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Summary: I couldn't put it down!
Review: This book is wonderful! You can't help but wonder what will happen to the main character of this book. Who will she fall in love with? Will she make it out of Russia? It made me want more...and introduced me to the world of Ayn Rand.
Rating: 
Summary: Semi-autobiographical and a well-written novel
Review: This novel is very poignant; set in post-Revolution Russia, a young girl on the point of going to University finds herself living in a world she cannot accept. Kira is depicted very well as a very young, emotional and sometimes impulsive woman who loves the wrong guy for the wrong reasons, sacrifices everything for him and learns that a life not lived as one wishes is not worth living. The tragic character of the Communist official Andrei is incredibly well-done. This book is a bit raw in places, showing the deep feelings that Rand must have experienced as she re-lives the world she left behind along with a family she never saw again. It is not as well-crafted a novel as The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, but it is the most deeply emotional thing Rand ever wrote and well worth reading.
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Summary: The City of Man vs. The State
Review: There is much to be admired in the writings of Ayn Rand. Objectivist thinking is sadly missing from a world now dominated by postmodern ideas, and Rand offers a viable counter-thesis to the misguided notions of the subjectivism of our day. American thought was once anchored in a search for objective truth, but is now ruled by a belief in the ABSENCE of objective truth. In We The Living, Rand poignantly depicts the end of the path we are following - and it is not pretty. In spite of the vigor of her objectivism, it is wrongly grounded in faith in individual humans rather than in the designs of the Creator. Worked out to its own ends, objective individualism (Rand's philosophy) leads to the very same desperate wickedness as subjective, collectivism (the Soviet experiment). Rand did not bother herself with this problem, however, because she was satisfied that the "fittest" among us would ultimately achieve theri own happiness - and to hell with everyone else. But even in her own story, we find that such an outlook leads to destruction - not only of society, but of self. Each of hero(-ines) - Kira, Leo, and Andrei, meets an unsavory end no better, and perhaps worse, than those whom she despises. While she accurately portrays the depravity and stench of the lives of so many of her villains, she unjustly vilifies the true heroes of the novel, Irina and Sasha, for clinging to their faith in God. When I read this book, I was an agnostic and a believer in many of Rand's ideas. But in my own search for objective truth, We The Living helped drive me to the Bible - and it is there I will stay! Unwittingly, Rand sets up Irina and Sasha as a type of heroine and hero. Though it could be argued they were not entirely faithful to their religion, it is only they in the story who maintained hope in a greater purpose, controlled by the Higher Being, and as such, only they could truly endure what they were dealt. Perhaps Irina and Sasha COULD HAVE and even SHOULD HAVE done more for themselves and their family. They had as many human flaws as the other characters. But their faith brought them to endure and anticipate a reward for someone greater than themselves - their Creator - and to give themselves up for His glory, not their own, nor that of the state.
Rating:
Summary: Rand's Best
Review: I've read three of Rand's books and this is by far the best, not because it's the shortest. In "We the Living", you definitely get a more personal view from the auther. This book is about Kira, a young woman from a once majestic and respected family who returns from spending the more violent part of the Russian revolution in a smaller, less affected town, to find St. Petersburg destroyed. She and her family have to struggle just to survive as Communism becomes vile and corrupted. Later, she must choose between her family and her lover, Leo because of political differences, but when Leo catches tuberculosis, Kira must do things that would make anyone sick. She gives up all her dreams of education and of a suuccessful future, puyting everything she has into escaping the oppresive communists and their tyranny at the end. This is definitely not a light read, but it is a book I would recommend to anyone if you want a painful, but realistic version of the triumphs and tragedies of life itself.
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Summary: Rand is a genius
Review: " 'Society, Kira, is a stupendous whole.' 'If you write a whole line of zeroes, it's still- nothing." Chapter 3; Kira and Victor This quote sums up Kira's attitude about the Collective, and mirrors author Ayn Rand's attitude on it as well. We the Living is a novel set in Russia during the Russian Revolution, and a young girl named Kira who refuses to settle for anything less than what she desires and deserves. The characters in it represent what every true individual can aspire to be if they believe in themselves. Leo, whom Kira loves and worships as her only god, is an example of one who had the potential to be great but who did not have the guts. Almost everyone surrounding Kira are examples of those born without potential or initiative. Kira is an example of someone who did all that she possibly could to be what she knows she can be, but the country and time period she lives in will not allow her to be anything but just another person in the great mass of people. Ayn Rand admitted that this is the closest she has ever come to writing an autobiography. She said that the events in the book are fiction, but Kira's ideals and values are her own. This book, like all of Ayn Rand's, will definately make you think, and it is an interesting read as well.
Rating:
Summary: Worth every page...
Review: I finished reading this book two nights ago, and still it feels like a gaping hole has been torn into my soul. Rand's writing is so powerful, I feel I must recover from this book as if it were me that lived the events she described. Read this book, not for likable characters or a feel-good ending - but for the way Rand will move you both emotionally and intellectually as you try to reconcile the events and characters of this book.
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Summary: the novel of rand's with the most heart
Review: It has been a long time since I've read this novel, but out of her several novels/novellae, this is probably the one with the most heart. As all of her fiction is quite tragic, this is a tragic love story, but these characters seem to take on a more human tone than characters in her other works of fiction. It would be difficult not to appreciate her writing even if in some ways her work is almost unpalatable. I'm not sure that I would want to recommend We The Living, but I did read it several times myself.
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Summary: Kira Argounova - A Heroine For the Ages!
Review: This was the first of Rand's novels to sell fairly well commercially. Initially it did well in Europe and less so in the USA. When the first printing was sold out in the USA, the plates were destroyed and it went out of print for close to 20 years before the combined success of THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED cried out for its re-publication in the United States. There is much truth in other reviewers comments here that this book seems to be written so differently than Rand's later novels. I will not disagree with anyone on that. Along with ANTHEM and a play titled THE NIGHT OF JANUARY 16th, Rand used WTL as a laboratory to express her anti-totalitarian ideas in English and in novel form. It should be remembered that Rand came here as a penniless Russian immigrant. She initially lived with relatives in Chicago and then made her way to Los Angeles where she earned her way (and began to write). Rand herself said that this book was the closest she would ever come to writing an autobiography. Obviously, Kira is an idealized fictional symbol of all that Rand held to be virtuous and worth aspiring to. She conflicts good and evil and in the process, we see that even though Kira idolizes freedom (both political and economic), she cannot accept contradictions in the man she has chosen to love. This novel portrays the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution on the lives of three people. Three people who meant very little to the totalitarian Soviet state and the Communist Party but as individual Russians, living through that dark midnight that almost extinguished hope in the hearts of the Russian people, Kira, Leo and Andrei are as alive as any of the classic characters found elsewhere in important literature. Kira comes to the story as part of an affluent Russian family that loses everything after the Bolsheviks seize power during "kraznaya Oktobriana." After the Bolsheviks expropriate all of their property for the "good of the proletariat," their lives change dramatically. Kira, who wanted to be a builder loses her chance for continued education and position because she will not conform to the new "Soviet ideal." Eventually, she meets Leo Kovalensky, a Russian aristocrat who stands unbowed before the altar of Soviet justice. He refuses to recognize the hegemony of the new system over any aspect of his life. Kira, admiring this fierce individuality, falls for Leo and comes to stand by his side. She knows that she has met her "Viking god." Andrei Taganov is the ultimate instrument of the Soviet state. He wears a leather jacket and carries all the authority of the new dictatorship. In ages past, he would have worn the helmet of a Roman Centurion or the armor of a crusading knight. But always, he would have been the symbol of some governmental oppression. He is a born secret policeman in a system that required men all too willing to torture and imprison their fellow men. As Rand writes about the early Soviet system, it is obvious that this novel could have been set in any system that denied individual freedom. Rand chose to write about Soviet Russia because it was what she knew. Similar stories could have come out of Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. Rand chose Russia. This is a story of what happens to people when all freedom is lost. It is a marvelous tale of people who struggle valiantly against insurmountable odds to maintain their individuality, dignity and freedom. It is a moral allegory of just what happens to the human spirit when the individual is subjugated to the mind-numbing and degrading indignities imposed from above by second-handers who created nothing but only denied everything. This is one of the finest novels of its type that you will ever read. It is worth reading, especially if the reader has already read THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED if for no other reason than to discover Rand's starting point. If you have not read any of Rand's other works then, this is a great place to start. WTL is where she began to formulate her ideas on the ultimate value of the individual and the worth of the reasoning human intellect. To be sure, this is an indictment on the danger to mankind everywhere on the depredations of any collective system. This is an unapologetic damnation of Communism as it was then and what it eventually became. Rand has no mercy and shows no compassion or willingness to understand why men and women would give up themselves to be part of a system that denies basic rights and degrades the individual. Read this book and you will come to understand why Communism was ultimately destined to fail. It failed because it collapsed under the weight of its own inherent internal contradictions. We are all the more fortunate that Rand saw all of this so clearly early on. We are even more fortunate that her predictions for the ultimate demise of Communist tyranny came true and that individual ploitical and economic freedom have taken root throughout countries that once denied even the slightest scintilla of personal liberty. Read WE THE LIVING and discover one of the most original minds in the 20th Century.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting & shattering
Review: This is another one I read when I was in high school. A teacher recommended it to me, & I will be forever grateful for that. I'm not a real fan of Rand's other works but this one is stunning. There are parts of it that stay with me every day. The struggles of all the young people in it against a heartless crushing bureaucracy become even more resonant as I get older. And there is one small section, where one character watches the love of his life disappear on another train as they're separated & sent to different parts of Siberia, that I challenge you to read without tears. That section alone makes the book worth it--I've never forgotten those few paragraphs & never will.
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Summary: I, simply, am not worthy of reviewing this work..
Review: I have read virtually all of Rand's works; studied them, in fact and written reviews on most of them (favorably, always). But this book, We The Living, by Ayn Rand, I suggest reading AFTER you have read one of her popular (very popular) fictional works such as Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. My reason for this suggestion of time-ordering your selection of reading is this: Please read all of the reviews in this section and take them as fact (believe them, quite literally), then consider how different this work has been described as compared to Rand's popular fiction and also the fact that "We the Living" was rand's first attempt at making it big (in the sense of getting her message across, which she acomplished Quite well). You will see that she changed her format: We the living was described by Rand "as being the closest she had come to an auto biography." This is the most powerful, moving book that you will experience (period). If you know of another which forms an exception to my statement, please email me. But,THIS, her early life, in Soviet Communist Russia, a hellish (to say the least) existence is what motivated Rand to speak out, to write about philosophy... When you read The Fountainhead, you will have fun, no doubt, and that is why it sold... but we the living is for Lover's of existence, un-coerced existence, which brings me to my final point on this book: NOBODY can disagree with this book; note that no no one has, in the reviews above. In itself, the omission of negative reviews is amazing. If you read this book and are passionately moved (motivated) by it, then then you owe it to yourself to OBJECTIVELY (with an "open/active-mind," ) pick up and study another of Rand's non-fictional works such as "the Virtue of Selfishness," or "Capitalism the Unknown Ideal," or "The New Left: the Return of the Primitive". Don't get me wrong: There are plenty of people who will disagree, on first reading her non-fiction (possibly her fiction too), but there are essentially NONE who disagree, upon reading "We the Living,". My point is: They are ALL the same! Only presented in different formats. You won't find anyone, today, who will even attempt to tell you that communist or socialist systems are better than capitalism. 1989, in Russia, was a clear demonstration, and stands as a refutation to any such suggestion. Rand was and is correct. Read her work. This one will bring tears to your eyes, enlightenment to your soul AND will, once and for all... if you have the discipline to think about it long enough, concretize (to use Rand's terminology) exactly why tax-and-spend-big-government is a threat to the best within us: INDIVIDUALITY. A quote from Rand "thinking is not a collective activity." Think about it, PLease.
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