We the Living
by Ayn Rand
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ayn RandEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-05-05
ISBN: 0451226852
Number of pages: 464
Publisher: NAL Trade
Book Reviews of We the Living
Book Review: "Once upon a time, we made a revolution. We said we were tired of hunger, of sweat and of lice. So we cut throats, and broke
Summary: 5 Stars
skulls, and poured blood, our blood, their blood, to wash a clean road for freedom."
Ayn Rand's first book is not what you might expect when you hear the words "Russian novel." Although lengthy, it's an easy read. The story begins in 1922 with 18-year-old Kira Arguonova's arrival (after a four year hiatus) in Petrograd, along with her 28-year-old sister, Lydia, and her parents. The family has lost their store, their status and their home and set out to start a new life in a changed city. Kira a headstrong, opinionated, confident young woman, whose anti-communist beliefs mirror author Ayn Rand's own, decides to study engineering at the university, a logical choice for someone with a lifelong interest in things structural.
One evening after fending off the unwanted attentions of an admirer, she encounters an attractive stranger named Leo Kovalensky, whose admiral father (we learn later) was executed as a counter-revolutionary. The two agree to meet a month later and do. A classmate involved with the secret police brings her in for questioning after seeing Kira with her newfound more-than-friend. Intrigued, twenty-eight-year-old Andrei Taganov, communist to the core, intervenes to extricate her from the situation. Leo and Anna decide to move in together, disappointing her parents. Like their fellow countrymen, the two are forced to wait in long lines for meager rations, but things get more difficult for the couple. Due to Leo's family's political leanings, he is unable to find work. When doctors recommend he be sent south to a sanatorium due to serious health concerns, Kira secretly takes up with the relatively wealthy Taganov to fund the trip. Leo returns eight months later a different man. He seems well, but gets involved in an illegal and dangerous business venture that ends badly. Through lies and deceit, Kira is able to keep both Leo and Andrei in the dark about her two-timing. True to typical Russian novels, tragedy triumphs. Save yourself some spoilers and save the Foreward for afterward.
Although I couldn't wrap my head around Kira's ability to fool the other two vertices of her love triangle, the way Ms. Rand handled the story's setting (post Russian Revolution political situation in Soviet Russia) and her descriptiveness, especially of the weather and scenery: (p 6) "Like barnacles, they [men] clung to the steps, to the buffers, to the roofs," (p 66) "Whipped into mud by horses' hoofs, the first snow looked like a pale coffee with thin, melting splinters of sugar," and (p 83) "The face and the bulb stood as incongruous shadows against the frozen sunset outside, beyond the window, a sunset as sinister and cold as dead blood," are spectacular. Beyond all that, there is a lot going on plot-wise between the primary characters and their family members, friends, and acquaintances: suffering, sadness, survival, and sometimes, being sent to Siberia. Also good, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, 11 years in Soviet Prison Camps by Elinor Lipper, and Coming Out of the Ice: An Unexpected Life by Victor Herman.
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