We the Living by Ayn Rand Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of We the Living
Book Review: Ahem...
Summary: 1 Stars
As a writer, I must give tribute to Rand's colorful turn of phrase, several enrapturing descriptions, and well-drawn characters. However, as a person I must say I hate this book and don't recommend it to anyone.Don't get me wrong -- it's good as a piece of literature if one takes away the grime of a hard time for Russia, which she holds cruelly under a magnifying glass; if one forgets the fact that she is biased, horribly biased against both Tsarism and the Soviet regime; if one ignores what she wrote about Russia and the Russians in the foreword; if one discounts the fact that she hated the place she was writing her "truth" about.
Of course, now that I am stating my view someone will say that I am wrong because I'm Russian and thus biased; perhaps you will even think me a communist. Do that if you like. But because I AM Russian, there's something glaringly wrong to me in the fact that escape is seen as the sign of a good and unbroken spirit in this book. In spite of all claims made to support the opposite, an escaping spirit IS broken if it can't face what its home has become.
What is one if one has no home country? If one gives it up?
Leaving home is like losing one's identity. I'm nothing if I am not Russian. And neither is anyone else, if they leave.
Book Review: Amazing novel by an amazing wirter
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read this, Atlas shrugged and the Fountain head. I love all. Brilliant - compeling entertaing and engrossing. Rands novels have not only stood "test of time", they could not be mroe relevant for readers today.
Read for yourself, Think for yourself, decide for yourself...
You don't have to like it, But-if you experience and read for yourself the opinion will be formed honestly... It will be your own opinion. My biggest fear is the hightened interest in these consistanly popular novels and Author will bing on media attacks and attempts to discredit.
Book Review: An Early Effort Worth the Read
Summary: 4 Stars
Rand's literary genius was evident in this early work. The characters were typical Rand, cardboard cut outs of humans. The setting in the early post revolutionary Russia is valuable and informative. Rand was a refugee of sorts from this culture and her insights are key to understanding the corrupt and worthless Soviet system. This book will not change the minds of any Clintonite socialist ... It will provide a peak behind the iron curtain for those of us who wondered about the day to day of the Soviet state. In her descriptions of life in the post revolutionary period we see what a farce the planned economies of socialism are. This is not the book that "Atlas Shrugged" or "The Fountainhead" was, it is simpler and the theme is less complex. Rand's philosophy and themes were not yet fully developed at this point in her career. It is a worthy read.Book Review: An Ode to Human Spirit
Summary: 5 Stars
Ayn Rand is a controversial author, whose Objectivist philosophy has ardent followers and a significant number of haters. This book is not a push for Objectivism. It does not denounce religion. It does not glorify an industrialist or a banker. It simply shows that all that most of us want is to just live our lives, enjoy them, and not have the will of majorities, minorities, ideologies, religions, dogmas, individuals, established truths, scientific agreements or any other BS forced upon us.
"I don't want to fight for the people, I don't want to fight against the people, I don't want to hear of the people. I want to be left alone--to live." says Kira Argounova, the heroine of the book. Kira's character is based loosely on Ayn Rand herself. Ayn (Alisa Rosenbaum) came of age in Soviet Union during Bolshevik revolution. While the world proclaimed the greatness of Soviets and how all the people are free and equal, Ayn was forced to experience the freedom and equality of communism, and escaped to US as soon as possible. Millions were not so lucky. This book is a tribute to those millions, to people who braved cold Russian winters and armed guards to escape in snow storms, across mountain paths, through rivers out of the Worker's Paradise.
Read this book if you want to know what life is under communism. Read it to learn about Russia of 1920's. Read it to see what human spirit is capable of.
Some will draw parallels between today's political climate in US and Soviet Russia. We should not look for them even if they are easy to spot: whether it's public worker's unions in Wisconsin or crony capitalism of "stimulus\bail-out". Much more relevant is to listen to ideologues of 1917 and of today.
They sound the same. The method of communication may have changed (tweeter and facebook rather than speeches from atop of a tank), but the message is the same as it has been for ages: "Equality". Yet it is today same as it was always - Equality comes at a price.
Andrei Taganov starts out as a villain in "We The Living". He ends his life as a villain who saw the error of his way, committing suicide to help the woman he loves and unable to deal with the hell he helped create.
Andrei wanted to bring everyone up to his level, make everyone equal. He killed for that idea. And he found that you can't bring people up. You can only achieve equality down in the mud, by removing the best and brightest among us.
We the Living is very different from Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead. It's a book that can hold it's own. I've read it many times and I still feel with the characters, experience their emotions. Read it so that ideologues shouting for Equality can never again create the hell that was worker's paradise.
Book Review: An absolutely amazing book
Summary: 5 Stars
There are a lot of people who dislike Ayn Rand. Whether for the rather didactic and lengthy sermons that populate most of the plots of her novels, or her own theories which tend to be underdeveloped and difficult to understand, she is not the most popular author or person in the philosophical realm. We the Living, however, is a book that one must read in order to change the perception of Rand doing what she does best: writing fiction. The novel is a harsh look at communism in the post-Red revolution of Russia, following three people: Kira, a young, idealistic, woman who bourgeois family was left poverty-stricken following the revolt; Leo, an indifferent young man haunted by the Communists due his late father's war glory; and Andrei, a Communist questioning his own beliefs in the system he has risen up in so quickly. Despite the fact that this novel is set in a far-away time and place to most of its readers, it is a book which I felt an extremely strong connection with. Everybody knows a Leo: flippant, handsome, could get any girl he wants -- but he has serious character flaws, and tends to be abusive of Kira's love for him. And Kira, the novel's protagonist, is very similar to any youth of today: she does not understand the ideals of the Communist party, but she does know what she believes and is wholeheartedly committed to fulfilling the promise she had at birth.
The entire novel is beautifully written in moving prose that reflects both the harsh conditions for the people of Russia and the emotions felt between Kira, Andrei, Leo, and others as they attempt to make life better for themselves in a regime that denies them anything good without punishment. The climax of the novel is breathtaking -- by the time the final words have been read, the reader is totally attached to the characters.
As with any other great novel of its time, We the Living not only characterizes the time period it is based in, but its characters live on as people of today's world, in today's capitalistic society. It questions the principles of freedom and what people will do for that freedom. This is Rand's greatest work: the philosophy is subtle, with more emphasis on the plot and the characters, but is there. Whatever you may think of Ayn Rand, you must read this novel -- it is a moving portrait of human life.