We

Rating:
Summary: BIOSPHERE 2 GONE BAD
Review: The main character, D-503, realizes something interesting: he has a soul. And it just so happens that he's the head-honcho behind the development of a spaceship called the Integral. In this "utopia" people live in glass domes--what an Arizonan like me would call a biosphere--and have no privacy, expect for certain special times. So there is definitely a heavy science fiction aspect to this work, quite amazing for 1920-21 Russia. One thing that really stuck out was how believable the main character--D-503--was. As a mathematician, he thinks in numbers and geometrical shape. Instead of saying of a table, "it looked like a wooden animal", he might say something like, "it looked like a rectangle sitting atop four cylinders." A small detail, but one worth noticing. As in Brave New World and 1984, the ending line has the power of a knife being driven into your stomach. I'll disagree that WE is better overall than BNW and 1984, but it a good book in its own little way. The writing style can be a little clunky--as is usually the case with translated works--but not terribly so. Yes, this is a good book, well worth your time, effort, and money.

Rating:
Summary: We, the most misunderstood book I know
Review: Zamyatin's masterpiece "We" ("My") is not a satire of the furture, communism, society, or the USSR. It has nothing to do with politics at all. This is why "We" is so misunderstood.

"We" is actually about heaven and how human nature would conflict. The one state (the country in We) is supposed to be heaven, with its "Guardians" (Guardian Angels), and god (the benevolent Benefactor.) If a human had no desire, he would be in the state of Nirvana, the Bhuddist afterlife. Zamyatin proves that the One State is heaven using math. (the amount of happieness divided by the amount of desire. the one state does not permit desire, so the happiness become a beautiful infinity.)

Zamyatin, who's father was a priest, was very knowledgable about religion. D-503, the main character, n one chapter replicates adam. the enitre book follows parts from the bible. Zamyatin was telling people in a satircle, maybe cold way, that human nature limits happiness, and in order to be truly happy, the true heaven would not permit human nature. Pure and simple.

"Because reason must prevail." Zamyatin, through D-503, was saying that the end result of the book (you have to read it to find out) was the true way, the true path! Zamyatin is satirizing the Soviet Union, he is preaching to us! The horrors of human nature and desire (especially sexual desire in "We") only make one less certain and less happy. they limit the possible infinite happiness.

So read We, now! Find out its true meaning, read in between the lines. the book is like an action movie with brains!

Read it. best book i ever read besides 1984 and A Clockwork Orange (who both have things stolen from We.)

Read it now!

Rating:
Summary: A bitter, prophetic satire
Review: Imagine a world where everything is subservient to the United State. Where people do not have names, but are referred to only as numbers. Where your job, your home and your mate are determined for you by the "Well-Doer" and thoughts and actions are closely monitored by the "Guardians." This is not 1984 - this is Zamiatin's WE - predating Orwell by almost 25 years, and eerily describing the USSR under Stalin 10 years before its worst excesses.

The similarities between Zamiatin's world and Orwells are many and obvilious. Both are a biting satire of totalitarianism: its centralization of authority, its blatant disregard for human life and the crushing oppressiveness of the State. However I believe Zamiatin's to be the better story.

Orwell does not have Zamiatin's sarcastic use of the double entendre. And Zamiatin's writing style (especially his use of mathematical metaphors) reinforces the impersonal nature of his "utopian" society. Finally, Zamiatin's story is much more psychological than Orwells - much of the story takes place in the thoughts of the main character.

WE is rightly considered a masterpiece of modern Russian literature. If you have read 1984, I highly recommend reading WE.

Rating:
Summary: More than a simple satire of the Soviet Union
Review: Evgeni Zamyatin's novel "We" is often compared to Orwell's "1984" and Huxley's "Brave New World", and rightly so, since it is a strong influence on both (though Huxley of course denied it). "We" is a terrifying vision of a future, in which all aspects of life have been rationally mechanized, according to the best tradition of Taylorism. The residents of OneState have no freedom; instead they have infinite, mathematically proved happiness. "Those two in Paradise were given a choice: freedom without happiness, or happiness without freedom. The fools chose freedom. But we brought them back the chains," says R-13, one of the OneState's chief poets.

This nightmarish vision sheds light on the present, as well. Not necessarily, as is often stated, on the terror of one Stalin. The book was written well before the establishment of the Soviet state, and on an impulse that had long before prompted Zamyatin to write in a similar vein. An earlier novella of his, "Islanders", as well as many of his short stories and plays, all have the same philosophical purpose behind them: to show that the contemporary (at the time) trends in European society, culture and art are leading to a destruction of the individual will and a horrible mechanization of life. A recurrent theme in Zamyatin is the escape from overly-civilized cities, to the freedom of the countryside and of the nature itself. Zamyatin felt, and I would gladly argue that he was absolutely correct, that the modern European civilization gradually limits the scope of the individual's understanding of the world and draws him into a sort of slavery of the spirit.

I recommend "We" to everyone. For the depth of its philosophical stance, for its brilliant structure and wonderful language, this book is clearly superior to either "1984" or "Brave New World", though it is, unfortunately, not nearly as widely recognized.

Rating:
Summary: The Original Dystopia
Review: In the rational future world of the One State, life is perfect under the benign rule of the Benefactor. D-503, a mathematician, is building a ship called the Integral, which will spread logic, reason and "happiness" to the rest of the universe. As D-503 quotes from the One State Gazette: "If they fail to understand that we bring them mathematically infallible happiness, it will be our duty to compel them to be happy."

D-503 suffers from a terrible sickness: he is afflicted with a soul.

The One State is a mathematically structured, artificial environment where life is sterile, spartan and mechanical. Buildings are all made of glass, citizens (numbers) have to march in time to the anthem of the State. At regulated mealtimes they also chew their artificial food in unison.

One of the strange things about D-503's life is that he believes his world is enviable. Just as we look back at our own history with an amazed shudder of disbelief, so too does D-503. His society has done away with horrible things like hunger, love and freedom in order to experience happiness. Even so, there are still a few "enemies of happiness" among the numbers who are publicly liquidated by the Benefactor's Machine.

Although this is the book that influenced "1984" I only heard of "We" about two years ago, when I saw its name mentioned in one of Anthony Burgess' novels. ("1985".) D-503 writes the book in a series of entries, in a style that reads almost like poetry. (Although D-503 says he has no gift for poetry.) I can imagine the narrator's voice sounding dull and lifeless. As someone who puts great value on privacy, I find the idea of living in a glass house completely repulsive.

The influences on "1984" are obvious: The Benefactor = Big Brother, the Guardians = the Thought Police, the One State = Oceania. But even though "1984" enjoys wider recognition than "We", there is no doubt that Yevgeny Zamyatin's novel is the definitive bleak future; the template for all dystopian novels.

Rating:
Summary: Oui
Review: This is my second endeavor into the famed distopia trilogy. Unfortunately, I should have read this one first. I loved Brave New World, but I think this is in a class by itself. I read somewhere that Brave New World was written without knowledge of this book, which would make the similarities uncanny. Anyway, This story grabbed me from the very beginning with the effective use of numbers to substitute characters names. This let's you know right off the bat that this future society is not joking around. The intertwining fashion used between dreams and reality was especially appealing, giving this novel a surrealistic feel. The thing that hooks this novel into masterpiece status is the ending. Unlike Brave New World, this was one I was not expecting. Also, the fact that a man living in communist Russia wrote this novel really enhances the experience and shows you the nightmarish visions this man derived from his way of life. Platinum.

Rating:
Summary: A really good (and under read) book....
Review: Obviously, this is one of the classic "dysutopian" works though I am inclined to not think that its strength came from the fact that its author lived in the 'fledgling socialist state' of Russia..... Nor am I inclined to list off a variety of other books in the same genre: that doesn't help anyone decide whether this book is really a worthwhile read (though 'Erehwon' by Samuel Butler is another book that should be massively well-regarded and just isn't....)

This is a really good book for a number of reasons, foremost among them that the state sketched by Zamiatin is the most modern, its characters the most well-crafted, and its strengths among how its author strung together his stream-of-consciousness like ideas. In the preface to this version it mentions that in this story it is unclear where the state is (i.e. unlike in 1984 where the story obviously takes place in Britain...)

It is obvious that the author is Russian. No Western author would have alluded to Plato's "The Republic" for the whole of a novel so strongly without admitting to it. And perhaps, moreso than socialist Russia, was where he was drawing his source material.

Rating:
Summary: This edition reproduces the first English translation
Review: I'm writing this note just to alert readers that this large-print, hardcover edition of Zamiatin's We is not the translation by Mirra Ginsburg. I bought this book thinking it was Ginsburg's modern translation; she also translated his stories and essays, both great books. This particular edition actually uses the very first translation from Russian into English, by Gregory Zilboorg, published originally in 1924. This is the version Huxley, Orwell and Rand actually read; this is the version that influenced their respective dystopias: Brave New World, 1984 and Anthem. I have no means to compare this edition to Ginsburg's, but so far it appears to be just as readable. The question is: is it complete? In any case, the book itself is nice: a large-print, hardcover edition.

Rating:
Summary: The precursor to other famous dystopias
Review: WE was the prototype for both Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD and you can see the elements of both contained in this novel. Given the fairly obvious allusions to Communist Russia it is no surprise that the novel was suppressed for so long. The representation of people by numbers (the central character is D-503), and the conditioning of people to accept the denial of their individuality, are still things which raise alarms in various parts of the world today. The novel is complex in that there are some aspects of this society of which Zamyatin seems to approve. Our initial impressions would normally be that his presentation is focussed upon negatives. In this translation the novel is not too difficult to read. It is a good challenge to all of us to think about how our own societies (and the parts of them that we have some influence upon ie: our families etc.) are ordered.

Rating:
Summary: life in OneState
Review: After reading this book I can feel the strong underlying philosophies that influenced George Orwell to write "1984." The novel is premised on an orderly mathematical philosophy to life; that each day brings no surprises, all things have order and structure. Each person relates an unknown as chaos. I felt the strongest point challenged in this book took place in record 30, when a D-503 is expressing his belief that a revolution is wrong because the great benefactor said that the last revolution took place years ago. To rebut this coming from the mind of a mathematician I-330 says "what's is the last number?" Proving that if there can be no last number, there can be no last revolution! While reading this book I found it hard to decipher between reality and dream sequences, a point I feel the author was striving for. If you still have the chance I suggest you read this before "1984" .... not the year, the book!