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Loading... Weby Yevgeny Zamiatin (otherwise under Yevgeny Zamyatin)
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. It's a strange feeling when I finally read something that I've heard of is a classic -- though in this case which I had not heard of AT ALL before hearing it was a classic -- and then suddenly being swept away with enthusiasm for that book and wishing everyone interested in the subject had the opportunity to read it. [We] by [[Yevgeny Zamyatin]] was mentioned by [Ursula LeGuin] in an essay, I think in [[The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction]], as being both a wonderful book and very important in the history of science fiction. I finally stumbled across a copy, in which I learn that it was written between 1920 and 1921 in Russia where, at the time of publication, it had still never been published. It was this book that inspired the later dystopian works [[1984]] and [[Brave New World]]. It is written in a more stylized, you could say alien, fashion, although the characters are human. Highly recommended, both as a novel in itself, and as a spyglass into our genre's (and our world's) history. (  ) thesmellofbooks | Dec 27, 2009 |  Absolutely brilliant. We is the story of a future in which the citizens of a society, known as "digits", all maintain the same mindset: allegiance to the Do-Gooder. In this world, everyone stays inside the Green Wall, everyone wears a uniform, and everyone wakes and sleeps at the same time. Everything is mathematical; the "chaos" of past music has been refined to something more precise. The digits have no problem with this way of living, including digit D-503, the story's protagonist. When D-503 meets I-330, a seductive woman determined to defy the rules, she will introduce D-503 into a world he never imagined. One of the more disturbing aspects of this book is the way everyone willingly goes along with whatever they are told, based on the belief that the Do-Gooder is always right. They simply agree with everything they are told. Total, absolute control...it's a bit scary to think about. This book is an excellent warning against totalitarianism, a must-read. We deserves more acclaim than it has been given; in fact, I think it is just as good as 1984. Definitely take the time to buy and read it. You won't be disappointed. (  )3  fufuakaspeechless | Nov 18, 2009 | A lot like Brave New World, but somehow more organic. (  ) ccavaleri | Nov 12, 2009 | As others have said already, if you like 1984, Brave New World, Anthem, or Utopia, you'll like this one too. ( )1 |  Anagarika | Nov 3, 2009 | In a vivid, unified and ultra-socialist landscape Zamyatin plays out his vision of a future which is harrowing, disturbing and immediate. In a world of people who are addressed only as a series of numbers, a revolution is about to happen. This is essential reading for anyone interested in sociological, political or scientific matters. The book was a revelation in its time, banned in its country of origin for many years and proved to be the blueprint for Orwell's 1984. The book is modernist in style and reads incredibly quickly. The story unfolds in a series of cathartic diary entries made by the narrator to his unknown reader. A truly gripping, exciting and essential book. ( )3 olliesmith160 | Nov 2, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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Before Brave New World...
Before 1984...There was...
WE
In the One State of the great Benefactor, there are no individuals, only numbers. Life is an ongoing process of mathematical precision, a perfectly balanced equation. Primitive passions and instincts have been subdued. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall. But one frontier remains: outer space. Now, with the creation of the spaceship Integral, that frontier -- and whatever alien species are to be found there -- will be subjugated to the beneficent yoke of reason.
One number, D-503, chief architect of the Integral, decides to record his thoughts in the final days before the launch for the benefit of less advanced societies. But a chance meeting with the beautiful 1-330 results in an unexpected discovery that threatens everything D-503 believes about himself and the One State. The discovery -- or rediscovery -- of inner space...and that disease the ancients called the soul.
A page-turning SF adventure, a masterpiece of wit and black humor that accurately predicted the horrors of Stalinism, We is the classic dystopian novel. Its message of hope and warning is as timely at the end of the twentieth century as it was at the beginning.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:05 -0400)
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