We the Living (1936)

Just be yourself.
Hasn't that been parents' advice to kids since the dawn of time?
Don't try to impress people by putting on a show.
Don't just tell people what you think they want to hear.
Be who you are, and those who appreciate your genuine character will be true friends. I think this is the only book where Ayn Rand is true to herself, without putting on the big überconservative show which makes her later works so irritating.

What's that?
You think maybe Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead represent Ayn's true self?
Well, I can't prove you wrong, but I don't think that's the case. We the Living doesn't smack of ulterior motives the way those other books do. It contains no larger-than-life robberbaron supermen, no fifteen-page speeches, and no fortunes built on miracle inventions. Where Altas Shrugged was really just a platform to espouse Rand's "philosophy" of Objectivism, We the Living is refreshingly 100% Objectivism-free (see my review of Anthem for more details). Better still, it has authentic three-dimensional characters who seem like they might be actual people Ayn knew. This is historical fiction, after all. Many of these events actually happened.



We the Living tells the semi-autobiographical story of college-aged Kira Argounova, whose upper middle class family flees St. Petersburg during the 1917 revolution, and then returns in 1922, trying to make a new life for themselves within the communist system. When they show up at the doorstep of their former townhouse off Nyevsky Prospekt, they discover it has been seized and divided into a multiple-family dwelling. They are advised to apply for a license to live in one of the units if they feel a particular attachment to the old homestead, but as part of the hated former petty bourgeoisie, they should be aware their chances are slim. A similar scene occurs in [book:Doctor Zhivago|9782059] (but in DZ, the family actually obtains residence in their old home). It seems either such occurances were common, or perhaps Pasternak was influenced by We the Living. Food is rationed. Work is obtained only through a state agency, once the applicant has jumped through the many hoops needed to obtain a work license. Since political loyalty is valued more than ability, Kira discovers that many of her least-promising former classmates have risen to positions of authority over her. They hang around the city's most fashionable bars, dressed to the nines in leather finery unavailable to citizens outside the Party. They smoke tobacco the proles could never get their hands on, and enjoy luxuries like fresh fruit, which Kira secretly covets. Reading through these parts, one can practically feel the resentment rising in Ayn's blood as she writes it. Through a paper-thin veneer of fiction, anybody can see this is her story, narrated very personally, with a ring of truth her other novels lack.

Consider how Ayn's life closely mirrors Argounova's: Ayn's father had owned a profitable pharmacy in St Petersburg before the revolution, just as Kira's father owned a successful textiles factory. Both Ayn and Kira's families fled St. Petersburg to the Crimea in 1917, fearing for their daughters' safety. As I said, this novel contains events which actually happened to real people.



Ayn and Kira both returned to St.Petersburg (now Petrograd) in 1922, to find the social and political changes described in this book. They each managed to enroll at Petrograd University, after considerable bureaucratic resistance, and both found their career prospects after graduation to be severely limited, due to the continued stigma of their fathers' pre-Revolutionary social status. While both tried to leave the Soviet Union, only Ayn made it to America. Kira died at the border, which demands some explanation. Why did Ayn make the choice as an author to deny Kira a life in the West? Ayn always had a weakness for melodrama; did she kill Kira for the pure intense tragedy of it? Did she think it would put greater empahsis on the injustices of the Soviet system? Why else end the novel with a sympathetic character both bleeding and freezing to death, alone in the dark, in the middle of nowhere? It seems a bit too cruel, even for a novel whose entire point is outrage and cruelty.

If you enjoy deriding Ayn Rand's wooden characters or her preachy, didactic writing style, this book won't be much fun for you. But if you're a more thoughtful type, who is curious about where her ideas came from, this is the book that tells it all. Sure, We the Living has hints of the moral certitude that makes Atlas Shrugged so shrill and irksome, but the story is heartfelt and the characters believable. Unfortunately, this best of Rand's novels also happens to be her first, so maybe she should have quit while she was ahead. ( )

".......My heart is a tractor raking the soil,
My soul is smoke from the factory oil..." = page 163

I just 're-found" this old paperback in my old backpack stashed under my parents house. I never finished it. I originally found it in the back seat pocket hold-it-all on a Garuda flight from Indonesia...wondering if we'd ever make it through the electrical storm- the plane kept suddenly dropping and the lights flickering & I was frantically searching for the map/plan of the planes exit doors (there wasn't a map ;( so I started reading We the Living to calm my nerves. Back then Garuda pilots weren't well trained. Anyhow the actual paperback has traveled far. Inside front and back pages has listed various pilots who had picked up the book and read it between flights..and where they flew to - flight hours etc..also interesting reading. (Ballarat to Bermuda to Nassau to Mexico city to Acapulco to HNL to Nani to Sydney to Heathrow to Bangkok to Delhi to Tehran to London, to Sydney, to Longreach, to Djkarta....

I think I finally fell asleep after too many Arrack toddies...(Batavia Arrack is distilled in Indonesia. It is the "rum" of Indonesia & made from sugar cane & I used to like it in coffee though the arrack bought in roadside cafes was more moonshine than the real thing & infinitely stronger somehow). Before falling asleep I remembered thinking there were some political similarities between Russia and Indonesia at the time - well the police corruption to start with anyway and Arrack seemed to be the Indonesian peasant's vodka.. (1970's).

Ayn Rand has never been known for a great writing style, just for revolutionary ideas.

This book is rather boring. At the time that I read it, I remember liking just one single page. It's not a page that I agree with wholeheartedly; it's just a conversation I find (even fifteen years later) worthy of contemplation.


"Do you believe in God, Andrei?"
"No."
"Neither do I. But that's a favorite question of mine. An upside-down question, you know."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if I asked people whether they believed in life, they'd never understand what I meant. It's a bad question. It can mean so much that it really means nothing. So I ask them if they believe in God. And if they say they do -- then, I know they don't believe in life."
"Why?"
"Because, you see, God -- whatever anyone chooses to call God -- is one's highest conception of the highest possible. And whoever places his highest conception above his own possibility thinks very little of himself and his life. It's a rare gift, you know, to feel reverence for your own life and to want the best, the greatest, the highest possible, here, now, for your very own. To imagine a heaven and then not to dream of it, but to demand it." ( )

this was an excellent book. i really like rand and her books. i thought that i'd read this one but didn't remember so read it again/ course it turned out i hadn't read it yet. this book really gives you the feel of russian oppression. it takes you to the inside of both sides and gives you an interesting view. and of course she'd know. that's another reason i like this author she was there. also her philosophy and perspective is one that will make you think. ( )

Unlike Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s We The Living is a semi-autobiographical account of Kira Argounova’s rebellion against Vladimir Lenin’s new Soviet government in post-revolutionary Petrograd (St. Petersburg). It is a novel reminiscent of Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago; both scathing indictments of an oppressive proletariat culture and the subsequent suppression of individual freedom.
As usual Ayn Rand is verbose and pedantic but at her best when describing the deprived lives of the once prosperous and productive citizens of Petrograd as they struggle against the stifling control of a massive, brutal and inefficient centralized government. She is at her worst – as usual - when preaching her philosophy of Objectivism/individualism in long, drawn out monologues that she passed as dialog, which happened all too often.
A good read, taken altogether, but more fascinating for its detailed, insightful portrayal of post-revolutionary Russia’s moral and cultural decline than in its somewhat predictable plot. ( )