We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Mirra Ginsburg Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of We
Book Review: Robespierre Reborn in Lenin
Summary: 5 Stars
Zamytin was a Bolshevik who knew something had gone terribly wrong with the dream of a socialist utopia born of ideology. Though others find humor in it, this epic proves a stark reminder of the corruption of a state gone mad with technology, making pretentious claims that it has 'the people's best interest at heart'.
So circumstanced, Zamyatin endows us with the didactic framework of a literary legacy, strong drink for the elitist hagiographers of Lenin and Trotsky.
In doing so, he elliptically reveals the blunders of history's other utopian strategies as well.
As Shakespeare said in Measure for Measure, it is excellent to wield a giant's strength, by tyrannous to us it as a giant.
Book Review: Sanity demolishing, questions the order of logic!
Summary: 5 Stars
"We" is a brilliant book. Zamyatin manages to encasulate, not so much in the future but a parallel world, questions which we are afraid of making, or considering. His clever style manges to undermine our concept of order being proportional to logic. Even logic may be chaotic, things can never be logical, there is always the root of negative one... A very succesful piece worthy of being read by anyone who has read 1984. Follows a similar context of the Big Brother.Book Review: Technological dystopia from the early Soviet era
Summary: 5 Stars
The book is remarkable for when it was written, at least as much as for what was written in it. First, though, the 'what' is well worth the attention.
The setting is some time after a long and destructive war, within the enclave of the victors, or so they style themselves. They have created a technological heaven on earth, tamed the wind and waves to human use, and very nearly tamed the human animal. Nearly, but not quite. D-503 (the protagonist) is a driven man. First, he is driven to the most demanding feats of engineering achievement. Later, he is driven to the wildness of his passion by I-330, a woman who has manipulated the movers of that world to the edge of revolution. Other characters offer contrast; O-90, for example, is the archetypal woman: petite, soft, emotional, with an uncontrollable urge towards the crime of unauthorized motherhood.
There are many ways in which this parallels Orwell's later 1984, down to the forced conversion of the protagonist at the end. This book predates Orwell's by over 20 years, however. It also predates Huxley's "Brave New World" with which it shares much, including technologically enforced, ineffectual happiness and the idea that everyone belongs to everyone else. Although Zamyatin's characters tend towards the one-sided, the book's situation is a good deal more complex than either Orwell's or Huxley's. What, for example, is that Green Wall? And what, beyond one glimpse, would we find behind it? This also raises the idea of the "Stockholm Syndrome" when an entire society is held captive. D seems to have an overwhelming sense of duty towards the state and its Benefactor, even when confession would mean his own destruction.
Though generally good, I have reservations about aspects of the translation. Zamyatin seems to have had fair grasp of math and science, and used the square root of negative one as a metaphor. In this translation, that strange number is termed "irrational." Modern English usage would call it "imaginary" instead, and irrationality would name a different property of numbers. That peculiarity makes no narrative difference, however, and the translation holds together well in other respects.
Most interesting is that Zamyatin wrote this around 1920, after several run-ins with the early Communist government. He wrote with prescient authority about what he saw happening in his world, and this book was suppressed for many years. Although weaker in some ways than later, similar books, it carries first-hand passion as well as seniority in its genre. Anyone who reads 1984 should read this also, for the striking similarities as much as for the differences. Or just read "We" - it's worth it by itself.
//wiredweird
Book Review: The Earliest and Most Original Dystopia
Summary: 5 Stars
We is the first real dystopian novel. Inspired by Zamyatin's experience with the early Soviet state, We is an anticipation and allegory of what the Soviet Union would become under Stalin. We is distinguished from better known english language dystopias like 1984 and Brave New World not only by its originality but by the poetic quality of the writing. In Zamyatin's hands, what could be mechanical allegorical items, such as citizens living in glass houses, become striking images. A surprising source of this poetic imagery is Zamyatin's reliance on scientific terminology. For example, the space ship Integral, a symbol of the state's need to project and extend its power is so named because it embodies the incorporation (integration) of individual actions into collective action. In the state described by Zamyatin, dreams are suppressed, individuality is crushed, and service to the state and its leader is the highest goal. Still, the crushing burden of totalitarianism is unable to destroy the power of human passion. This is a better book than either 1984 or Brave New World. A superb and unusual book.Book Review: The Essential Dystopia
Summary: 5 Stars
Simply, "We" blew me away.
Expanding on that, of all the dystopias, I do not think it could be argued that "We" has the finest prose and literary quality. Certainly, I enjoy the others of the great triad, "1984" and "Brave New World" and some of their lesser cousins, but "We," stylistically, trumped them. Throught the book a key elegant metaphor is the glass, everything in D-503's One State is glass, their homes, their streets, the great dome covering their city, even the fabulous "Integral" is glass. Every citizen sees the actions of every other, but everywhere there seems to be a blindness--especially to the self, D-503 sees.
"We" does fascinatingly paint the ultimate threat of Stalinism and the Totalitarian regime that emerged in Russia following their revolution, but it can present itself as the natural progress of our own society, and even, in the latter chapters, brings up the issue of Christian vs. Paganism--with One State believing themselves the heirs of Christianity and their Benefactor as a god-like avatar of divine power. Through this we certainly do have a reflection to our Christian-majority western world. We get an idea that it's not the atheism, as in "1984" or "Brave New World" that can drive these nations. It gives us the image of the real difference Zamyatin may have seen between "good" and "bad" societies--the good ones are built on humans, and humans are still the core focus; in our dystopic ones the state's own survival that is important. Allegories could certainly be drawn between "We" and the history of any nation and the major religious powers of our world.
Along with this we are presented with issues that are worth thinking about in our own civilization: One State's belief that it is the eternal government, the final revolution; their (as we might see it) bizarre election system; their definition of happiness; repression of free will and even the restriction of their entire society to but a small block of our whole planet (our own problems of urban concentration). One State stands apart from their own ecosystem in a world of glass and petroleum--a future that surely has even been touted as the dream of modernization at many points. "We" is a chilling look, not only at what the USSR might have become, but what horrific potential lies in our civilization to this day, as well as one of the most emotionally driving and crushing of all the dystopias.