From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Start date: March 22, 2016

Finish date: April 1, 2016

Discussion leader: Gertie

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Jun 16, 2014 Cecily rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mental-health-victorian-madness, survivalist, dystopian-apocalyptic, postmodern-meta, scifi-future-speculative-fict, colonialism-exploration-empires, identity, solitary-protagonist, maths, russia

Breathtakingly brilliant, like the crystal glass buildings of the One State - in Natasha Randall's 2007 translation (older ones may differ a lot).
Seamlessly switching between beauty and horror:
“In the morning, the sun is rosy, transparent, warm gold. And the air itself is a little rosy, all steeped in the sun’s gentle blood.”
Laden with oxymorons: simultaneously Utopia and dystopia.
Polychromatic, synaesthetic, hypnotic, and often blurring reality and dreams.
Profound and prophetic, from a century ...more

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Dec 30, 2010 E.J. rated it liked it

Shelves: dystopian

WE is the progenitor of the dystopian novel and had I read it in its proper place (i.e. before 1984, Brave New World and Anthem) I doubtlessly would have liked it more. Unfortunately, because it took so long to get a proper English translation, its popularity only bloomed in the last two decades, and even then to an unsatisfactory degree.

WE is the story of a numbered man living among numbered people in the dystopian capital of what's left of Russia in the 26th century. The men and women have bee ...more

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