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We

by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Clarence Brown (Translator, Introduction)

3.96 · Rating Details · 44,565 Ratings · 2,575 Reviews

WE tells the story of the minutely organized United State, where all citizens are not individuals but only he-Numbers and she-Numbers existing in identical glass apartments with every action regulated by the "Table of Hours." It is a community dedicated to the proposition that freedom and happiness are incompatible; that most men believe their freedom to be more than a fai ...more

Paperback, 225 pages

Published 1993 by Penguin Classics (first published 1924)

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Mar 09, 2014 Nataliya rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Fans of classic dystopias

Shelves: favorites, awesome-kickass-heroines, russian-classics, excellent-reads, dystopia-postapocalyptic, 2014-reads

It's been a decade since I first read Zamyatin's masterpiece, and even though this book remains unchanged for almost a century now, the person who read it is not. A decade later, I'm a very different person, no longer the wide-eyed undergraduate who thought she had the world all figured out. Physically, I still look under twenty (thanks, youthful genetics!) but mentally time has added a bit more life experience, an overdose of cynicism, a few collisions with the rougher edges of the universe, an ...more

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Feb 21, 2015 Forrest rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

George Orwell, you poser. You punk. You . . . thief! I heard that you had read this before writing 1984. But I didn't expect Zamyatin's writing to be so superior to yours. And it is. It is so much more intriguing than your sterile work. D-503 is so much the better character than Winston. And you rob I-333 of her power and respect by demoting Julia to the role of a sexual object that stirs Winston to action. Yes, D-503 is stirred to action by I-333, but she's the political activist, the intellige George Orwell, you poser. You punk. You . . . thief! I heard that you had read this before writing 1984. But I didn't expect Zamyatin's writing to be so superior to yours. And it is. It is so much more intriguing than your sterile work. D-503 is so much the better character than Winston. And you rob I-333 of her power and respect by demoting Julia to the role of a sexual object that stirs Winston to action. Yes, D-503 is stirred to action by I-333, but she's the political activist, the intelligent one in this revolution. Besides, Zamyatin had the guts to apply a letter and a name to his characters, while your very English "Winston" makes your work smack of parochialism and, frankly, condescension. D-503 is the universal toadie and I-333 the universal revolutionary.

"Winston"? Really? Were you trying to evoke Churchill? Somehow I sense . . .

Regardless of this, Zamyatin's prose is far better than yours. It never seems hackneyed, and rarely pedantic, though I suppose any novel that portrays rebellion against totalitarianism has to be somewhat pedantic. But because Zamyatin actually lived under a totalitarian state - TWO, actually! - and you only imagined what the Socialists would do in your imaginary world, he avoids much of the rhetoric that you seem to embrace, even while lampooning the imagined society of Big Brother.

You see, despite his impersonal name, D-503 is so much more human than Winston. Yes, Winston is a revolutionary like D-503, but when I read him in comparison with the protagonist of We, Winston comes off as disingenuous. D-503 is the real deal, because Zamyatin was the real deal. The man was exiled by both the Tsar and the Communists for his free-thinking while you were worried about threats from within your country that never materialized. Maybe that's why 1984 feels so forced (remember that awful middle section outlining the world's politics - BORING!), while We feels so much more natural and easy to read.

Furthermore, Zamyatin's prose is beautiful. Yes, you have the occasional turn of phrase that came out well, iconic, even, but Zamyatin's writing is beautiful throughout, even in its stochasticity. It's the writing of a poet who actually lived under totalitarianism, not a vested academic who feared a potential threat. You were fighting despotism, Zamyatin was living with it. You surmised, he knew.

And for these reasons, I am doing the unprecedented (for me, at least): I am taking one of your stars and giving it to Zamyatin. Because, while his work isn't perfect, one must give credit where credit is due. Censorship, along with the the Cold War, gave you your day in the sun of America's high school classrooms, when, all along, those kids, myself included, should have been reading Zamyatin's work.

That's an injustice. Maybe you're not totally to blame. Maybe Western society has to shoulder some of the guilt here. But . . . but . . . you copycat! ...more

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Oct 17, 2014 Ariel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Thoughts:
- If it was utterly up to me, I'd actually think about classing this more as a "utopia" rather than a "dystopia" understanding that they're ultimately the same thing.
- Living in glass houses is the most terrifying part of this novel.
- I-330 is basically a manic pixie dream girl.
- The commentary on the Russian Revolution and Socialism are heavy, bro.
- Zamyatin had a FASCINATING life that very much influences this book.
- The writing style wasn't my thing. It was by no means bad, but it ju ...more

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Jun 15, 2014 Henry Avila rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A city of glass, 1,000 years in the future, domed, with a green wall, to keep out all the undesirable, primitive life forms. Animal, human, vegetable or insect...A clean and sparkling place, for its millions of citizens, everything and everyone, has a schedule, the perfect "One State". No privacy, people have numbers for names, they dress (light blue uniforms) , and eat the same food, live in small, sparse apartments, which are transparent. No drinking or smoking, even sex regulated by, yes, an A city of glass, 1,000 years in the future, domed, with a green wall, to keep out all the undesirable, primitive life forms. Animal, human, vegetable or insect...A clean and sparkling place, for its millions of citizens, everything and everyone, has a schedule, the perfect "One State". No privacy, people have numbers for names, they dress (light blue uniforms) , and eat the same food, live in small, sparse apartments, which are transparent. No drinking or smoking, even sex regulated by, yes, an appointment. Regular daily walks, pep talks at auditoriums, to keep all, motivated. Thousands sing and listen to the sacred words, they have heard, countless times before. Guardians to help the "Benefactor's" rules, be followed, timetables are enforced! Any deviations, are rigorously crushed. D-503, is the chief, in charge, of building the spaceship, Integral, now the perfect society, can conquer space, soon bringing happiness and order, to a chaotic universe. D-503, has a regular sex partner, 0-90, but she falls in love, with the mathematician, the State, doesn't approve, emotional entanglements. It causes disorder, in a strict culture, no more conflicts! The blue planet, was devastated, after the 200 - year - long war, 99% of the population died. Then he sees 1-330, a Will -o'-the- Wisp, forever coming and going, befuddling D-503. He can never differentiate, reality from a mirage, when she's around, a brilliant man, who returns to Earth. Love reduces people to silliness, misery and sometimes, a little euphoria, but there is something strange going on, a secret, she has an agenda. His best friend, R-13, is somehow connected, the poet, is full of big dreams, what ? Mad Revolution, unthinkable, "Unfreedom", is paradise, D-503 is scared ... He is taken by her, amazingly, outside the walls, he feels naked, uncomfortable . Seeing crawling things, always moving about, in the frightening, and unknown green environment, is the vegetation, very unhealthy ? Yellow fruit, which D-503, recognized, from ancient books, in old museums. The hot sun shining down, nothing to regulate it here, humans too, dressed unalike ... Weird, they don't look any different, from us. The wise man, is drawn deeper into a plot, he just can't say no, to the beautiful, 1-330. Causing much turbulence between he and dear, jealous, 0-90, but he is being watched, closely, by the Guardians. Does he risk torture and death, for the woman he loves, who may just be using D-503, for her own, personal ambitions? Still the builder, is a romantic, at heart, in a civilization, that doesn't believe or tolerate, such nonsense. What will it be, a bland but safe existence, all the worries, taken care of, by the suffocating, inhuman, State ? Not very fulfilling, or an exciting, prospect, an unfamiliar, perilous world? ... And Birds are seen, inside the city ... ...more

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Apr 08, 2012 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: pants-crapping-awesome

Well, I can see why We by Yevgeny Zamyatin was 'problematic' for the Soviet regime. It unequivocally debunks the utopian collective ideal. Communism (in practice, if not in theory) demands each of its fellow-travelers to exist on a purely atomic level. Good, responsible communists are mere corpuscles in a bland, unfulfilling social body. Sure, economic equality seems like a nice ideal, right? A cute ideal, even? But aside from being virtually impracticable (because humans will always be human), Well, I can see why We by Yevgeny Zamyatin was 'problematic' for the Soviet regime. It unequivocally debunks the utopian collective ideal. Communism (in practice, if not in theory) demands each of its fellow-travelers to exist on a purely atomic level. Good, responsible communists are mere corpuscles in a bland, unfulfilling social body. Sure, economic equality seems like a nice ideal, right? A cute ideal, even? But aside from being virtually impracticable (because humans will always be human), however, it becomes a nightmare when individuals are forced to relinquish their selfhood at the altar of the purely collective.

The religiosity of communism has always embarrassed me. All these puffed-up intellectuals imagining they've thrown off the weight of myth and simplistic, primitive 'gods' when they've only invented a new one—all the more absurd for its rationalist pretensions. Call me a decadent bourgeois if you wish, but I am unwilling to give up my individualism—yes, including my selfishness!—for the sake of some theoretical, neutered society—an always-deferred happiness that resembles heaven to an almost satirical extent.

Zamyatin pulls no punches in dealing with these blind spots of Soviet totalitarianism. (And please don't infer that my condemnation of the Soviet model implies a wildly enthusiastic endorsement of the American model. America needs its own satires.) The narrative centers on a social cog named D-503 in some distant future who struggles to maintain his naive faith in the new hypercollective world order in the face of a sudden, unexpected obstacle: love. Sure, it sounds really quaint, but We is a whirlwind of intellectual and emotional chaos, brought to life in strangely mathematical imagery and feverish mystery.

Reading this fractured, oddly-phrased story, I can only imagine that it was extremely difficult to translate, so I'll point out that I read the fairly recent Natasha Randall translation put out by the Modern Library. I can't vouch for other translations, but this one is modern, gripping, and evocative. The final fifty pages, coupled with the coffee I was drinking, actually gave me anxiety. And now that I close the book, I'm left with this vague sort of dread-slash-melancholy. I consider that a good thing. The truly great books are the ones you feel even when you aren't reading them. ...more

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Jan 14, 2017 Bill Kerwin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, russian

Let’s play “Guess That Groundbreaking Novel”!

Question: A party functionary who is recording his experiences in a journal lives in a future fascist society which maintains its solidarity by compulsory attendance at public events dominated by a remote, all-powerful leader. He meets a woman, a secret rebel who expresses her revolutionary impulses through her sexuality, and the two of them carry on an affair in room in an old house which symbolizes what life was like in the days before the new soci ...more

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Feb 28, 2016 Lyn rated it liked it

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin is a must read for a student of the Dystopian genre.

Published in 1920, before Brave New World and well before 1984 (which could even be considered a second generation 1984 as Orwell began his seminal work after reading a French translation of We) Zamyatin’s vision is well before his time.

Writing in response to his experiences with the Bolsheviks but without a direct link to the communists, We takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where pockets of “civilized” humanity s ...more

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Oct 04, 2016 Fabian rated it really liked it

Sci-fi's in my top three least favorite fiction genres! However, this one is thankfully not Brave New World, has traces of madness and poetry both, and possesses the Waltmanesque quality of being organic, though the theme of Dystopian Machinery should be inevitably super-structured. The protagonist's POV is impressive. As builder of a space ship that will provide aliens (or: us) with an account of the glass metropolis (see: communism), he transitions from zombie troglodyte to someone infected wi ...more

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Jul 11, 2010 Amy Sturgis rated it it was amazing · 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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Dec 16, 2012 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalypse-and-dystopia, around-the-world, location-russia, sff-audio, sci-fi-fantasy, 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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Jul 10, 2012 Josh rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: library, read-2012, longish-reviews

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.)

---

Well, let's find out.

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

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Sep 19, 2016 Bettie☯ rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: BBC Radio Listeners

Recommended to Bettie☯ by: Isca Silurum

Shelves: slavic, classic, dystopian, sci-fi, published-1924, satire, translation, execution, summer-2013, soviet, communist-lit-richer, spaaaaaace, autumn-2016

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076l2s

Description: In a post-revolutionary future, OneState is ruled according to the principles of rationality. The penalty for dissent is death. D-503, the chief engineer of the state, meets the beautiful 1-330. Her initial intentions seem innocent, but soon D starts to question her identity and indeed his own.

The first great dystopian novel of the 20th century, written in secret in early Soviet Russia by Yevgeni Zamyatin. Stars Anton Lesser as D-503, Joanna Riding as I-330, Don Warrington as R-13, Brigit Forsyth as U, Julia Rounthwaite as 0-90 and Russell Dixon as the Benefactor.

Adapted in two-parts by Sean O'Brien. Director: Jim Poyser

"Just an Old Fashioned Girl" (1958)

From wiki: Allusions and references: Many of the names and numbers in We are allusions to personal experiences of Zamyatin or to culture and literature. For example, "Auditorium 112" refers to cell number 112, where Zamyatin was twice imprisoned and the name of S-4711 is a reference to the Eau de Cologne number 4711.

The numbers [. . .] of the chief characters in WE are taken directly from the specifications of Zamyatin's favourite icebreaker, the Saint Alexander Nevsky, yard no. A/W 905, round tonnage 3300, where O–90 and I-330 appropriately divide the hapless D-503 [. . .] Yu-10 could easily derive from the Swan Hunter yard numbers of no fewer than three of Zamyatin's major icebreakers – 1012, 1020, 1021 [. . .]. R-13 can be found here too, as well as in the yard number of Sviatogor A/W 904.

Many comparisons to The Bible exist in We. There are similarities between Genesis Chapters 1–4 and We, where the One State is considered Paradise, D-503 is Adam, and I-330 is Eve. The snake in this piece is S-4711, who is described as having a bent and twisted form, with a "double-curved body" (he is a double agent). References to Mephistopheles (in the Mephi) are seen as allusions to Satan and his rebellion against Heaven in the Bible (Ezekial 28:11–19; Isaiah 14:12–15).[citation needed] The novel itself could be considered a criticism of organised religion given this interpretation. However, Zamyatin, influenced by Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground and The Brothers Karamazov, made the novel a criticism of the excesses of a militantly atheistic society.

The novel uses mathematical concepts symbolically. The spaceship that D-503 is supervising the construction of is called the Integral, which he hopes will "integrate the grandiose cosmic equation". D-503 also mentions that he is profoundly disturbed by the concept of the square root of −1—which is the basis for imaginary numbers (imagination being deprecated by the One State). Zamyatin's point, probably in light of the increasingly dogmatic Soviet government of the time, would seem to be that it is impossible to remove all the rebels against a system. Zamyatin even says this through I-330: "There is no final revolution. Revolutions are infinite."

...more

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Sep 20, 2015 Stuart rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literature, favorites, fantastic-weird, dystopian

We: An early dystopian masterpiece from Russia
(Also posted at Fantasy Literature)
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924) is widely recognized as a direct influence on George Orwell when he composed his dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four, and there are certainly strong signs of influence in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as well. Zamyatin edited Russian translations of works of Jack London and H.G. Wells, and We can be viewed as a reaction against the optimistic scientific socialist utopias promote We: An early dystopian masterpiece from Russia
(Also posted at Fantasy Literature)
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924) is widely recognized as a direct influence on George Orwell when he composed his dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four, and there are certainly strong signs of influence in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World as well. Zamyatin edited Russian translations of works of Jack London and H.G. Wells, and We can be viewed as a reaction against the optimistic scientific socialist utopias promoted by Wells (of note, Aldous Huxley claims no influence from We, stating he was also opposed to the utopian ideals of H.G. Wells).

Okay, so how does the book read now, in 2015, almost 100 years after its first English publication? Would it not be so dated as to be unreadable?

We must consider all the cataclysmic events that have happened since it was written: World War II, the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Cold War between the US and USSR, the fall of the Soviet Union, the economic rise of Japan and more recently China (where communism still exists but has been greatly tempered by the forge of capitalism), the increasing globalization of the world’s economies, not to mention the innumerable list of technological inventions, not least of which are computers and the internet.

It’s really pretty hard to read We without all the baggage that we are equipped with as members of today’s world, including all the dystopian SF books and films that have come since then. Even now some of the most popular YA series include Suzanne Collins’ THE HUNGER GAMES and Veronica Roth’s DIVERGENT series. But when Zamyatin published We back in 1924, there weren’t many earlier dystopian works other than Jack London’s The Iron Heel (1907).

But to return to the book itself, it is a very powerful exploration of a totalitarian society gone mad, where happiness is defined as the absence of free will, and emotions are considering mental illness. Society is completely regimented with mathematical precision by the government (headed by the iron-fisted Well-Doer), public executions of any aberrant Numbers are carried out by the Well-Doer under the Machine (all individuals only have letters and numbers to distinguish them), and nature is suppressed outside a Wall that encloses a perfectly organized geometrical glass city where citizens live like clockwork, regimented by the Tables of Hours down to their waking, working, exercise, eating, even copulation. The story revolves around D-503, builder of the Integral spaceship, which is intended to go forth and subject other planets to the benign dictatorship of the One Ship. He get’s involved with a dissident temptress named I-330, who drags him unwillingly into a plot to overthrow and destroy the United State.

The storyline now seems fairly familiar, and the writing, although beautifully poetic and very impressionistic, is sometimes confusing. Much time is spent describing the inner mental turmoil of D-503 as he struggles with the conflicting imperatives of his perfect geometric existence and love of mathematics and the wild, illogical, passionate and manipulative I-330. There is so much soul-searching and internal debates that the story itself really takes a back seat to the battle seething in his mind.

In the final analysis, although We succeeds marvelously in criticizing the absurdity of scientific utopias and the horrors of Soviet totalitarianism, it sometimes fails as a conventional narrative. For that reason, it does not have the same towering stature as a dystopian masterpiece in Western society that Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World have, though it fully deserves it. ...more

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Jan 04, 2010 Shannon (Giraffe Days) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, sci-fi, dystopian, 2009

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 08, 2012 Greg rated it it was ok

Shelves: sf-fantasy-and-other-dorky-shit

This review was written in 2003 for another website. I read the Clarence Brown Penguin edition of the book. I remember almost nothing about the book today, like the fact that the book takes place on a spaceship.

My alphabetical reading list is done. Yevgeny Zamyatin’s dystopian novel We takes up the tail end of my journey through the alphabet. This dismal piece of writing (and I’m not talking about the dystopian setting) is a perfect end for the self-imposed restrictions on my reading choices. Th ...more

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Sep 25, 2013 Leonard rated it really liked it

Shelves: literature-russian

We came before Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984, and Yevgeny Zamyatin proved himself a master of the dystopian novel so popular today. The novel tells of the protagonist D-503 coming-of-age, becoming more and more aware of his desires, imagination and individuality, until the Operation returns him to the collective.

description

In We, the One-State removes its citizens’ individuality by assigning alphanumerical designations to them and so it dehumanizes them more than the governments ...more

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Jul 08, 2015 Michael rated it really liked it

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

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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Mar 30, 2016 Roland Deschain added it · review of another edition

Shelves: distopya

sonbahar başlarında ithaki'den rusça aslından çeviriyle çıkan yevgeni zamyatin'in "biz" eserini okuyarak epub yapmaya karar vermiş, sonra da sayfa düzenlemesini çok kötü olması, çeviri hatalarının, anlatım bozukluklarının, yazım ve noktalama yanlışlarının fazlalığı nedeniyle vazgeçmiş ve kendime eziyet ederek not ala ala okuyup bitireceğimi ve yayınlayacağımı söylemiştim.

kitap elimde süründü ama sonunda kendime eziyet ederek not ala ala okuyup bitirmeyi başardım.

baştan uyarıyorum. çok çok uzun b ...more

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May 04, 2008 Chris rated it really liked it

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 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.
...more

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Nov 25, 2013 Christopher rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, fiction, russian, 20th-century

Transport yourself to OneState. Imagine a city, sealed off from the world by a Green Wall, inhabited by Numbers (each person is assigned a number rather than a name), all with their daily schedules planned out to the minute by a benevolent government. They live in transparent houses and wear identical uniforms and keep their heads shaved. The Benefactor has freed them from the bonds of freedom and bestowed upon them the blessings of homogeneity and collectivization.

We's main virtue is its abilit Transport yourself to OneState. Imagine a city, sealed off from the world by a Green Wall, inhabited by Numbers (each person is assigned a number rather than a name), all with their daily schedules planned out to the minute by a benevolent government. They live in transparent houses and wear identical uniforms and keep their heads shaved. The Benefactor has freed them from the bonds of freedom and bestowed upon them the blessings of homogeneity and collectivization.

We's main virtue is its ability to place the reader into a mindset wherein basic human liberties seem absurd. Near its beginning, D-503 reflects upon the fact that many years ago, his ancestors had days where they could choose to do whatever they wanted—they could eat what they wanted, wake up when they wanted, have sex with whomever and whenever they wanted—and he laughs over the ridiculousness of it all. "It’s so funny, so improbable, that now I’ve written it I’m afraid that you, my unknown readers, will think I’m making wicked jokes. You might suddenly think I’m making fun of you and keeping a straight face while I tell you the most absolute nonsense." What we call freedom, he calls the condition of animals. A detestable and meaningless state of being.

To the inhabitants of OneState, the most formidable quality is unpredictability. For something to break out of the realm of the ordinary, to rebel against the steady flow of life...

[...]apparently even we haven’t yet finished the process of hardening and crystallizing life. The ideal is still a long way off. The ideal (this is clear) is that state of affairs where nothing ever happens anymore, but with us ... Here, just have a look at this: Today I read in the State Gazette that two days from now there will be a Justice Gala in Cube Square. So that means that once again some Number has interfered with the progress of the great State Machine, again something unforeseen, unaccounted for in advance, has gone ahead and happened.

Every now and then, even in the most evolved and civilized OneState, revolution breaks out. There are those who do not and will never accept the utilitarian worldview, that what is best for the whole is best for each of its constituent parts.

But how can anyone argue against such strict logic? Who would want to reconnect the realm of humanity back into the environment of nature and originality and beasts??

O, mighty, divinely delimited wisdom of walls, boundaries! It is perhaps the most magnificent of all inventions. Man ceased to be a wild animal only when he built the first wall. Man ceased to be a wild man only when we built the Green Wall, only when, by means of that Wall, we isolated our perfect machine world from the irrational, ugly world of trees, birds, and animals...

Who would want to break down that wall? ...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Kim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommended to Kim by: Nataliya

Shelves: classic, drama, sci-fi, dystopia, political, philosophical, 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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Mar 06, 2016 فهد الفهد rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-russian

نحن

إحدى كلاسيكيات روايات الدستوبيا، حيث يسيطر نظام واحد على البشر، ويوهمهم بأن السعادة تكمن في فقدان الهوية الفردية والاندماج في المجموع، كتبت هذه الرواية في 1921 م مما يجعلها رائدة في مجالها، وسابقة لرائعة جورج أورويل 1984، ولكن ما جعل رواية أورويل أشهر وأكثر قراءة هي صعوبة (نحن) سردياً، حيث يشعر القارئ بشيء من الضياع وعدم فهم بعض ما يحدث، وهي طريقة ربما يحاول الكاتب من خلالها إسبال نوع من المستقبلية على الرواية، ذات الشعور الذي يمر به من يحاول قراءة كتاب قديم جداً، حيث بطل استعمال الكثير من ا ...more

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Apr 14, 2012 Sath rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Sath by: Aredhel

Shelves: classics, science-fiction, utopia-dystopia, 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 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! ...more

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Aug 20, 2007 Jeff Toto rated it it was amazing · 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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Feb 09, 2016 Raya Ka'abneh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

عندما قرأت لأول مرة على أحد المواقع بأن رواية (نحن) ليفيغني زامياتين هي التي ألهمت جورج أورويل ليكتب رائعته 1984...
سارعت لقرائتها، لأرى ما هو الكتاب الذي جعل أورويل يبدع تحفته تلك...
وكانت المفاجأة بأنها رواية مرعبة سوداوية إلى أبعد الحدود...

أن تكون مجرد رقم.. إنسان بدون اسم وبدون هوية في دولة شمولية.. تحت ظل حاكم أوحد هو (المحسن الكبير)...
كل جدرانها شفافة! فالكل مثل الفرد!..
الجميع يسير وفق جدول أوقات منظّم لا يحيد عنه أحد!
رواية مليئة بالأفكار والتأملات والخوف...

توضّح هذه الرواية بأن زامياتين ين ...more

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Jan 30, 2015 Fiona rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites, creepy-in-a-good-way, politics-exclamation-mark, comfort-zone-stretchers, highbrow-literachoor, borrowed-off-a-friend, in-translation, read-in-2014, worldview-shapers, the-future, speculating-wildly, protodidact

Decades ahead of its time. I don't understand how it is possible for a person to write these kinds of emotions so succinctly. Shut up and take my stars.

We caught me during a bad week - worksplosion, hormonesplosion, general worriedness about the state of the world. I don't want to talk about it in superlatives, but I think this book has been one of the good things to happen to me lately. Certainly it's one of the things I want to remember.

PREVIOUSLY -

Fun fact: this is the first book I ever bough ...more

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Sep 19, 2015 Miquel Codony rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Magnífic. I ja sabia, és clar, que Nosaltres és una de les tres pedres angulars a l’origen de la distòpia com a gènere, però no m’esperava que també pressagiés la *new wave* que tantes dècades va trigar a aparéixer. Zamiatin ja escrivia sobre l’espai interior i el seu estil és líric, impressionista fins i tot, i molt sofisticat. Com a fita literària dels origens de la ciència ficció com a gènere està a anys llum (per a mi) del que es faria pocs anys després amb l’Amazing Stories de l’Hugo Gernsb ...more

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Dec 08, 2014 11 rated it really liked it

Shelves: truth-wrapped-in-fiction

Author Yevgeny Zamyatin took part in two Russian Revolutions, hoping to overthrow the abusive and excessive Czarist system. He had joined the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), and believed Lenin's promises of a more equitable society, where labor controlled the means of production. By 1920, he tried to remain hopeful, but it was becoming apparent that the country was going in the wrong direction. Three long years since the Revolution had not moved anyone closer to a "workers' paradise" ...more

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Apr 12, 2010 Anastasia Fitzgerald-Beaumont rated it it was amazing

This is not a review as such, more an appreciation of the author.

I love Russian literature almost as much as I love English literature, though the two are as different as is possible to imagine. Writing, either in the form of prose or poetry, goes a long way to defining the character of a nation. Though this is generally true it's perhaps truest of all in relation to Russia and the spirit of the Slav people. I would go so far as to suggest that its impossible to achieve a full understanding of n This is not a review as such, more an appreciation of the author.

I love Russian literature almost as much as I love English literature, though the two are as different as is possible to imagine. Writing, either in the form of prose or poetry, goes a long way to defining the character of a nation. Though this is generally true it's perhaps truest of all in relation to Russia and the spirit of the Slav people. I would go so far as to suggest that its impossible to achieve a full understanding of nineteenth century Russia without a reading of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Gogol, particularly Dead Souls, the latter's rollercoaster masterpiece.

But it's someone else I'm thinking of, another writer of more recent vintage. He is the altogether remarkable Vevgeny Zamyatin, a writer of peculiar genius, who died in exile in Paris in 1937. He is best known for We, his dystopian novel that was to have such an influence on George Orwell, one of the streams that led to the creation of Nineteen-Eighty Four. Although written in the early 1920s We was too radical for the Russia of Zamyatin's day, only finally published in his native land in 1988, with the communist dictatorship teetering the threshold of destruction.

I came across We in my late teens, and immediately fell madly in love with the writer! I simply could not believe how remarkable it was for the time and the day. Once I read it I immediately set off on a quest to discover as much as I could about Zamyatin, and there is so much more than We. He wrote some wonderful short stories, stories clearly rooted in the tradition of Russian folklore, rich in imagery, rich in form and rich in the beauty of language. Some are poignant, others tragic.

There was one in particular that I think will stay with me always. It's called Comrade Churyagin has the Floor, a madly funny account of a peasant uprising in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. The landlord’s estate is invaded and the mob immediately threatens to destroy some of the antique statues he has collected. The landlord protests, saying that the semi-naked bearded figure is none other than Mars, the god of war. The peasants mishear this as Marx and then parade around with the thing! Then follows the "dawn of an entirely class conscious day."

Zamyatin, though he had been associated with the Bolsheviks, and imprisoned under the Tsarist regime, was far too individualist to breath within the literary straight-jacket that was pulled ever tighter around Russian literature after the Revolution. He was, by his own definition, a heretic; for without heresy there is no originality, no development and no growth. In the deepest sense of the term he was a revolutionary, understanding revolution to mean a state of constant flux and change.

But in 1917, so far as the communists were concerned, history came to a stop; there were to be no more revolutions beyond theirs. The only acceptable art was the art that slavishly served the state. Zamyatin fell victim to this kind of thinking well before the advent of Stalinist socialist realism. Early on Trotsky described him as an 'internal émigré'. In the press he found himself attacked repeatedly as a 'bourgeois intellectual.

Finally, unable to find any outlets for his work, and subject to a growing campaign of vilification, he wrote to Stalin in the summer of 1931, asking that he be allowed to leave Russia, a request that was granted after the intervention of Maxim Gorky. If he had stayed much longer its certain that he would have shared the same fate as Osip Mandelstam and Isaac Babel, along with so many other creative talents destroyed by the worst forms of expediency, political mediocrity and moral baseness.
...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Hans rated it really liked it

Shelves: political, social-commentary, sci-fi, 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 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". ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
The Book Vipers: Group Translated Fiction Read - We - November 2016 - SPOILERS ALLOWED	9	30	Dec 26, 2016 12:21PM
The Book Vipers: Group Translated Fiction Read - We - November 2016 - NO SPOILERS	1	31	Oct 11, 2016 05:36AM
Around the Year i...: We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin	12	22	Jul 30, 2016 01:03PM
The "S-shaped man"	7	130	Mar 11, 2016 06:50AM
I-330 and D-503's relationship	9	285	Mar 11, 2016 06:28AM

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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 Englis ...more

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“A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.” — 467 likes

“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.” — 267 likes

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