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Hmm... An interesting read, but dystopian novels always seem to have the same plot, and this was no exception. Whilst it's noted in the book that this inspired 1984 and Brave New World, it just felt vaguely like they'd ripped it off rather than been inspired by it.
I didn't like the translation either which didn't flow well in English. It felt stilted with nearly every paragraph ending with an ellipsis. I couldn't work out if that was the main character's style, but I would have expected it to become more flowing as he found his soul, but no.
Ultimately, books about the future always have the same problem of being in the time in which they were written. We have 1920s themes of newspapers, radio etc, whereas the modern dystopia we currently live in is far more that I think Zamyatin could have comprehended. Whilst the ideas of writing his thoughts on paper were acceptable to his system, writing something on facebook is not acceptable to ours.
Like the glass walls surrounding their mathematical city, the glass walls of our screens keep us loyal and obedient to the great benefactor of the state.
"The only way to eradicate crime is to eradicate freedom" p.47
"Today, poetry is no longer the insolent song of the nightingale: poetry is civil service, poetry is utility itself." p.81
"Nearly five centuries ago, when the Operating Room was just beginning its work, there were idiots who compared it to the ancient Inquisition, but this is just stupid: it's like saying a doctor performing a tracheotomy and a highway robber are the same thing just because both of them wield knives that cut people's throats. Clearly, one is a well-doer and the other, a criminal, one has a + and the other, a ..." p.95
I didn't like the translation either which didn't flow well in English. It felt stilted with nearly every paragraph ending with an ellipsis. I couldn't work out if that was the main character's style, but I would have expected it to become more flowing as he found his soul, but no.
Ultimately, books about the future always have the same problem of being in the time in which they were written. We have 1920s themes of newspapers, radio etc, whereas the modern dystopia we currently live in is far more that I think Zamyatin could have comprehended. Whilst the ideas of writing his thoughts on paper were acceptable to his system, writing something on facebook is not acceptable to ours.
Like the glass walls surrounding their mathematical city, the glass walls of our screens keep us loyal and obedient to the great benefactor of the state.
"The only way to eradicate crime is to eradicate freedom" p.47
"Today, poetry is no longer the insolent song of the nightingale: poetry is civil service, poetry is utility itself." p.81
"Nearly five centuries ago, when the Operating Room was just beginning its work, there were idiots who compared it to the ancient Inquisition, but this is just stupid: it's like saying a doctor performing a tracheotomy and a highway robber are the same thing just because both of them wield knives that cut people's throats. Clearly, one is a well-doer and the other, a criminal, one has a + and the other, a ..." p.95