We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Title: We

(Originally written in Russian)


Author: Yevgeny Zamyatin (Russian, 1884-1937)
Originally published: 1921
Page count: 153


Dates read: 8/27/19-9/4/19
2019 book goal progress: 22 out of 41
Back to the Classics category: Classic in Translation


Read my other book reviews for the challenge HERE.



Description on back of book:
We is set in the far-flung future well after a war that had lasted two-hundred years. D-503 lives in the One State, a lone city constructed almost entirely of glass so that the State can keep an eye on the citizens at all times. Life is organized by the hour in order to maximize proficiency and output from every inhabitant. People walk in step with each other and wear identical clothing with badges with their numbers/names for easy identification by the State's agents. 'I' is not allowed. Only 'We' exists.

First sentence:
"I shall simply copy, word for word, the proclamation that appeared today in the One State Gazette."

Favorite quotes:
"The ancient humaneness forbade the killing of a single individual, but not the partial killing of millions day by day. To kill one individual, that is, to diminish the total sum of human lives by fifty years, was considered criminal. But to diminish the sum of human lives by fifty million years was not considered criminal. Isn't that absurd?" (I can't help but think of climate change, even if that wasn't what he was referring to.)

"The sky is hidden by a milky-golden veil and you cannot see what is above, beyond it. The ancients knew that God - their greatest, bored skeptic - was there. We know that there is only a crystal-blue, naked, indecent nothing. But now I do not know what is there: I have learned too much. Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith."

"Why do you think that foolishness is bad? If human foolishness had been carefully nurtured and cultivated as intelligence has been for centuries, perhaps it would have turned into something extremely precious." (Now read the line again, but replace 'foolishness' with 'imagination/creativity.')

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 8 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Characters      - 8
Atmosphere   - 8
Writing Style - 7
Plot                - 9
Intrigue          - 9
Logic             - 7
Enjoyment     - 8
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

I enjoyed this read a great deal. 'People' is not used throughout the whole book, instead everyone is referred to as 'numbers.' All names are numbers. The main character is D-503 and other significant characters are O-90, R-13, and I-330. Males start with constants and females with vowels. Everyone is bald and has the same nose. The whole city is enclosed in glass and everything is viewable by everyone else. There are flying cars called aeros and they're working on building a space ship called the Integral.

I do want to mention that my copy was "published by Two-Gunner Pulp Press - 2017." The formatting and grammar are atrocious. Though I was quickly drawn into the narrative, I was always questioning. if the formatting is so bad, how accurate the translation of the actual story is. If you decide to read this, which I definitely think you should, I would highly suggest getting a different version of the book.

The story itself did a good job describing the new world to its readers and slowly revealed the underground revolution. I liked how it was written in the style of a diary that had an entry each day. It did end on a sad note, but that's to be expected with dystopian literature.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Yevgeny Zamyatin have the last words:

"A human being is like a novel: until the last page, you don't know how it will end. Or it wouldn't be worth reading."