatin had synaesthesia – I am sure of it. That’s what makes his writing so apt and vivid, even when it doesn’t make much sense.
We shouldn’t forget that the novel itself was a courageous political act. The manuscript was smuggled to New York, translated into English and published there in 1924, to the outrage of the Soviet State. According to Wikipedia, (forgive the blandness of that), Zamyatin apparently wrote to Stalin himself, pleading for permission to leave the Soviet Union in 1931. (Incredibly, permission was granted!) In that letter he wrote: “True literature can only exist when it is created, not by diligent and reliable officials, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics.” We can let that sentence stand as the ultimate description of this novel.
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LibraryThing member WilfGehlen
WE is commonly read as a dystopian novel of the horrors of a totalitarian state: ultimate power in the hands of the Great Benefactor, individuals subsumed into the collective consciousness of the OneState, daily routine governed by a Table of Hours, prescribing when to wake, when to work, when to
WE can also be read, to good effect, as a commentary on the universal human condition, on what people expect of life, on what they find in life, and how they react to what they find. The setting is 500 years in the future, after a Two Hundred Years war which nearly wiped out humankind. The professed goal of the OneState is to provide for the happiness and well-being of the populace--an attractive proposition given the devastation of the recent past. By the numbers, it is successful. A protective barrier, the Wall, protects the populace from the dangers of the chaotic world outside. Petroleum-based food insulates them from dependence on an agriculture outside the Wall. Happiness comes from being an integral part of a homogeneous society. This works for most; for the others there is re-indoctrination and a liquidation option.
If you're with the program, life is good. If not, you seek an alternative to liquidation. D-503 is with the program. He has a prestigious position (Builder of the spaceship, Integral), a compatible consort (O-90), and a mathematical mind that embraces the Table of Hours. His only disappointment is having atavistic, hairy hands. But D-503's life begins to unravel once he encounters I-330. She draws D-503 into her world, an alternate, atavistic world where you can smoke, drink alcohol, dress frivolously, conjugate spontaneously. This freedom is what makes I-330 happy; she is on a mission to ensure a place in the world for this freedom and she needs the Integral to complete her plan.
This same freedom makes D-503 confused and unhappy, his awakened desires conflicting with his felt need to conform to the rules of the OneState. I-330 seduces the reluctant D-503, playing on his desires so he will give up the Integral to the revolution. D-503 is seduced, but remains conflicted and cannot take the decisive action needed to deliver the Integral. The revolution continues, but fails, or at least falters. D-503 is caught in a roundup of dissidents, is lobotomized, and betrays I-330 to the OneState. He is again with the program.
I-330 does not succumb under inquisition: "she threw back her head, half-closed her eyes, and squeezed her lips," the attitude she takes when performing a necessary, but not necessarily pleasant, task for her cause. She might be remembering the Buddhist tale of the general and the monk:
All except the monk have fled his village in fear of advancing marauders. The monk shows no fear of their general who, incensed, says, "Don't you know who I am? I am the one who can run you through with this sword without batting an eye." The monk calmly replies, "Don't you know who I am? I am the one who can be run through by your sword without batting an eye." The general then spears the monk, and neither bats an eye.
[In all extant versions of this story, the general instead spares the monk, bows, and departs, recalled to wisdom. It's the same thing, really.]
D-330 has achieved the happiness of the angels (and of the walking dead), eternal bliss. Poor man; in fact, not man at all anymore. I-330 has achieved the happiness of the liquid dead, whatever that may be. Only O-90 is humanly happy. She rebelled against her abandonment by D-503, persuaded him to make an unauthorized baby with her, and willingly accepted the probability of postpartum liquidation by the Great Benefactor. She sees possible escape via the revolution and suppresses her antagonism towards I-330 to solicit safe harbor. I-330 recognizes the revolt in O-90 and opens the door for her to the sanctuary outside the Wall. O-90 is truly quadrilateral, as her digits suggest, and her quadrature is the integral.
Perhaps, as in the film, "Battle of Algiers," perhaps the militant vanguard of the revolution must all perish, leaving the new world to the families, to the children, especially the children.
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eat, when to sleep, and when to dream (never). The dangerous potential in this reading is to place the manifestation of this state in some other place, some other time. Not just mistaking the Stalinist state for the (chronologically more relevant) Leninist state, but to confuse the outer trappings of totalitarianism with the actual control mechanisms. The latter are not limited to any particular form of government or any single regime, but can appear, in subtle guise, wherever attention is diverted and resistance is weak--perhaps right around you.WE can also be read, to good effect, as a commentary on the universal human condition, on what people expect of life, on what they find in life, and how they react to what they find. The setting is 500 years in the future, after a Two Hundred Years war which nearly wiped out humankind. The professed goal of the OneState is to provide for the happiness and well-being of the populace--an attractive proposition given the devastation of the recent past. By the numbers, it is successful. A protective barrier, the Wall, protects the populace from the dangers of the chaotic world outside. Petroleum-based food insulates them from dependence on an agriculture outside the Wall. Happiness comes from being an integral part of a homogeneous society. This works for most; for the others there is re-indoctrination and a liquidation option.
If you're with the program, life is good. If not, you seek an alternative to liquidation. D-503 is with the program. He has a prestigious position (Builder of the spaceship, Integral), a compatible consort (O-90), and a mathematical mind that embraces the Table of Hours. His only disappointment is having atavistic, hairy hands. But D-503's life begins to unravel once he encounters I-330. She draws D-503 into her world, an alternate, atavistic world where you can smoke, drink alcohol, dress frivolously, conjugate spontaneously. This freedom is what makes I-330 happy; she is on a mission to ensure a place in the world for this freedom and she needs the Integral to complete her plan.
This same freedom makes D-503 confused and unhappy, his awakened desires conflicting with his felt need to conform to the rules of the OneState. I-330 seduces the reluctant D-503, playing on his desires so he will give up the Integral to the revolution. D-503 is seduced, but remains conflicted and cannot take the decisive action needed to deliver the Integral. The revolution continues, but fails, or at least falters. D-503 is caught in a roundup of dissidents, is lobotomized, and betrays I-330 to the OneState. He is again with the program.
I-330 does not succumb under inquisition: "she threw back her head, half-closed her eyes, and squeezed her lips," the attitude she takes when performing a necessary, but not necessarily pleasant, task for her cause. She might be remembering the Buddhist tale of the general and the monk:
All except the monk have fled his village in fear of advancing marauders. The monk shows no fear of their general who, incensed, says, "Don't you know who I am? I am the one who can run you through with this sword without batting an eye." The monk calmly replies, "Don't you know who I am? I am the one who can be run through by your sword without batting an eye." The general then spears the monk, and neither bats an eye.
[In all extant versions of this story, the general instead spares the monk, bows, and departs, recalled to wisdom. It's the same thing, really.]
D-330 has achieved the happiness of the angels (and of the walking dead), eternal bliss. Poor man; in fact, not man at all anymore. I-330 has achieved the happiness of the liquid dead, whatever that may be. Only O-90 is humanly happy. She rebelled against her abandonment by D-503, persuaded him to make an unauthorized baby with her, and willingly accepted the probability of postpartum liquidation by the Great Benefactor. She sees possible escape via the revolution and suppresses her antagonism towards I-330 to solicit safe harbor. I-330 recognizes the revolt in O-90 and opens the door for her to the sanctuary outside the Wall. O-90 is truly quadrilateral, as her digits suggest, and her quadrature is the integral.
Perhaps, as in the film, "Battle of Algiers," perhaps the militant vanguard of the revolution must all perish, leaving the new world to the families, to the children, especially the children.
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LibraryThing member MeditationesMartini
When you're trying to create a compelling dystopia for the reader (or for yourself, or whoever man), it strikes me, there are no easy choices. Do you go for lazy accessibility, a la Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, where everybody's kind of aaaaalmost a lower upper middle class British technocrat
Or do you take the path less chosen, the face less boottrod, the hole of obstacle golf less played? Zamyatin, whose status as the major source for both Huxley and Orwell is so obvious as to be beyond dispute (a feat in itself! though Huxley did deny it) gives us a disjointed, inaccessible, but oh-so-real insider's view of a thousand-year reich where simultaneously all that is solid is melting into air (fittingly, given that humans are "numbers") through the eyes of one of its more brilliant and poetic denizens (D-503 he gets the chance to be because he's the designer of the spaceship, the Integral, through which the One State is going to enslave the other planets of the galaxy. This state, conceived at the beginning of the Soviet era, still needs people in such creative genius roles; I suspect that if it ever actually comes to this kind of frank totalitarianism the invasion fleet'll be built by a million sleepy dudes screwing together a billion widgets). It's an extraordinary book and I have no idea how to review it except to say that I read it like a tone-diary of fears and curiosity-never-stamped-out and the tender shoots of humanity, protected anxiously by tender humans not even equipped to realize that their actions constitute rebellion (but none the less subject to liquidation for that).
Our one right is the right to punishment. What is the last number? Horrifying and heady thoughts, and this book's full of 'em. It's psychologically real--a veritable Gormenghast in the gleaming machine of our more awful possibilities as a planet--and for that, from outside the bad future with no bad future brain, it's hard to follow where Zamyatin goes at times. I didn't always understand what kind of neural bloodflowers were bursting forth from D-503's head, but I will always remember this book and you should too.
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only with the sexual mores that we know all those lower upper middle class British technocrats would adopt for their own if they thought they were either attractice or iconoclastic enough to get away with it? Do you go for radical camp, like George Orwell in 1984, where psychological plausibility takes second place to totalitarian gothic? (Many of us will have seen that thing that points out how Airstrip One is a fever dream but London 632 After Ford is already here.)Or do you take the path less chosen, the face less boottrod, the hole of obstacle golf less played? Zamyatin, whose status as the major source for both Huxley and Orwell is so obvious as to be beyond dispute (a feat in itself! though Huxley did deny it) gives us a disjointed, inaccessible, but oh-so-real insider's view of a thousand-year reich where simultaneously all that is solid is melting into air (fittingly, given that humans are "numbers") through the eyes of one of its more brilliant and poetic denizens (D-503 he gets the chance to be because he's the designer of the spaceship, the Integral, through which the One State is going to enslave the other planets of the galaxy. This state, conceived at the beginning of the Soviet era, still needs people in such creative genius roles; I suspect that if it ever actually comes to this kind of frank totalitarianism the invasion fleet'll be built by a million sleepy dudes screwing together a billion widgets). It's an extraordinary book and I have no idea how to review it except to say that I read it like a tone-diary of fears and curiosity-never-stamped-out and the tender shoots of humanity, protected anxiously by tender humans not even equipped to realize that their actions constitute rebellion (but none the less subject to liquidation for that).
Our one right is the right to punishment. What is the last number? Horrifying and heady thoughts, and this book's full of 'em. It's psychologically real--a veritable Gormenghast in the gleaming machine of our more awful possibilities as a planet--and for that, from outside the bad future with no bad future brain, it's hard to follow where Zamyatin goes at times. I didn't always understand what kind of neural bloodflowers were bursting forth from D-503's head, but I will always remember this book and you should too.
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LibraryThing member baswood
Published in 1924 this dystopian novel is now firmly fixed as a classic of 20th century literary science fiction ranking alongside George Orwell's [1984] and Aldous Huxley's [Brave New World]. [We] predates both these novels and while Huxley claimed not to have read it Orwell admitted that his idea
Zamtatin's We is set in the far future and follows the near annihilation of the human race following the catastrophic 200 years war. The One State is ruled by the Benefactor; the inhabitants have numbers instead of names and live in a modern city almost entirely made of glass surrounded by the green wall that excludes the anarchic fecund world of nature. No privacy is required in a city whose inhabitants work and play according to a rigid timetable, everyone getting up at the same time and having the same hours of recreation. Within the timetable are generous amounts of sex days according to need and every number(person) has the right of availability to any other person on the production of a pink ticket; blinds can be lowered for 15 minutes while sexual intercourse takes place. Nothing is concealed from the guardians and it is a citizens duty to report any law breakers; conversations out of doors are carefully monitored. The story focuses on D-503 who has the misfortune to fall in love and suffer a mental breakdown; he is an important mathematician and builder of the INTEGRAL the first rocket ship designed to export the One State culture to other worlds. The object of his affection I-330 is the leader of an underground group who are intent on stealing the INTEGRAL to link up with the natural outside world.
The One State is by no means an unhappy society; although it aims to eradicate individuality numbers like D-503 revel in its safety, its conformity, its productiveness and its feeling of companionability. The freedom of past civilizations is seen as disorganised wildness and in D-503's opinion does not compare to the harmonious, clean and carefree world in which he lives. D503's story is told in a series of records that he imagines he is writing for someone to read in the twentieth century and so he extolls the virtues of his society and the reader feels the poetry of the mathematically structured world of the future. D-503 is excited by his world and so his doubts and fears as he becomes a sick number (person) through his mental breakdown are scatter shots of the wildness that he fears.
The ability to create a world that entices and fascinates the reader is a pre-requisite of much dystopian/science fiction writing, but to make the novel have literary merit the author has to go further. Zamyatin does this by his ambiguity about the merits of the One State and the reader asks himself the question: is all the conformity as bad as it first appears; seduced perhaps by some fine writing full of images that convey the beauty that D-503 sees in his world. The reader also is witness to the disintegration of this world through the thoughts of a man losing his grip on reality, what is real and what is not becomes a question that hovers over this book. The language is certainly dreamlike and perhaps a little druggy like the reflections in the glass that surround everything in the One State. The book has a feel and an atmosphere all of it's own and the writing would appeal to those who like the work of [[Cordwainer Smith]]
I found myself re-reading parts of this novel in appreciation of its imagery and its flow, always a good sign. Here is D-503 falling in love and discovering his soul;
The two of us walked along as one . Somewhere a long ways off through the fog you could hear the sun singing, everything was supple. pearly, golden, pink, red,. The whole world was one immense woman and we were in her very womb, we hadn't yet been born, we were enjoying ripening. And it was clear unshakeably clear, that all of this was for me: the sun, the fog, the pink, the gold - for me. I didn't ask where we were going, going, ripening, burgeoning and supple.
As a dystopian science fiction novel it ranks along with the very best and so deserves 5 stars, as literature I suppose it is a four star read, hence my rating of 4.5 stars. (I will never think of a pink ticket in quite the same way again)
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of a modern dystopia was written following a reading of [We]. Curiously Huxley's stable, safe drug induced and happy[Brave New world] is much more like [We] than Orwell's claustrophobic shabby world of spies informers and shortages.Zamtatin's We is set in the far future and follows the near annihilation of the human race following the catastrophic 200 years war. The One State is ruled by the Benefactor; the inhabitants have numbers instead of names and live in a modern city almost entirely made of glass surrounded by the green wall that excludes the anarchic fecund world of nature. No privacy is required in a city whose inhabitants work and play according to a rigid timetable, everyone getting up at the same time and having the same hours of recreation. Within the timetable are generous amounts of sex days according to need and every number(person) has the right of availability to any other person on the production of a pink ticket; blinds can be lowered for 15 minutes while sexual intercourse takes place. Nothing is concealed from the guardians and it is a citizens duty to report any law breakers; conversations out of doors are carefully monitored. The story focuses on D-503 who has the misfortune to fall in love and suffer a mental breakdown; he is an important mathematician and builder of the INTEGRAL the first rocket ship designed to export the One State culture to other worlds. The object of his affection I-330 is the leader of an underground group who are intent on stealing the INTEGRAL to link up with the natural outside world.
The One State is by no means an unhappy society; although it aims to eradicate individuality numbers like D-503 revel in its safety, its conformity, its productiveness and its feeling of companionability. The freedom of past civilizations is seen as disorganised wildness and in D-503's opinion does not compare to the harmonious, clean and carefree world in which he lives. D503's story is told in a series of records that he imagines he is writing for someone to read in the twentieth century and so he extolls the virtues of his society and the reader feels the poetry of the mathematically structured world of the future. D-503 is excited by his world and so his doubts and fears as he becomes a sick number (person) through his mental breakdown are scatter shots of the wildness that he fears.
The ability to create a world that entices and fascinates the reader is a pre-requisite of much dystopian/science fiction writing, but to make the novel have literary merit the author has to go further. Zamyatin does this by his ambiguity about the merits of the One State and the reader asks himself the question: is all the conformity as bad as it first appears; seduced perhaps by some fine writing full of images that convey the beauty that D-503 sees in his world. The reader also is witness to the disintegration of this world through the thoughts of a man losing his grip on reality, what is real and what is not becomes a question that hovers over this book. The language is certainly dreamlike and perhaps a little druggy like the reflections in the glass that surround everything in the One State. The book has a feel and an atmosphere all of it's own and the writing would appeal to those who like the work of [[Cordwainer Smith]]
I found myself re-reading parts of this novel in appreciation of its imagery and its flow, always a good sign. Here is D-503 falling in love and discovering his soul;
The two of us walked along as one . Somewhere a long ways off through the fog you could hear the sun singing, everything was supple. pearly, golden, pink, red,. The whole world was one immense woman and we were in her very womb, we hadn't yet been born, we were enjoying ripening. And it was clear unshakeably clear, that all of this was for me: the sun, the fog, the pink, the gold - for me. I didn't ask where we were going, going, ripening, burgeoning and supple.
As a dystopian science fiction novel it ranks along with the very best and so deserves 5 stars, as literature I suppose it is a four star read, hence my rating of 4.5 stars. (I will never think of a pink ticket in quite the same way again)
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LibraryThing member lostcheerio
The book has as its obvious shelfmates Anthem by Ayn Rand and 1984 by George Orwell, but it is more lyrical, more hysterical, more stream-of-consciousness. I suppose Orwell's prose is stronger and Rand is certainly more direct, but I actually loved its dreamy and confusing style, and didn't mind
This book begins with the narrator not only a willing part of this world without individuals, but an enthusiastic supporter of these ideas. He isn't grimy and hopeless about it all (ahem, Winston Smith?); he's a cheerleader for the system. Of course, it all goes terribly awry.
It occurred to me as I was comparing those three books that the oppressive, dystopian system never seems to break down for these people because of acquisition of material wealth. It doesn't break down because they don't like being told what pants to wear either. These characters, denied property, denied privacy, denied choice, do not rebel to get their own TV or to get their own bank account or their own window shades. They rebel to get their own girl. It's always love that breaks the system down, that sends the main character tangentially off, destroying himself to be alone with the woman he loves. Interesting. I wonder if that is really true. Maybe it just makes good books, to say that people will give up fortunes but not give up a mate. We'd have a harder time cheering for the grey little cog in the machine, who breaks out of his place so he can triumphantly and emotionally buy a Corvette. Love makes a good novel. But is that really how it would work? The characters in We are allowed to bed whoever they want -- they just have to register and receive a "pink coupon" to make it happen. Would people really bring the world down around their ears just to reinstate monogamy?
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not knowing what the hell was going on a lot of the time. It seemed more true that a journal entry from this future world, with its strange premises and priorities, would read as confusing and boggling to me. Sometimes I didn't know which end was up, and it almost felt like the narrator was writing blind. I think that was intentional and masterful. One of the best and most convincing aspects of the book was that the narrator didn't always seem in control.This book begins with the narrator not only a willing part of this world without individuals, but an enthusiastic supporter of these ideas. He isn't grimy and hopeless about it all (ahem, Winston Smith?); he's a cheerleader for the system. Of course, it all goes terribly awry.
It occurred to me as I was comparing those three books that the oppressive, dystopian system never seems to break down for these people because of acquisition of material wealth. It doesn't break down because they don't like being told what pants to wear either. These characters, denied property, denied privacy, denied choice, do not rebel to get their own TV or to get their own bank account or their own window shades. They rebel to get their own girl. It's always love that breaks the system down, that sends the main character tangentially off, destroying himself to be alone with the woman he loves. Interesting. I wonder if that is really true. Maybe it just makes good books, to say that people will give up fortunes but not give up a mate. We'd have a harder time cheering for the grey little cog in the machine, who breaks out of his place so he can triumphantly and emotionally buy a Corvette. Love makes a good novel. But is that really how it would work? The characters in We are allowed to bed whoever they want -- they just have to register and receive a "pink coupon" to make it happen. Would people really bring the world down around their ears just to reinstate monogamy?
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LibraryThing member SarahRae03
Linda S. Farne’s translation of Yevgheniy Zamyatin’s “We” examines the power of culture and its influence over quintessentially human behavior. It describes the future world of the United Nation, a sterile civilization protected from the natural world by the Green Wall. Inhabitants of the
The ancient religion of God is replaced with a new belief in the Do-Gooder, a mayor and godlike figure. His reign consists of the eradication of the human impulse, employing use of the Great Procedure, like electroshock therapy, to rid inhabitants of imagination and their subsequent will.
D-503, aircraft designer, mathematician and upstanding “digit” of this society, is haunted by an obsession with his hairy hands: a reminder of his connection to his animalistic ancestors, who once lived outside the Wall. This structure serves as the boundary between progressive order and uninhibited happiness of equality, and the unpredictable world of irrationality and the disease of the soul. D-503 spouts United Nation rhetoric of conformity and finite human existence, his savage hands putting him at odds with We, the collective identity.
When D-503 meets the rebellious, and powerfully destructive female digit, 1-330, he suddenly has questions of the outside world heretofore ignored as irrelevant. Inexplicably affected by his newfound loves and lusts surrounding 1-330, he can no longer make sense of United Nation control; his grasp of clarity becomes jostled. He attempts to come to terms with his unsettling longing for the revolutionary I-330, both craving and resenting his soul-like tendencies.
Throughout Zamyatin’s novel, D-503’s sense of self is an unexplainable pang of frustration. He feels a buried, inescapable something lingering within himself; it is inherent and yet contrary to social harmony, dangerously out of sync with the ultimate happiness of the whole. Farne’s translation captures the agony of this tension, as well as the confusion rotating around the idea of an infinite truth. Are we meant to exist in a specified manner, or is there some kind of logic hidden in disorder?
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United Nation are socialized to cast aside their sense of selves (a socially unacknowledgable phrase) in place of propriety, breeding sameness.The ancient religion of God is replaced with a new belief in the Do-Gooder, a mayor and godlike figure. His reign consists of the eradication of the human impulse, employing use of the Great Procedure, like electroshock therapy, to rid inhabitants of imagination and their subsequent will.
D-503, aircraft designer, mathematician and upstanding “digit” of this society, is haunted by an obsession with his hairy hands: a reminder of his connection to his animalistic ancestors, who once lived outside the Wall. This structure serves as the boundary between progressive order and uninhibited happiness of equality, and the unpredictable world of irrationality and the disease of the soul. D-503 spouts United Nation rhetoric of conformity and finite human existence, his savage hands putting him at odds with We, the collective identity.
When D-503 meets the rebellious, and powerfully destructive female digit, 1-330, he suddenly has questions of the outside world heretofore ignored as irrelevant. Inexplicably affected by his newfound loves and lusts surrounding 1-330, he can no longer make sense of United Nation control; his grasp of clarity becomes jostled. He attempts to come to terms with his unsettling longing for the revolutionary I-330, both craving and resenting his soul-like tendencies.
Throughout Zamyatin’s novel, D-503’s sense of self is an unexplainable pang of frustration. He feels a buried, inescapable something lingering within himself; it is inherent and yet contrary to social harmony, dangerously out of sync with the ultimate happiness of the whole. Farne’s translation captures the agony of this tension, as well as the confusion rotating around the idea of an infinite truth. Are we meant to exist in a specified manner, or is there some kind of logic hidden in disorder?
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LibraryThing member olliesmith160
In a vivid, unified and ultra-socialist landscape Zamyatin plays out his vision of a future which is harrowing, disturbing and immediate. In a world of people who are addressed only as a series of numbers, a revolution is about to happen. This is essential reading for anyone interested in
The book is modernist in style and reads incredibly quickly. The story unfolds in a series of cathartic diary entries made by the narrator to his unknown reader. A truly gripping, exciting and essential book.
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sociological, political or scientific matters. The book was a revelation in its time, banned in its country of origin for many years and proved to be the blueprint for Orwell's 1984.The book is modernist in style and reads incredibly quickly. The story unfolds in a series of cathartic diary entries made by the narrator to his unknown reader. A truly gripping, exciting and essential book.
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LibraryThing member fufuakaspeechless
Absolutely brilliant.
We is the story of a future in which the citizens of a society, known as "digits", all maintain the same mindset: allegiance to the Do-Gooder. In this world, everyone stays inside the Green Wall, everyone wears a uniform, and everyone wakes and sleeps at the same time.
The digits have no problem with this way of living, including digit D-503, the story's protagonist. When D-503 meets I-330, a seductive woman determined to defy the rules, she will introduce D-503 into a world he never imagined.
One of the more disturbing aspects of this book is the way everyone willingly goes along with whatever they are told, based on the belief that the Do-Gooder is always right. They simply agree with everything they are told. Total, absolute control...it's a bit scary to think about. This book is an excellent warning against totalitarianism, a must-read. We deserves more acclaim than it has been given; in fact, I think it is just as good as 1984. Definitely take the time to buy and read it. You won't be disappointed.
We is the story of a future in which the citizens of a society, known as "digits", all maintain the same mindset: allegiance to the Do-Gooder. In this world, everyone stays inside the Green Wall, everyone wears a uniform, and everyone wakes and sleeps at the same time.
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Everything is mathematical; the "chaos" of past music has been refined to something more precise.The digits have no problem with this way of living, including digit D-503, the story's protagonist. When D-503 meets I-330, a seductive woman determined to defy the rules, she will introduce D-503 into a world he never imagined.
One of the more disturbing aspects of this book is the way everyone willingly goes along with whatever they are told, based on the belief that the Do-Gooder is always right. They simply agree with everything they are told. Total, absolute control...it's a bit scary to think about. This book is an excellent warning against totalitarianism, a must-read. We deserves more acclaim than it has been given; in fact, I think it is just as good as 1984. Definitely take the time to buy and read it. You won't be disappointed.
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LibraryThing member clong
This a really interesting book that should be required reading for fans of 1984 and Brave New World (and that's pretty much all of us, right?). It is a powerful depiction of a dystopian future in which individuality has been eliminated, and people are numbers (there are no "I"s, just "We"). The
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language is very direct, and there are humorous moments to break the bleak tone. I found interesting echoes of Dostoevsky, especially in the impulsive romantic entanglements that drive much of the storyline. In retrospect it is astonishing how many aspects of the totalitarian Soviet regime are predicted accurately in this book written so soon after the Bolshevik revolution. Show Less
LibraryThing member joshua.pelton-stroud
Futuristic - Socialist distopian novel, written in journal format from the perspective of an engineer of the One State. Reminiscent of Orwell's 1984 and Ayn Rand's Anthem.The book is good, but I can't quite tell how much my opinion is colored by the knowledge that WE is the first Sci-Fi Distopian
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novel ever published. The Sci-Fi aspects are very pure, a bit unfocused, very raw. What I didn't particularly care for is the relationship between the main character, D-503, and his love interest. He's completely wrapped around her finger, we aren't given a very clear idea of whether the feelings are truly reciprocal. The romance is not very well played out, but then D spends an entire chapter describing a feeling of internal struggle as his personal "square-root of -1".Over all, WE is a quick and entertaining read, recommended for anyone interested in dispotian sci-fi classics. Show Less
LibraryThing member souloftherose
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is an early dystopian novel, possibly one of the earliest and certainly an inspiration for George Orwell's 1984. In fact, I was surprised how closely the plot of 1984 follows the plot of We.
D-503 is our narrator and the head of the great Integral project of OneState. In
The novel is described as a prose poem and I have to confess that I felt like I struggled with the prose at times. I read the 1993 translation by Clarence Brown, published by Penguin Classics but I found a couple of reviews that preferred the 2006 translation by Natasha Randall so this may partly have been due to the translation I was reading. I think there is probably a lot more to this short novel than I picked up on from my slightly rushed first read. Zamyatin uses a lot of mathematical imagery that I would like to think about more deeply on a reread. I think 1984 would probably get my vote for the better book but We is certainly worth reading if you want to understand the background to Orwell's book.
"I shall attempt nothing more than to note down what I see, what I think - or, to be more exact, what we think (that's right: we, and let this WE be the title of these records). But this, surely, will be a derivative of our life, of the mathematically perfect life of OneState, and if that is so, then won't this be, of its own accord, whatever I may wish, an epic?"
D-503 is our narrator and the head of the great Integral project of OneState. In
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OneState people are given numbers rather than names and every hour of the day has an allocated activity. As a background to D-503's narration, the Integral is being developed, something like a spaceship or rocket that will be able to fly to other planets so that the inhabitants of those planets can also share in the beauty that is OneState. OneState, it seems, has decided that it is best for humanity to have happiness rather than freedom. In fact, it believes that happiness lies in having no freedom. D-503 starts off as an enthusiastic supporter of OneState but when he meets and becomes enthralled by the rebellious female I-330, he becomes more and more confused about what he believes. The novel is described as a prose poem and I have to confess that I felt like I struggled with the prose at times. I read the 1993 translation by Clarence Brown, published by Penguin Classics but I found a couple of reviews that preferred the 2006 translation by Natasha Randall so this may partly have been due to the translation I was reading. I think there is probably a lot more to this short novel than I picked up on from my slightly rushed first read. Zamyatin uses a lot of mathematical imagery that I would like to think about more deeply on a reread. I think 1984 would probably get my vote for the better book but We is certainly worth reading if you want to understand the background to Orwell's book.
"I shall attempt nothing more than to note down what I see, what I think - or, to be more exact, what we think (that's right: we, and let this WE be the title of these records). But this, surely, will be a derivative of our life, of the mathematically perfect life of OneState, and if that is so, then won't this be, of its own accord, whatever I may wish, an epic?"
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LibraryThing member norabelle414
Read for philosophy class, but I had fun with it. It's really amazing reading science fiction that's so old and seeing the similarities, both with our world today, and later science fiction.
LibraryThing member Citizenjoyce
Yevgeny Zamyatin was a very brave man. He completed We in 1921, a year before Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee. Even then, only 4 years after the revolution, Zamyatin realized that the communist party's original goal of freeing
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and supporting people was devolving into crushing the individual spirit. To dramatize the fearsome power of this new state Zamyatin wrote about a society many years in the future when, after a 200 years war in which all but 0.2% of the world's population has been lost and a One State government has been installed. The city, including people's apartments, is made of glass so everyone can be monitored at all times. People are no longer mere humans, they are referred to as numbers, and they live by a strict time schedule. Everyone does everything at the same time: arises, eats, walks, works, has sex. The premise of the state is that people can have freedom and unhappiness or happiness without freedom. They, with the guidance of their leader The Benefactor, have chosen happiness. As with all ideological movements that devolve into religions, human nature is abhorred as animalistic. People are to rise above their natures to become precise, logical machines. The main character, D-503, throughout the book sings the praises of the One State and bemoans the fact that his hairy hands are evidence of his animal nature. He says that humans are governed by love and hunger - and he encounters both. While the Benefactor is moving to complete human evolution to machines by promoting an operation that removes the imagination, D-503's imagination expands, his heart expands, and he begins to see cracks in his perfect society. I've read that George Orwell used ideas from We in writing 1984. Zamyatin was very brave to expound them in the first place. Show Less
LibraryThing member gbill
Written in the early 1920’s by Yevgeny Zamyatin, this is a book that was most certainly leveraged by George Orwell when he wrote 1984, and is every bit just as worthy of being considered a masterpiece.
It tells the tale of an aeronautical engineer in the distant future who is joyfully living
As Margaret Atwood so perfectly summarizes in the Introduction, “Zamyatin was writing WE in 1920-21, while the civil war that followed the Bolshevik-dominated October Revolution was still ongoing. Zamyatin himself, having been a member of the movement before 1905, was an Old Bolshevik (a group slated for liquidation by Stalin in the 1930s because they stuck to their original democratic-communist ideals instead of going along with Comrade Stalin’s autocracy) – but now that the Bolshevik’s were winning the civil war, Zamyatin didn’t like the way things were going. The original communal committees were becoming mere rubber-stampers for the power elite that had emerged under Lenin and would be solidified under Stalin. Was this equality? Was this the flowering of the individual’s gifts and talents that had been so romantically proposed by the earlier party?”
While Zamyatin does not directly criticize the nascent Soviet State, its censors recognized its implication. While it was published in English in 1924, it would not be published in the Soviet Union until 1988. His writing style is a bit confusing at times, but the imagery he created and how accurately it foretold where his country was going (albeit in extrapolated form) was brilliant. Along the way he fuses elements of Christian allegory and mathematics, elements I liked. Most of all, though, in creating the extreme of this authoritarian regime, he asks questions about the individual’s role relative to the state, or collective. Like Jack London in The Iron Heel and Orwell in 1984, he understood the mechanics of power, and the lengths to which those in power will go to preserve it. It’s a dark and chilling read to say the least.
This edition is blessed with the aforementioned introduction from Margaret Atwood, George Orwell’s 1946 review of the book, and Ursula Le Guin’s stunning article “The Stalin in the Soul” subtitled “Sketch for a Science Fiction Novel,” with the latter really standing out. Written over 1973-77 when the communists were in power in the Soviet Union, Le Guin comments on a different form of censorship in the West, that of the market, and how writers and artists bend to its will. “We are not a totalitarian state,” she writes, “we continue to be a democracy in more than name – but a capitalist, corporate democracy.” Of art she says “Unless it is something familiar rewarmed, or something experimental in form but clearly trivial or cynical in content, it is unsafe. It must be safe. It mustn’t hurt the consumers. It mustn’t change the consumers.” She further adds that as opposed to America, Russians “do believe in art, in the power of art to change the minds of men.” It’s a brilliant read, and I highly recommend getting an edition with this article.
More quotes:
On American optimism, this also from Le Guin’s article:
“The recent fantasy bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a serious book, unmistakably sincere. It is also intellectually, ethically, and emotionally trivial. The author has not thought things through. He is pushing one of the beautifully packaged Instant Answers we specialize in this country. He says that if you think you can fly very fast, why, then you can fly very fast. And if you smile, all is well. All the world is well. When you smile, you just know that that man dying of gangrene in Cambodia and that starving four-year-old in Bangladesh and the woman next door with cancer will feel ever so much better, and they’ll smile too. This wishful thinking, this callous refusal to admit the existence of pain, defeat, and death, is not only typical of successful American writing, but also of Soviet writers who “succeeded” where a Zamyatin “failed” – the Stalin Prize winners, with their horrible optimism. Once you stop asking questions, once you let Stalin into your soul, you can only smile, and smile, and smile.”
On Christianity:
“And the merciful Christian God himself, who slowly roasted all who disobeyed Him in the flames of Hell – isn’t he an executioner, too? And what was greater: the number of Christians who were burned, or the number of people that Christians burned when their turn came? And yet – remember this: nevertheless, for centuries, the Christian God was glorified as the God of Love.”
On freedom and happiness:
“The man and woman in paradise were given a choice: they could either have happiness without freedom or freedom without happiness – there was no third option. Those blockheads chose freedom – and can you blame them? - but ended up spending the consequent centuries dreaming of shackles. Shackles – yes, shackles – that’s what all their ‘world sorrow’ was really about. And it went on like that for centuries! It wasn’t until we came along that humanity finally figured out how to return to our state of grace…”
On individual rights:
“Even among the Ancients, the more adult ones knew that the wellspring of rights is power – that rights are a function of power. So, on two sides of the scale, we have: a gram and a ton, “I” on one, and “We,” the One State, on the other. Isn’t it already clear? The presumption that “I” can have any “rights” with respect to the State is exactly like thinking a gram can equal a ton. From this, we have our regular distribution: the ton gets power and the gram gets duties. And the most natural path from obscurity to greatness: forget you’re a gram and feel the power of being one-millionth of a ton…”
And:
“In the ancient world, the Christians understood this, our only (though very imperfect) predecessors. They knew that humility is a virtue and pride, a sin. That WE comes from God, and I – from the devil.”
On revolutions, dangerous thoughts in the Soviet Union of 1920:
“There is no final revolution. Revolutions are infinite. Finality is for children: children are scared of infinity and ’t's very important that children can sleep at night…”
It tells the tale of an aeronautical engineer in the distant future who is joyfully living
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under a totalitarian regime so intrusive that even the sense of individuality has been removed from its citizens. They are part of “We,” referred to by numbers, living in glass apartments where all of their movements (with the exception of state-licensed sexual encounters) are visible to their neighbors. Their time is scheduled by the State, they attend State executions, and they dutifully report to have their imaginations excised in a precise brain operation. Then one day, he meets and falls for a woman who seems to operate a little bit outside of the rules, challenging his views of the world and himself.As Margaret Atwood so perfectly summarizes in the Introduction, “Zamyatin was writing WE in 1920-21, while the civil war that followed the Bolshevik-dominated October Revolution was still ongoing. Zamyatin himself, having been a member of the movement before 1905, was an Old Bolshevik (a group slated for liquidation by Stalin in the 1930s because they stuck to their original democratic-communist ideals instead of going along with Comrade Stalin’s autocracy) – but now that the Bolshevik’s were winning the civil war, Zamyatin didn’t like the way things were going. The original communal committees were becoming mere rubber-stampers for the power elite that had emerged under Lenin and would be solidified under Stalin. Was this equality? Was this the flowering of the individual’s gifts and talents that had been so romantically proposed by the earlier party?”
While Zamyatin does not directly criticize the nascent Soviet State, its censors recognized its implication. While it was published in English in 1924, it would not be published in the Soviet Union until 1988. His writing style is a bit confusing at times, but the imagery he created and how accurately it foretold where his country was going (albeit in extrapolated form) was brilliant. Along the way he fuses elements of Christian allegory and mathematics, elements I liked. Most of all, though, in creating the extreme of this authoritarian regime, he asks questions about the individual’s role relative to the state, or collective. Like Jack London in The Iron Heel and Orwell in 1984, he understood the mechanics of power, and the lengths to which those in power will go to preserve it. It’s a dark and chilling read to say the least.
This edition is blessed with the aforementioned introduction from Margaret Atwood, George Orwell’s 1946 review of the book, and Ursula Le Guin’s stunning article “The Stalin in the Soul” subtitled “Sketch for a Science Fiction Novel,” with the latter really standing out. Written over 1973-77 when the communists were in power in the Soviet Union, Le Guin comments on a different form of censorship in the West, that of the market, and how writers and artists bend to its will. “We are not a totalitarian state,” she writes, “we continue to be a democracy in more than name – but a capitalist, corporate democracy.” Of art she says “Unless it is something familiar rewarmed, or something experimental in form but clearly trivial or cynical in content, it is unsafe. It must be safe. It mustn’t hurt the consumers. It mustn’t change the consumers.” She further adds that as opposed to America, Russians “do believe in art, in the power of art to change the minds of men.” It’s a brilliant read, and I highly recommend getting an edition with this article.
More quotes:
On American optimism, this also from Le Guin’s article:
“The recent fantasy bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a serious book, unmistakably sincere. It is also intellectually, ethically, and emotionally trivial. The author has not thought things through. He is pushing one of the beautifully packaged Instant Answers we specialize in this country. He says that if you think you can fly very fast, why, then you can fly very fast. And if you smile, all is well. All the world is well. When you smile, you just know that that man dying of gangrene in Cambodia and that starving four-year-old in Bangladesh and the woman next door with cancer will feel ever so much better, and they’ll smile too. This wishful thinking, this callous refusal to admit the existence of pain, defeat, and death, is not only typical of successful American writing, but also of Soviet writers who “succeeded” where a Zamyatin “failed” – the Stalin Prize winners, with their horrible optimism. Once you stop asking questions, once you let Stalin into your soul, you can only smile, and smile, and smile.”
On Christianity:
“And the merciful Christian God himself, who slowly roasted all who disobeyed Him in the flames of Hell – isn’t he an executioner, too? And what was greater: the number of Christians who were burned, or the number of people that Christians burned when their turn came? And yet – remember this: nevertheless, for centuries, the Christian God was glorified as the God of Love.”
On freedom and happiness:
“The man and woman in paradise were given a choice: they could either have happiness without freedom or freedom without happiness – there was no third option. Those blockheads chose freedom – and can you blame them? - but ended up spending the consequent centuries dreaming of shackles. Shackles – yes, shackles – that’s what all their ‘world sorrow’ was really about. And it went on like that for centuries! It wasn’t until we came along that humanity finally figured out how to return to our state of grace…”
On individual rights:
“Even among the Ancients, the more adult ones knew that the wellspring of rights is power – that rights are a function of power. So, on two sides of the scale, we have: a gram and a ton, “I” on one, and “We,” the One State, on the other. Isn’t it already clear? The presumption that “I” can have any “rights” with respect to the State is exactly like thinking a gram can equal a ton. From this, we have our regular distribution: the ton gets power and the gram gets duties. And the most natural path from obscurity to greatness: forget you’re a gram and feel the power of being one-millionth of a ton…”
And:
“In the ancient world, the Christians understood this, our only (though very imperfect) predecessors. They knew that humility is a virtue and pride, a sin. That WE comes from God, and I – from the devil.”
On revolutions, dangerous thoughts in the Soviet Union of 1920:
“There is no final revolution. Revolutions are infinite. Finality is for children: children are scared of infinity and ’t's very important that children can sleep at night…”
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LibraryThing member yapete
The original distopian novel (before Brave New World and 1984). Beautifully written. (Note: I read this in German)
LibraryThing member john257hopper
This book was important conceptually, as the precursor of Brave New World and 1984. As such, it deserves a significant place in world and Russian literature. It is easy to see why it was banned in the Soviet Union, with the unanimous elections in chapter 24 and the Benefactor sounding like Stalin,
However, as a story I found this dull. It takes place in a dream-like atmosphere, making the action difficult to follow, and draining some of the force from the potentially powerful ideas. As nameless numbered ciphers - a powerfully frightening idea - the characters lack the human believability of Winston Smith and Julia in 1984. The twist in the ending made me doubt what had happened anyway, though was very like the more brutally straightforward end of 1984.
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even though the latter had not yet acquired power at the time the book was written. However, as a story I found this dull. It takes place in a dream-like atmosphere, making the action difficult to follow, and draining some of the force from the potentially powerful ideas. As nameless numbered ciphers - a powerfully frightening idea - the characters lack the human believability of Winston Smith and Julia in 1984. The twist in the ending made me doubt what had happened anyway, though was very like the more brutally straightforward end of 1984.
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LibraryThing member Magadri
This book is the great-grandaddy of all dystopian lit. 1984 is ALMOST a complete rip-off (though it is definitely good on it's own) of this book. If you liked 1984, you will without a doubt like We.
LibraryThing member antao
“Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “We”: both have constant surveillance of the individual, though through different means. Both have the protagonist discovering a class in society that is free, but powerless. Both have state control over passion, albeit in rather different ways. But “1984”
Dystopias like "Nineteen Eighty-Four", “We” and “Brazil” make me wonder: sure, my opinions of a book or movie or person or whatever, and my political and spiritual commitments, my romantic infatuations, and so on, feel like they're "according to my own lights, which provide an adequate explanation for my reactions". And what else does one have to go by? Well, one thing one has to go by is the capacity for critique, the ability, perhaps the fate, to see one's own 'freedom' as a paradox.
It feels as though some are merely rattling their sabres by criticising the minor flaws of a masterpiece, like complaining about the way the napkins are folded in an exquisite restaurant. Surely the stately style and sketchy characterisation perfectly suit the novel's vision of a grey, authoritarian world? Or am I simply crediting Zamyatin with more subtlety than he deserves? In any case, I think the content of “We” is sufficiently high enough to excuse any clumsiness of style. Granted, it's refreshing to re-evaluate even the greatest work of art, but why butcher a sacred cow just to have some gristle to chew over? Anyway, I must be off; the clocks are about to strike thirteen.
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(the new title) is rather turgid though. “We” by contrast is actually a lot of fun, I rather prefer it of the two; it's not afraid in places to be a bit silly and it's vision of the future is somehow inspired, with their transparent dwellings and privacy granted only for your allotted hour of sex with your pre-selected partner. If one sees a figure jerking about, and one sees strings attached to its hands and feet and leading upward out of sight, one would "infer" a "manipulator" entirely internal to the figure's movements- a puppeteer. Likewise, if one saw an opinion-herd trotting this way and that, inferring that the beasts were being directed passively (even if the 'puppeteer' in this case were simply the other beasts) wouldn't be an extra "assumption", would it?Dystopias like "Nineteen Eighty-Four", “We” and “Brazil” make me wonder: sure, my opinions of a book or movie or person or whatever, and my political and spiritual commitments, my romantic infatuations, and so on, feel like they're "according to my own lights, which provide an adequate explanation for my reactions". And what else does one have to go by? Well, one thing one has to go by is the capacity for critique, the ability, perhaps the fate, to see one's own 'freedom' as a paradox.
It feels as though some are merely rattling their sabres by criticising the minor flaws of a masterpiece, like complaining about the way the napkins are folded in an exquisite restaurant. Surely the stately style and sketchy characterisation perfectly suit the novel's vision of a grey, authoritarian world? Or am I simply crediting Zamyatin with more subtlety than he deserves? In any case, I think the content of “We” is sufficiently high enough to excuse any clumsiness of style. Granted, it's refreshing to re-evaluate even the greatest work of art, but why butcher a sacred cow just to have some gristle to chew over? Anyway, I must be off; the clocks are about to strike thirteen.
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LibraryThing member Brasidas
Very interesting and strange. I think this going under the heading of retro-dystopias. It's clear that Zamyatin's real interest here in totalitarianism and freedom, not a technologically "superior" future. There's very little in it that high-tech. It's rather like watching Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS
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in the way it's both forward looking and dated. I like that. In McCarthy's THE ROAD we are in a post-technological future. Everything has broken down. Here science is at the service of One State. The buildings are all transparent so you can see everything everyone does. Except for sex, during which you can request that your blinds be lowered. There are little logical inconsistencies throughout. The internal spying network seems very feeble in comparison to, say, 1984. But then Orwell was writing more than 20 years later when ideas like television were very much in the air. For D-503 everything is fine and dandy in this freedomless world. He is happy sharing O-90's favors with R-13. He is happy with his work on the INTEGRAL (all caps) which is some sort of missile, time-capsule affair that seems destined for other civilizations on other planets. Everything is fine until he falls passionately in love with I-330 who is both beautiful and a willful transgressor of the conformity that One State stands for. She is constantly gaming the system. And because D-503 is head over heels with her, he's drawn into her crimes for which death appears to be the only punishment. Show Less
LibraryThing member delta351
I read the Myrra Ginzberg translation, and I wish that I had been able to read it in the original Russian. I thought the translation was poor, and did not do justice to the novel. I rarely give up on a book, but I thought about it a couple of times while reading We. The concept was good, with the
I think the story could have been greatly enhanced with a reader’s guide or a Sparknotes type document. I did a short search on the Internet and was not able to find one. I found it difficult to track the characters in the story, and most were rather flat and lacking in detail. I think it would come across much better as a movie, or with a better translation. Overall I am glad I finished the story. I think it is valuable as a precursor to later dystopian books.
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preposition? of a Two Hundred Year War that wiped out all but .2% of the earth’s population. I read in another review that the story takes place in the 2600’s. I saw some obvious parallels to ‘1984’ and some other dystopian novels. I particularly like the Benefactor’s speech at the end of the book, regarding that society and Christian doctrine. I think the story could have been greatly enhanced with a reader’s guide or a Sparknotes type document. I did a short search on the Internet and was not able to find one. I found it difficult to track the characters in the story, and most were rather flat and lacking in detail. I think it would come across much better as a movie, or with a better translation. Overall I am glad I finished the story. I think it is valuable as a precursor to later dystopian books.
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LibraryThing member lastweeksapocalypse
This book scares me.
Though its ending and the ending to 1984 are very similar, and I knew this before reading We, the ending of We terrified me, while the ending of 1984 simply made me sad.
I think this is because Zamiatin presents a world where one cannot be fully human. Everything in the society
What also worries me about this book is the contrast it makes between the civilized, technologically advanced, ordered society of d-503, and the disordered, naturalistic, "barbaric" society beyond the Green Wall. Aldous Huxley makes a similar contrast in Brave New World (which he later apologizes for, thankfully), between the world of soma and instant gratification and the world of the savage, as does George Orwell (to a less obvious extent) in 1984 with the proles and the Party members. This recurring contrast seems to imply that it is impossible to be fully human in advanced society, and that one must throw oneself back to nature and technological regression in order to be human. This is entirely unsatisfactory for someone living in modern society (and in fact almost entirely incapable of "escaping").
This book, quite honestly, changed my life; it affected me that much. It also encouraged me to articulate my thoughts and concerns about modern society, which was very beneficial. I highly recommend this book (and apologize for this novel of a review).
Though its ending and the ending to 1984 are very similar, and I knew this before reading We, the ending of We terrified me, while the ending of 1984 simply made me sad.
I think this is because Zamiatin presents a world where one cannot be fully human. Everything in the society
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he paints is done for a purpose, done toward explanation, integration, quantification. Even art, here poetry, is subjected to further serve the United State; there is no free human endeavor. While mathematics and science can both be free endeavor, when they are used as a means rather than an end in and of themselves, they become constrained, even slavish.What also worries me about this book is the contrast it makes between the civilized, technologically advanced, ordered society of d-503, and the disordered, naturalistic, "barbaric" society beyond the Green Wall. Aldous Huxley makes a similar contrast in Brave New World (which he later apologizes for, thankfully), between the world of soma and instant gratification and the world of the savage, as does George Orwell (to a less obvious extent) in 1984 with the proles and the Party members. This recurring contrast seems to imply that it is impossible to be fully human in advanced society, and that one must throw oneself back to nature and technological regression in order to be human. This is entirely unsatisfactory for someone living in modern society (and in fact almost entirely incapable of "escaping").
This book, quite honestly, changed my life; it affected me that much. It also encouraged me to articulate my thoughts and concerns about modern society, which was very beneficial. I highly recommend this book (and apologize for this novel of a review).
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LibraryThing member amandacb
"We" is, as the introduction written by Natasha Randall states, a novel in which "mathematics travels through...almost as an allegorical supertext," providing a "volume of symbols and allusions" to delve into and analyze. If that is not your goal, however, "We" can simply be read as the original
Our hero is D-503, a mathematician living in a world in which everything is codified and condensed into One State. Every action, every movement, every word has a meaning; nothing is done extraneously. D-503 is content until he meets I-330, a seeming dervish, a pesky irrational number in this society of rationals.
This novel is not one to read lightly, and it might help to brush up on the Bolshevik Revolution to understand the background behind the allegory. A previous reviewer stated the novel is in fact a prose poem and I would tend to agree; it's extremely poetic and at times quite beautiful; our hero, D-503, it adept at making keen observations that are so very incisive that I had to stop and underline them. Well worth the read.
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"1984," a more poetic and beautiful version of a jarring dystopian novel.Our hero is D-503, a mathematician living in a world in which everything is codified and condensed into One State. Every action, every movement, every word has a meaning; nothing is done extraneously. D-503 is content until he meets I-330, a seeming dervish, a pesky irrational number in this society of rationals.
This novel is not one to read lightly, and it might help to brush up on the Bolshevik Revolution to understand the background behind the allegory. A previous reviewer stated the novel is in fact a prose poem and I would tend to agree; it's extremely poetic and at times quite beautiful; our hero, D-503, it adept at making keen observations that are so very incisive that I had to stop and underline them. Well worth the read.
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LibraryThing member WesleyRoyII
Very Timely Book!
I know that this book was written in the 1920's but it is a brilliant foreshadowing of the reality that seems to be materializing before our eyes.
This book is presented as the journal of D-503 a perfectly happy digit in the One State. The world and humanity has been reduced to the
This dystopia begins to hit home when the source of all of this forced happiness is revealed to be a government led by the Great Benefactor. This man has determined what is best for everyone else and the people are forced to comply. The people are constantly spied on by the Bureau of Guardians to insure that they develop no individual thoughts are desires. Equality of thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. is the rule of the day and the Great Benefactor will enforce his demanded happiness with death if necessary.
I could not help but see modern day America in this narrative. The Great Benefactor is working to provide us with happiness even if he has to force us to take it. Room for individual thought is rapidly fading away. We must all accept the same behavior and ideas without question. Someone else will decide what makes us happy and we will be penalized if we do not agree until forced to comply. The diseases that ravaged the world of "WE" and could not be tolerated were a soul and imagination. Two priceless commodities in America at one time but now they are rapidly becoming nothing more than the square root of negative one.
Well worth the read! Now on to the Devil's Advocate. I'm in a dystopian mood.
I know that this book was written in the 1920's but it is a brilliant foreshadowing of the reality that seems to be materializing before our eyes.
This book is presented as the journal of D-503 a perfectly happy digit in the One State. The world and humanity has been reduced to the
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lowest common denominator. Individuality in thought or action has been eradicated. Humans have bee reduced to digits that are controlled by the mathematics of the Table of Hours and the world has been reduced to a space enclosed by a green wall and energy field overhead. In this world the digits are forced to be happy by conforming to the standards that have been set for happiness. The individual is immersed in the One State until there is no I just We. This tale is brilliantly told with the use of mathematical terms.This dystopia begins to hit home when the source of all of this forced happiness is revealed to be a government led by the Great Benefactor. This man has determined what is best for everyone else and the people are forced to comply. The people are constantly spied on by the Bureau of Guardians to insure that they develop no individual thoughts are desires. Equality of thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. is the rule of the day and the Great Benefactor will enforce his demanded happiness with death if necessary.
I could not help but see modern day America in this narrative. The Great Benefactor is working to provide us with happiness even if he has to force us to take it. Room for individual thought is rapidly fading away. We must all accept the same behavior and ideas without question. Someone else will decide what makes us happy and we will be penalized if we do not agree until forced to comply. The diseases that ravaged the world of "WE" and could not be tolerated were a soul and imagination. Two priceless commodities in America at one time but now they are rapidly becoming nothing more than the square root of negative one.
Well worth the read! Now on to the Devil's Advocate. I'm in a dystopian mood.
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LibraryThing member bonaldi
Unlike Brave New World and 1984, there are flashes here of why you'd want to live -- and how you could survive -- in a dystopia.
LibraryThing member saresmoore
For fans of dystopian and/or science fiction, I consider this a must-read. Zamyatin's multi-sensory metaphors and stilted prose transport the reader immediately to his totalitarian, mechanized future. The One State is a rational world of clear, solid planes of glass, where the subjugation of nature
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within its walls allows ciphers (humans) to travel the predictable axes of obligation. There is so much depth and brilliant commentary within Zamyatin's words, the story is intriguing, and his writing through the voice of an increasingly unreliable mathematician narrator is wholly unique. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Deutscher Hörbuchpreis (2016)
The Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read (Science Fiction and Fantasy)
Language
Original language
Russian
Original publication date
1921 (written)
1924 (published)
1993 (English: Brown)
1. ed. it. Bergamo, Minerva Italica, 1955
Physical description
167 p.; 22.4 cm
Local notes
Omslag: Steff Hartvig
Omslaget viser et sølle gammelt træ med et enkelt grønt blad på en af grenene
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra russisk "Мы" af Noemi Eskul-Jensen
Евгений Иванович Замятин
Evgenij Ivanovič Zamjatin
Gutenberg, bind 61963
Omslaget viser et sølle gammelt træ med et enkelt grønt blad på en af grenene
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra russisk "Мы" af Noemi Eskul-Jensen
Евгений Иванович Замятин
Evgenij Ivanovič Zamjatin
Gutenberg, bind 61963
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