Take a photo of a barcode or cover
less_noise 's review for:
We
by Yevgeny Zamyatin
We is a political satire written by the Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin, describing a dystopian society where people don’t have names but numbers, they eat petroleum food, their ruler/God is the Well-Doer, and they all live in the United State where all the walls of the buildings are made of glass and people have controlled schedules. Everyone functions in perfect synchronization like the fingers of a hand or like the bees in a hive.
The main principle of the regime is that lack of freedom equals happiness. Freedom means disorder, chaos, temptation, criminal action.
The mistake of choosing freedom was fixed as a result of the Two Hundred Year War that determined the installment of the totalitarian regime.
The narrator and hero, D-503, is a shipbuilder whose current assignment is to build the Integral, an ellipsoidal ship meant to travel to outer space and to be used to conquer other civilizations. He is loyal to the system, in awe by his Well-Doer, but while writing in his journal, and after meeting I-330, he begins to question himself and everything around him, going back and forth from his state of equilibrium, of a perfect contributor to the United State, to helping the Mephis, a group of revolutionists outside the walls.
Many technical descriptions are captivatingly integrated in the novel and the mathematical symbolism is used in a very unique way, such as D-503’s obsession with the square root of -1 (imaginary number i) illustrating that having an imagination is considered an illness and people are supposed to undergo some kind of treatment for it.
My favorite aspects about this book are definitely the language and the descriptions, the inclusions of scientific notions being turned into artistic expressions. The following quote from the foreword somewhat explains why the author has the tendency and talent to combine two very different fields in such a manner:
(As a side-note, I think math and fiction are a great combo and I love it when a writer pulls this off in a natural way, which doesn't disrupt the flow of the narrative but complements it).
Published in 1924 in New York (it was banned in Soviet Russia), it is said that this novel influenced many great works such as George Orwell’s 1984 (one can immediately see the similarities in themes and details), and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (I'm not sure about this since I haven't read it yet). It’s one of the first novels of its genre and, even though it’s not as popular as the novels that took inspiration from it, I believe it’s a must-read for any sci-fi or dystopia fan who wants to explore the roots of many of today’s works of fiction, as well as to delight in reading a fairly short but well written book.
The main principle of the regime is that lack of freedom equals happiness. Freedom means disorder, chaos, temptation, criminal action.
Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.
The mistake of choosing freedom was fixed as a result of the Two Hundred Year War that determined the installment of the totalitarian regime.
The narrator and hero, D-503, is a shipbuilder whose current assignment is to build the Integral, an ellipsoidal ship meant to travel to outer space and to be used to conquer other civilizations. He is loyal to the system, in awe by his Well-Doer, but while writing in his journal, and after meeting I-330, he begins to question himself and everything around him, going back and forth from his state of equilibrium, of a perfect contributor to the United State, to helping the Mephis, a group of revolutionists outside the walls.
Many technical descriptions are captivatingly integrated in the novel and the mathematical symbolism is used in a very unique way, such as D-503’s obsession with the square root of -1 (imaginary number i) illustrating that having an imagination is considered an illness and people are supposed to undergo some kind of treatment for it.
My favorite aspects about this book are definitely the language and the descriptions, the inclusions of scientific notions being turned into artistic expressions. The following quote from the foreword somewhat explains why the author has the tendency and talent to combine two very different fields in such a manner:
Naval engineer and professional technician, he was equally devoted to mathematics and to the arts, and united logic and imagination, precision and fantasy. In his conversation he used technological or theatrical terms indiscriminately, and would say: "At this time I was living in the town of Nikolaiev; I constructed there several bulldozers and a few short stories."
(As a side-note, I think math and fiction are a great combo and I love it when a writer pulls this off in a natural way, which doesn't disrupt the flow of the narrative but complements it).
Published in 1924 in New York (it was banned in Soviet Russia), it is said that this novel influenced many great works such as George Orwell’s 1984 (one can immediately see the similarities in themes and details), and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (I'm not sure about this since I haven't read it yet). It’s one of the first novels of its genre and, even though it’s not as popular as the novels that took inspiration from it, I believe it’s a must-read for any sci-fi or dystopia fan who wants to explore the roots of many of today’s works of fiction, as well as to delight in reading a fairly short but well written book.