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We (Ausgewählte Werke in vier Bänden #3)

by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Евгений Замятин, Clarence Brown (translator)

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 19,215 ratings · 1,200 reviews

In the One State of the great Benefactor, there are no individuals, only numbers. Life is an ongoing process of mathematical precision, a perfectly balanced equation. Primitive passions and instincts have been subdued. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall. But one frontier remains: outer space. Now, with the creation of the spaceship Integral, that...more

Paperback, 226 pages

Published August 1st 1993 by Penguin Classics (first published January 1st 1920)

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Mar 28, 2012 Nataliya rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of classic dystopias

Shelves: awesome-kickass-heroines, russian-classics, excellent-reads, favorites, dystopia-postapocalyptic

Zamyatin's masterfully written dystopian masterpiece predated (and likely inspired) the popular Western books that explored the similar themes - Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

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Written in 1920, before the Soviet Union even existed, it predicted the Stalin and Brezhnev eras with terrifying foresight. Evgeniy Zamyatin did not share the fascination with the new State and the glory of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

“The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding

...more Zamyatin's masterfully written dystopian masterpiece predated (and likely inspired) the popular Western books that explored the similar themes - Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

......

“The only means of ridding man of crime is ridding him of freedom.”

With his novel, Zamyatin disagrees. No wonder it was banned in the Soviet Union until late 1980s - since one of his characters brings up the ultimate blasphemy:

"There is no final revolution. Revolutions are infinite."

At that time, during the birth of the "new world order" that emphasized the good of the State over the good of individual "cogs in the machine", the beauty of uniformity of unity over individual variations, Zamyatin described the hollowness that replacing soul and love with cold reason and logic and individuals with "numbers" would bring. In this world everything is rationalized, de-individualized, regimented, and oppressively safe. Even the leader, the "Benefactor", is little but a slave to the State.

“Now I no longer live in our clear, rational world; I live in the ancient nightmare world, the world of square roots of minus one.”

Zamyatin's characters try to go against the great tide, try to resist the State. As a result, at least for a short while, his protagonist gets diagnosed with a serious medical condition - developing a soul. But, fittingly for a dystopia, there is no happy ending - just a reader's faint hope that for some of them not all is lost.
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I read this book in its original Russian, so I really cannot comment on the quality of translation. In Russian, the writing is superb and the narrative voice is unique and fascinating - exaltingly, sickeningly cheerful at the beginning and growing more and more confused as the story progresses. I can only hope that the translations managed to capture at least some of that. 5 stars.(less)

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Dec 16, 2012 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: location-russia, around-the-world, post-apocalypse-and-dystopia, sci-fi-fantasy, sff-audio, read2012

Read again to discuss on SFF Audio; will link to podcast when it is posted.

This book has not been on my radar for long, but when something is considered to be "the best single work of science fiction yet written" (Ursula K. Le Guin) and the precursor of 1984 and Brave New World, not to mention the majority of current science fiction (Bruce Sterling introduction), I knew I couldn't put it off.

An interesting historical note - it was published in England (1921) long before it was published in Russi...more

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May 28, 2012 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: russian, dystopia, political, speculative-fiction, 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, 1920s

Yevgeny Zamyatin wrote his seminal dystopian novel We (1921) based on his personal experiences during the two Russian revolutions (1905 and 1917) and the first World War. The book ended influencing dystopian authors like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. This book not only influenced the dystopian genre but could also be the influence towards the post-apocalyptic genre as this was set in a world where all was wiped out but “0.2% of the earth's population”. The book is set in ‘One State’ which has...more

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Jul 11, 2010 Amy Sturgis rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: postapocalyptic-dystopia, science-fiction-vintage, 20th-century

This is the "granddaddy" of the modern dystopian novel, the book that influenced Huxley's Brave New World, Rand's Anthem, and Orwell's 1984: Yevgeny Zamyatin's We (1924). I've read it repeatedly and taught it, as well, and I always discover something new in the novel each time I turn to it. It's a brilliantly chilling depiction of a futuristic totalitarian regime that organizes its people's lives with almost scientific precision, as seen through the troubled eyes of one of its leading citizens....more

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Apr 27, 2011 Nate D rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: hairy hands reaching through the green wall

Recommended to Nate D by: the illness of dreaming

Shelves: russia, interwar-maladies, dystopiary, doomed-heretics-of-the-revolution

1984 was published in 1949. Brave New World in 1931. Of course, long before either of these Brits could get spooked by machine-like totalitarian communism, Russians were already getting spooked by their own country. In the 20s, Mikhail Bulgakov and Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, to name a couple whose objections and subversiveness guaranteed that their finest works went unpublished in their lifetimes. And even earlier, only just after the revolution in 1920, Yevgeny Zamyatin anticipated much of that...more

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Aug 27, 2011 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf

One can see echoes of this story in other greats of dystopian SF such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and, of course, the great 1984. Written in the early 1920's it hadn't taken Zamyatin long to realise the logical consequences of the ideological reasoning behind his country's recent revolution. And this is precisely what is explored here, several hundred years in the future after the successful elimination of all opposition.

What would a society be like that had eliminated all notion of the i...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Kim by: Nataliya

Shelves: classic, drama, dystopia, philosophical, political, sci-fi, russia, male-author, 1920s

For a small book this one took me much longer than I had anticipated. It is complex and evocative and fantastical and logical and very Russian.

Written in Russia in the 1920's during the Russian Civil War We is one of the first major dystopic works and went on to inspire writers like Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Kurt Vonnegut.

It it set in the distant future in the nation (or city) of the One State, a totalitarian society where everything is structured around logic and mathematics. Everybody...more

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Apr 14, 2012 Sath rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Sath by: Aredhel

Shelves: classics, utopia-dystopia, science-fiction, sfx-100-writers, 2011-must-read, reviewed

This is one of those books that I knew I'd put off reviewing. When a book is classic, or popular, or iconic.. you just know you'll never find anything original to say that hasn't already been said, or that'll do the book justice.

We is set in a future utopian paradise, The One State, ruled by their glorious Benefactor. Everyone is a number, not a person, the emphasis is on cohesion, not individuality. Happiness has been reduced to an equation, but as such it it is solved, plug in the numbers and...more This is one of those books that I knew I'd put off reviewing. When a book is classic, or popular, or iconic.. you just know you'll never find anything original to say that hasn't already been said, or that'll do the book justice.

We is set in a future utopian paradise, The One State, ruled by their glorious Benefactor. Everyone is a number, not a person, the emphasis is on cohesion, not individuality. Happiness has been reduced to an equation, but as such it it is solved, plug in the numbers and all citizens can live happy, well regulated lives. All wake at the same time each day in their transparent houses, dress the same, chew their food 50 times, go to their assigned work, and on their assigned day they get to draw the shades for 1 hour exactly for conjugal relations with their registered partner (sexual requirments calculated for each number based on their hormonal readings of course).

D-503 is the 'author' of the novel. He is the architect of the Integral, the space ship which was commissioned to take the expansion of their One State into space. All numbers have been called upon to write poetry and prose to extol the virtues of the One State to any alien species. D-503 is no poet, but a mathemetician, so he chooses to write a sort of diary, a collection of his daily thoughts on the one state, explanations of things which he believes uncivilised readers may not have the benefit of... and then as it progresses and he meets the inexplicably fascinating and frustrating I-330, who is not like other numbers.. She angers D, but he obsesses over her. She takes him beyond the Green Wall to the ancient house, where artifacts exist from the uncivilised time before the One State, and things begin to change for D.. well. I'll try for no spoilers here :)

D-503 is a very interesting narrator to have. He begins so innocently content with everything, and despite being no poet, the way he writes certain things when he is truly exstatic is almost psychadelic in it's poetry. At times he is frustratingly unaware for a protagonist, never quite being in the right place at the right time, and always one step behind the plot, reading through his thoughts I felt just as confounded as he was by I-330, by the secrets at the ancient house, by the disease of having a soul.

I can see clearly how this was the inspiration for 1984, there are many parallels between the two. The utopian communist style government. Their insular society, that is unaware of anything of interest outside of their walls. Then there is the Great Benefactor, who for the most part of the book is never seen, but comes across like a mysterious G-d (but of course he has to be a real person, but we never really know anything about him).

The book left various things unexplained and open. I wanted to know more about what was beyond the wall, about how the One State came to be, about who the benefactor was, and most of all how we come to read D-330's diary after what unfolds in the book. But the open-ness sort of leaves room for hope and it's good to imagine the various options for myself, it's not so much disappointing as it is frustrating.

But it's definately a brilliant novel, definately worth 5 stars, possibly worth a favourite. If you love dystopian fiction, and love to have the fear of tyrannical governments struck into you, then read it!(less)

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Feb 25, 2010 Meaghan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010, fantasy-futuristic, diaries, adult-novels

This is a superb work of science fiction, and I'm sorry it's not as well known as its dystopian counterparts 1984 and Brave New World. What the One State reminded me of, though, was not either of those books but rather the planet Camozotz in Madeleine L'Engle's book A Wrinkle In Time.

Besides the splendid, suspenseful plotting, the protagonist had one of the most distinctive literary voices I have ever seen. I had no idea one could do mathematics so poetically, and come up with such breathtaking...more

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Jan 04, 2010 Shannon (Giraffe Days) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, sci-fi, 2009, classics

A thousand years in our future, D-503 is just one number among many in the One State. The One State is a city, a society, that revolves not around the individual but around the collective we, like a hive, with the Benefactor in God-like status at the centre. D-503 works as a constructor on the Integral, the ship that will take their ideology and philosophy of life to other planets, to civilise and free other species. When an article in the State Gazette calls for poems, manifestos etc. to go in...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Hans rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, political, social-commentary, russian-literature

200 pages of an interminable balancing act between decision and indecision. A severely fractured protagonist suffering through the weight of unwanted responsibility. Hopelessly clawing at two realities with a narrow distinction between both and with the threats of his actions mercilessly ratcheting up the pressure.

The fragmented society in which he lives mirroring his own life; held together only by extinguishing and suppressing half of its humanity.

This book reminds me of that vague desire of...more 200 pages of an interminable balancing act between decision and indecision. A severely fractured protagonist suffering through the weight of unwanted responsibility. Hopelessly clawing at two realities with a narrow distinction between both and with the threats of his actions mercilessly ratcheting up the pressure.

The fragmented society in which he lives mirroring his own life; held together only by extinguishing and suppressing half of its humanity.

This book reminds me of that vague desire of a unified self that no longer struggles against itself or its own nature. How truly tragic it would be if one side actually succeeded in overcoming the other.

I am impressed by Yevgeny's creative use of limited metaphors and descriptions to create a far off future that is believable, human and not lost to outdated ideas of technology. The focus is always on the characters and not the nifty contraptions of an advanced civilization, ultimately demonstrating how no matter how technologically developed humans become each generation will struggle with the same basic themes of what it means to be human.

Quotes I liked:

"Who knows who you are...A person is a novel: You don't know how it will end until the very last page. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth reading to the very end..."

"That ancient legend about paradise... it, you see, was about us, about now. Yes! Think about that! Those two in paradise stood before a choice: Happiness without freedom or freedom without happiness; a third choice wasn't given. They, the blockheads, they chose freedom --and then what? Understandably, for centuries, they longed for fetters. For fetters--you understand: That was the cause of world sorrow. For centuries! Until we figured out how to return to happiness again. No, wait, wait, listen! We and the ancient God are side by side, at the same table. Yes! We have helped God to conquer the devil definitively-- It was this devil, you know, who urged people to violate what was forbidden and take a bite of that fatal freedom; he was the malicious snake. But our boot: on his head--Crrunch! and there: paradise is restored. Again we are simple-hearted innocents, like Adam and Eve."

"Here I saw, with my own eyes, that laughter was the most terrible weapon: you can kill anything with laughter--even murder itself"

"I ask you: what have people--from the very cradle--prayed for, dreamed about, and agonized over? They have wanted someone, anyone, to tell them once and for all what happiness is--and then to attach them to this happiness with a chain.. what are we now doing, if it isn't this? The ancient dream about paradise...Remember: in paradise, they don't know desire, they don't know pity, they don't know love".(less)

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Jul 10, 2012 Josh rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: longish-reviews, library, read-2012

This book has universal five stars among my Friend's and Follower's reviews, but I'm skeptical. Having read more than two dystopian novels in my life, what does this have to offer that's new, besides simply being the first? I get that totalitarian governments and loss of individual expression is bad, but what else?

(That wasn't rhetorical–someone who's read and loved this please explain to me the benefits of this one.)

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Well, let's find out.

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I started getting into adult literature—as many do—w...more

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May 12, 2011 Shawn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-lit, read-do-not-own, read-sci-fi

So, I was reading through my list of Zamyatin stories and thought, "well, here's a chance to get the one novel out of the way".

Famous for being the first "dystopian" novel, mentally this brings to mind images of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS (*although I especially appreciated the Bruce Sterling's introduction suggestion to envision the characters in Soviet Constructivist Art-era costumes* - worked a treat!). The idea is pretty easy to grasp - a "projecto ad absurdum" of Communist worker agit-prop int...more So, I was reading through my list of Zamyatin stories and thought, "well, here's a chance to get the one novel out of the way".

Famous for being the first "dystopian" novel, mentally this brings to mind images of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS (*although I especially appreciated the Bruce Sterling's introduction suggestion to envision the characters in Soviet Constructivist Art-era costumes* - worked a treat!). The idea is pretty easy to grasp - a "projecto ad absurdum" of Communist worker agit-prop into the far future (1000 years, in fact) - a future in which the One-State rules all, and all "ciphers" live by mathematical and logically precise conceptions - mere cogs in a single unit of "We" (but if there is a "We", who can "They" be?) serving the glorious one state in synchronized harmony, even if pesky human failings still rise up and get in the way every once in a while.

It's Zamyatin's satire of Soviet Russia's inhuman, anti-freedom practices, narrated to you as a memoir written by the chief architect of the Integral, the new worker-built spaceship that will soon launch and integrate the infinite equation of the universe with the yoke of reason ("Taming a wild zig-zag along a tangent towards the asymptote into a straight line" - it's like Darkseid's anti-life equation, for all you Kirby NEW GOD fans) - its belly full of writings to propagandize new, unruly worlds. But our "hero", D-503, is having problems, you see....

This was an interesting read - I'm not a big sci-fi fan but I can dig the historical stuff that's not written "in the genre". I;m sure oceans have been written about it already, not the least of all its effect on George Orwell. It's interesting because WE is a bit more fantastical than 1984, more given to flights of fantasy in its conception of a regimented future than the more serious, "realistic" Orwell text. Life in WE is ruled by geometry and equations - and D-503 is haunted by nightmares of the root of negative one, which is impossible....

Some minor points I found interesting: I liked the structure of the early satire, where D-503 presents his everyday, realistic life of future horrors and wonders in a blase narrative form. Since I'm a fan of the Futurist art movement, I liked the echoes of Futurism you can see here (although this was more about precise mathematics and science/logic, where Futurism was about brute energy and powerful force lines). It's interesting to see (in our modern world of dumbed-down, dualistic thinking) that Zamyatin's stinging satire not only strikes his obvious target, but seeks to critique the opposite number as well (organized religion's stupidities are slyly exposed, and one realizes that the inhuman regimentation of human workers, literally trained to work like machines following the process instigated by F.W. Taylor, was not only supported by the Russians but found a huge fan in the uber-Capitalist Henry Ford - the more things change...). The citizens of the One-State live in a panopticon, only allowed privacy on their pre-approved sex-hour (free love is another bonus of the future - you can sleep with anyone you'd like and no one is allowed to turn you down, or you turn anyone else down, of course). There's mathematical music (I couldn't help thinking of Basic Channel minimalist Techno), propaganda poetry and A Table of The Hours, a schedule that organizes all time efficiently (there's a wonderful bit where D-503 waxes rhapsodic over the "ancient literary legacy" of train schedules: "who is not made breathless when racing and tumbling through the pages of the schedule?"). In fact, the past seems to hold a subtle fascination for these perfectly balanced citizens of the future. And D-503 is still worried about his ugly, monkey hands....

The story moves through our main character's "unreasonable" fascination with I-330, a strange female who seems to flaunt her dislike of the status quo, occasionally smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol. This drives a wedge between D and his frequent female companion 0-90. But D's investigation of I leads to further discoveries, including what really exists outside the Great Wall that separates the One State from the blasted wasteland (this sequence was particularly strong), the State's new operation which will insure happiness by surgically excising the imagination, and the existence of a rapidly forming underground movement committed to an outmoded and unlikely concept called "freedom". It may meander a bit at the 3/4 mark but the ending is very strong, as D-503 finally understands true happiness and why "reason should win."

Well worth your time.(less)

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Apr 03, 2012 Brendan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, sci-fi

“They say there are flowers that bloom only once every hundred years. Why shouldn’t there be others, that bloom once every thousand—ten thousand—years. Maybe we never knew about them only because that once-every-thousand-years is today.”—We, Yevgheniy Zamyatin

Published 27 years before George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Yevgheniy Zamyatin’s We could easily be mistaken as just a precursor of Orwell’s dystopian thriller. But Zamyatin is much more than a Russian Orwell—he introspectively explores...more “They say there are flowers that bloom only once every hundred years. Why shouldn’t there be others, that bloom once every thousand—ten thousand—years. Maybe we never knew about them only because that once-every-thousand-years is today.”—We, Yevgheniy Zamyatin

Published 27 years before George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Yevgheniy Zamyatin’s We could easily be mistaken as just a precursor of Orwell’s dystopian thriller. But Zamyatin is much more than a Russian Orwell—he introspectively explores the immovable human spirit that has led, throughout history, to rebellions and revolutions. He also illustrates, with painful eloquence, the power of a totalitarian society to warp and eventually crush such spirit. Readers looking for a subtle and philosophical analysis of individualism and dictatorship, as well as a gripping plot with exceptionally compelling characters, will be more than pleased with Zamyatin’s brilliant novel.

We follows D-503, an engineer for the totalitarian “United Nation” who has committed himself to writing a manual for the establishment of utopia on alien worlds. He lives a purely rational life—meaning, he believes that every phenomenon can be reduced to a formula and explained through purely mathematical terms. Compulsory service to the state is thus “rational” because one man is miniscule in importance compared to the larger whole of society. All of life in the United Nation is reduced to efficient, simple, and completely regulated actions—including sex, formerly “irrational” and “unmathematical,” now clean-cut, easy, and egalitarian. Throughout We, D-503 incessantly reminds the reader that this is the epitome of human civilization.

But D-503’s routine, his worshipful relationship with logic and the state, are all ended—by love. (Of course!) A messy, unclean thing which cannot be accounted for in any state’s economic calculations, in the United Nation love is considered outmoded, even archaic, and possibly a sign of disease. As D-503 falls further in love with the highly unorthodox woman I-330, he descends into a world of underground anarchist revolutionaries—led by the very woman of his dreams—and discovers that life, and humanity in particular, is too complex for one man (or even a whole United Nation of men) to calculate and control.

And that is We’s most scintillating characteristic, the idea which makes it stand out from other anti-totalitarian tales. The plot of We is innovative and original, particularly for its time, but the 20th century has seen much of Zamyatin’s predictions come to pass, and so a 21st century reader may view political ideals which were controversial in the 1920s Soviet Union with a more lukewarm attitude. (“Great, dictatorship is bad—where have I seen that before?”) What differentiates Zamyatin’s novel is that he does not make politics his central focus. Instead, he is much more concerned with what drives outsiders, outcasts, rebels, etc. What is this inner magic that causes certain people to react violently when oppressed, while others remain docile, happy slaves? Zamyatin’s answer is an intriguing one, stemming from millennia-old philosophical debates, with roots in the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Aristotle, and the Enlightenment: imagination; passion; the ambiguities of interplay between the “rational” mind and the “irrational” body. Regardless of the amount of influence a society exerts over its constituent members, it will never be able to account for human will. D-503 is the product of a pro-totalitarian education—and yet he rebels. The cause is manifold: forbidden lust for a revolutionary; terror and excitement in the face of the unclean, irrational, uncontrollable world outside the orderly United Nation; and pure, simple, immovable choice. Like Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover—the hypothesized originator of all motion and action in the universe—D-503 makes choices, not because of his political-economic environment, as Marxists claim; nor because of the will of God, as the pious proclaim; nor “because” of anything necessarily held purely within the realm of ideas.

Rather, he chooses to rebel because he discovers that no matter what the “rational” commands of the mind—whether that mind is contained within the human brain or the head-of-state—there are certain facts, certain ambiguous and discomforting realities about the body, and about the natural world, which will not obey. Love, for instance, falls under the jurisdiction of no law.

But the tragedy of We is that this is no way to start a revolution. D-503’s conflict is apparent throughout the novel: he wishes to remain a part of the United Nation, but cannot suppress his lust, his needs, the realities of his life. The other revolutionaries he meets are fundamentally nihilistic, not caring for liberty, and instead demanding change, destruction, a paradigm shift for its own sake. They forsake the mind and pursue the bewildering pain of a life of pure hedonism, pure chaos. D-503 is caught in the middle, a part of neither the totalitarian camp nor the anarchist camp. He has discovered choice and the power of his own spirit to overcome indoctrination, but society has so disarmed him by eradicating any conception of freedom or individualism as to leave him entirely without defense. He is a blundering, tragic figure—a man who could have been a hero, if he had not been stunted from birth.

But most importantly, he is a lesson, a warning to any society which thinks it right and proper to suppress the once-every-thousand-year blooms of the human spirit. Self-destruction is the only result of such injustice. Hopefully, the world has learned this by now. But, if not, it can always look back to Yevgheniy Zamyatin's brilliant masterwork.(less)

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Oct 10, 2009 Kelara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Absolutely brilliant.

We is the story of a future in which the citizens of a society, known as "digits", all maintain the same mindset: allegiance to the Do-Gooder. In this world, everyone stays inside the Green Wall, everyone wears a uniform, and everyone wakes and sleeps at the same time. Everything is mathematical; the "chaos" of past music has been refined to something more precise.

The digits have no problem with this way of living, including digit D-503, the story's protagonist. When D-503...more

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Aug 20, 2007 Jeff Toto rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who has read 1984 and Brave New World...

This was a very challenging read; in many ways I feel a second read will be necessary to better comprehend this book.

Zamyatin's protagonist, D-503, is a mathematician as well, and as such, he consciously eschews flowery language. Natasha Randall's translation is excellent, and she keeps Zamyatin's sentence fragments and sudden exclamations intact. Nestled among these, however, are descriptions of startling imagery ("Only a gaunt gray shadow is slowly crawling up the bluish stariway, sketched in...more

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Mar 24, 2011 William rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: russia, translation, fiction, dystopia

We (written 1920-21; suppressed in USSR until 1988) fits under the heading of retro-dystopias. Zamyatin's real interest here is the impossibility of being fully human in a totalitarian society. His future is not technologically superior. There's very little that might be called high-tech. In the way it is both forward-looking and dated, the mood it inspires it is rather like that of watching Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I liked that. It was like finding this artefact of world lit. A piece of the his...more We (written 1920-21; suppressed in USSR until 1988) fits under the heading of retro-dystopias. Zamyatin's real interest here is the impossibility of being fully human in a totalitarian society. His future is not technologically superior. There's very little that might be called high-tech. In the way it is both forward-looking and dated, the mood it inspires it is rather like that of watching Fritz Lang's Metropolis. I liked that. It was like finding this artefact of world lit. A piece of the history of literary dystopias, and one that influenced Orwell. But it's worth reading for more than simply historical reasons. In Cormac McCarthy's The Road we are in a post-technological future. In We science is neatly at the service of OneState. Thanks to "our glass," with its steel-like properties, buildings are transparent so one can see everything everyone else does. Except during sex when one can lower one's blinds, with prior authorization of course. The fictional patterning is strong throughout, but there are these inconsistencies of logic too. For instance, the spy agency of OneState known as the Guardians seems inanely feeble in comparison to, say, the efficient Stasi of 1984. But then Orwell was writing more than 25 years later when ideas like television were very much in the air. For D-503 everything is fine and dandy in his freedomless world of OneState. He begins by being a rather tiresome booster for its "ideals." He is happy sharing O-90's favors with R-13. He is happy with his work on the INTEGRAL (all caps) which is some sort of missile, time-capsule affair destined for other civilizations on other planets. (Later, when it flies, I was assailed by mental footage of Buck Rodgers' low-tech rocket jiggled on string before the camera.) Everything is fine with D-503 until he falls passionately in love with I-330, who is both beautiful and a willful transgressor of the conformity of One State. She is, in short, a revolutionary. Passionate love overthrowing one's otherwise well-ordered world is one of the great themes of world literature. Philip Roth's The Dying Animal springs to mind most readily, but the examples are vast. I-330 is constantly gaming the system. And because D-503 is head over heels in love with her, he's drawn into her crimes for which death appears to be the only possible punishment. There are a number of disconnected images, scenes that don't quite fit with the otherwise lucid patterning of the novel. It's as if the book never made it through it's final draft. But you've got to forgive that. It is after all an artefact. If you're seeking perfection this is not your novel.(less)

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Jan 30, 2008 Joshua rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone interested on where 1984 got its ideas from

Shelves: classics, sci-fi-and-fantasy

Completed in 1921 and banned in it's native Russia for over 50 years, Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is generally considered the grandfather of dystopian literature. Before Orwell had his Big Brother, and before Huxley had his Brave New World , Yevgeny had We and the all-powerful Benefactor. Hugely inspirational to Orwell and Huxley, Yevgeny created a world that in my humble opinion, was better than the ones that followed.
The novel revolves around a man named "D-503" who lives in a totalitarian soci...more

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Dec 30, 2007 Deana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone interested in Utopian societies or mathematics

Recommended to Deana by: Alex

Shelves: 2007, borrowed, 4-5stars

The particular translation I read of this book was by Mirra Ginsburg, and is a somewhat older translation.

I really enjoyed this book. But then, I've often enjoyed books about utopian societies. This one was apparently one of the first, if not THE first to theorize about a supposedly utopian/dystopian society, with 1984 and A Brave New World following in its footsteps.

The book was originally written in Russian, and there were times when I could tell that certain aspects of the book didn't map wel...more

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Nov 01, 2008 Ben Loory rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is said there are flowers that bloom only once in a hundred years. Why should there not be some that bloom once in a thousand, in ten thousand years? Perhaps we never knew about them simply because this "once in a thousand years" has come only today?

Blissfully, drunkenly, I walked down the stairs to the number on duty, and all around me, wherever my eyes fell, thousand-year-old buds were bursting into bloom. Everything bloomed-- armchairs, shoes, golden badges, electric bulbs, someone’s dark,...more

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May 02, 2008 Yulia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: russian-translations

I'm still trying to decide which I preferred, this or 1984. Both had flawed writing, but does this get points for having been written first (1924 vs. 1949)? I believe so. Some mistake his having translated Orwell into Russian for his having been inspired by Orwell and not the reverse. It's unbelievable.

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Jan 13, 2013 Anabel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

No me extraña que su publicación (1921) le costara el exilio de la URSS. Lo que me sorprende es que le dejaran salir.
Entiendo por qué se la considera predecesora de 1984, el estilo de control que el Estado ejerce sobre el individuo es semejante. No existe privacidad (sólo para los momentos de sexo), los ciudadanos no tienen nombres, sino que se denominan por una letra seguida de una cifra (el protagonista es D-503) y se les deshumaniza por completo, obligándoles a caminar al son marcado, hasta...more

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Mar 06, 2012 Lucille rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopia, for-school, science-fiction

This is a strange novel. The narrator D-503 starts as a strong supporter of the One State. Then he meets a woman, I-330, who starts to challenge the perfectly organized structure of his world. Every hour of the day is rigidly controlled by the schedule of hours. People who go against the One State face the Benefactor's Machine, which literally vaporizes people and turns them to a puddle of water. D-503 is the first engineer of the Integral, a spaceship which will be sent into outer space to trai...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Bethan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, regular-fiction

(A little horrified to find that Orwell practically stole much of this to remake into admittedly the better Nineteen Eighty-Four while I don't care so much about Brave New World...)

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We chronicles the engineer D-530's struggle as he gets pulled into insubordination by a woman. I-330, like Eve, tempts him from the 'paradise' of the ordered world of the One State and his sexual creature O (makes me think of The Story of O in addition to the style of writing with its curious perfection and...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Tzeck rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: anti-utopia

Антиутопията на антиутопиите! Пред която се кланят и Оруел и Хъксли. "Ние" на Евгений Замятин. Книга-постулат е това. Чете се на един дъх, но този дъх е вледеняващ. Няма по-съвършено описана и представена антиутопия от това. Няма! Не е възможно да има по-смразаващ и ужасяващ всеки свободомислещ човек свят от този - светът на Световната държава! Свят, протичащ в непроменящ се ритъм. Свят без чувства, без личности, без имена. Светът на огромната всеобща човешка машина, в която индивидът е само чар...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Zzoeeeee rated it 4 of 5 stars

A very good representation of what it would be like to be the first person to dream in a world without dreams. His imagination seems to permeate into his everyday life to the point of insanity and the reader begins to question whether this is worse than living with an entirely logical mind. The dichotomy D-503 faces between his vague urge for freedom and the security of being under OneState rule is possibly more interesting than the simple fear of discovery faced by Winston in 1984.

Plus I fell a...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Denae rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, challenge-1010-by-2020

Yevgeny Zamyatin described We as "my most jesting and most serious work." Having read nothing else by the author I cannot completely concur with the statement, but serious and jesting it certainly is. We describes a supposedly utopian society based on mathematics and a petroleum based food substance. (If the latter seems an odd choice, keep in mind that the book was written in 1920.) This society is the result of a two hundred year war in which all but 0.2% of humanity is wiped out and the remai...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Marts (Thinker) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, classics, dystopia-or-utopia, 1001-books-you-must-read, e-reader, 2012-reads

A futuristic dystopian novel in the form of journal entries written by protagonist D-503.

Highlights:
- D-503 lives in the One State
- this state is made almost entirely of glass so that the secret police can keep track of your every move easily
- people have to wear similar clothes and march in step with each other
- people are referred to by numbers which carry also a consonant for males and a vowel for females
- people are assigned lovers and the hours to meet them
- D-503 is chief engineer in the...more

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Sep 16, 2008 John rated it 2 of 5 stars

The two stars is not meant to suggest that I don't appreciate the historical importance of this book. As is often noted, it is one of the earliest novels to depict a dystopian totalitarian future, written in 1924 -- before "1984" and "Brave New World." So while two stars may strike some as churlish, I admit that I found Zamyatin's narrative poorly executed and the portrayal of the totalitarian state one-dimensional and unbelievable.

This is also a problem that I have with 1984. It would be more e...more

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May 04, 2008 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

When the creators of badass shit like ‘Logan’s Run’ and “1984” are eager to cite your output as significant and influential, you’ve got the goods. With “We”, Zamyatin earns those lofty credentials, and also wins the endearing faith from its readers.

With the 200-Years War in the remote past, a post-apocalyptic society known as OneState rises amidst the aftermath by embracing the tenets of efficiency expert Frederick Taylor and crafts a futuristic paradise, a new world built around the sensibili...more When the creators of badass shit like ‘Logan’s Run’ and “1984” are eager to cite your output as significant and influential, you’ve got the goods. With “We”, Zamyatin earns those lofty credentials, and also wins the endearing faith from its readers.

With the 200-Years War in the remote past, a post-apocalyptic society known as OneState rises amidst the aftermath by embracing the tenets of efficiency expert Frederick Taylor and crafts a futuristic paradise, a new world built around the sensibilities of timetables, predictability, and homogeneity. Surely, many people would call this bravest of new worlds a dystopia; populated by soulless automatons, blindly herded and corralled for fear of the infallible wrath of their authoritarian overseer, The Benefactor. Human emotion on the cusp of obliteration, man emulating his own machines, you slavishly labor for ‘work units’ instead of cash on the barrelhead, privacy and individuality concepts undreamt: and one thinks, “there can’t really be yet another book out there about the ultimate totalitarian state which emerges from near-extinctive global catastrophe in the distant future, can there be?” I could try a re-assurance tactic, by stating that Penguin (the publisher themselves, of this edition) claims this is the grand-daddy of them all, the progenitor of all the righteous stories in a similar vein to follow, but, seeing as I haven’t read every damn book in the world, I can’t really validate this claim. What I can say is this: don’t think of this as the worse thing that can happen to people/society/yo mamma, quit thinking of this genre as ‘dystopia’, most of it is simple and desperately needed social progress. I could be sold into moving here in about two minutes; “breeding is strictly regulated, children are reared by the state like livestock, you can register to fornicate with anyone of your choosing, poverty doesn’t exist, and silly and irrational ideas like free-thought and belief have been cast aside” says ID-10-T, the real estate agent. I briefly consider that I’ll never again have to think about crap like car insurance, calling my folks, making ends meet so I can feed my vicious pumas something besides Sam’s Choice Kitty Chomp, or f#cking ironing. No, instead I can give up the fruits of the imagination (which includes rubbish like the movie Gigli, The Bell Jar, the Bible) to voyeuristically get my groove on from any partner from a communal p@ssy pool and spend my time around a populous possessing uncharacteristic common sense and rational social planning. And the price of admission, laboring for a rancorous socially-manifested monstrosity called The Benefactor. Christ, I’ve settled for far less at every job I’ve ever had. That’s probably why I like this genre of story; but alas, someone always has to go and fuck it up.

In this Russian account from the 1920s, that person is I-330, a complete bitch and miscreant. She belongs to an underground organization with the single goal of undermining the benevolent designs of The Benefactor, and this group has to strike while the anvil is hot, as OneState is undertaking a mission of extraordinary magnitude; to spread their wisdom into space on the space-rocket-thing INTEGRAL!! Holy f#cking shit!! Heaven forbid! That’s right, the plan that OneState has to get their message out there is to load up a space vessel with their history, governing laws, and recommendations for sensible living…and let the cosmos beware. In order to prevent The Benefactor from spreading his poisonous dogma into the reaches of space, this renegade group is going to need an inside man, a saboteur of unbelievable station: D-503, a firm believer in the inherent righteousness of his society, and the Dude-In-Charge of all operations involving the INTEGRAL.

The question is, how does the resistance movement sway an acolyte of this society’s greatness to join their ranks? The answer is simple, with the same thing that tempted Herod to deliver John the Baptist’s head on a platter, the same thing that’s been used to lure men to unspeakable ends since the dawn of time: P@ssy. For anyone who doesn’t believe me, go back to your silly scriptures and realize that Cain was icing Abel for one reason alone: to improve the p@ssy quotient. This shit is true, I’m not clever enough to make that up.

So, I-330’s allure is infecting our main man, D-503, and he’s slowly succumbing to her antisocial whims; he’s skipping work, checking out vestiges of the past, and writing a journal (you’d think OneState would be a little less sloppy in matters of security, especially when it concerns the Dude-In-Charge overseeing their latest technological advancement). Is D-503 willing to go the last step, to help bring upon the demise of the society that’s previously seemed so rational and sensible? Is he ever going to actually get to tap I-330’s ass or is she just going to string him along endlessly? Is he going to get busted for his burgeoning involvement with the resistance and get some fatal face time with the Benefactor? How about you read the fucking book.
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About Yevgeny Zamyatin

Евгений Замятин
Yevgeny Zamyatin (Евгений Замятин) Russian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and essayist, whose famous anti-utopia My (1924, We) prefigured Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), and inspired George Orwell's 1984 (1949). The book was considered a "malicious slander on socialism" in the Soviet Union, and it was not until 1988 when Zamyatin was rehabilitated. In the English...more

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“You are afraid of it because it is stronger than you; you hate it because you are afraid of it; you love it because you cannot subdue it to your will. Only the unsubduable can be loved.” — 165 people liked it

“A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.” — 154 people liked it

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We (Ausgewählte Werke in vier Bänden #3)

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