Reader’s Recommendation: We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin

“A person is like a novel: Up to the very last page you don’t know how it’s going to end. Otherwise, there’d be no point in reading…”

Enslavement to aesthetic is the thought that struck me in the first pages.

It’s brilliant in the simplicity, and the originality. We, with its efficiently condensed chapters and playfulness with language is undoubtedly original and ingenious in producing the dystopia. Not politics, nor the common ground of the post apocalyptic. WE, with its purposeful capitalisation of the supplicant narrator of OneState begins as interesting black-box of a civilisation, and runs neatly in depicting perhaps the best anti-utopia novel in history. No resistance. No political allegory. Something more advanced, more totalitarian, more intelligent in how the world and such a world’s effect upon humanity could affect how the text would be written.

Unfreedom. The Green Wall. INTEGRAL. Each term and concept alone could make an intriguing story, and they are weaved into a single story that despite its relative size carries you through a story just as large as it needs to be.

What if there was mandated worship of rationality, the obliteration of freedom? How would you go about it, make it alien and wrong but not revoltingly so, not so obviously hateable as we see in say 1984 or Fahrenheit 451?

Drape this within the binds of the best of culture. Utilisation of poetry, which inspires a devotion, love and passion. The precision of time, which watch makers, motivational coaches and architects understand breeds an obsessive contentment in people. Give people happiness which they crave, assigned sexual partners, a sense of superiority, and how and why would they revolt?

Why would one argue against this is the brilliance of Yevgeny Zamyatin, who in classic Russian fashion says much about what is wrong without an authoritative air, it gives the same feeling of questioning the aching fall of Anna Karenina, how and where a Chekov story will end.

The uncertainty of anxiety, a pleasant numbness in social reassurance that groupthink provides, Yevgeny Zamyatin is very able at drawing up glass buildings and clear windows to common experiences which occurred in his life and likely ours, with a rather brilliant framing device evocative of classics like Frankenstein.

This novel was a gift from a dear friend, and my friend has never missed the mark when it comes to a beautiful question.

I find We to be classic science fiction. It gives that good breath of an original work, no hesitation getting to the ideas. It is short, memorable in its phrases and language, and its story sticks as heavily in the memory as the rather impressive cover art. Something in its own league, taking you into another world entirely tends to be a treat. As someone working steadily on their dystopia, who frankly does not care for the structure or overriding pessimism and -amusingly enough- uniformly presented worlds, We clearly inspired a great deal by merit of its intelligence, and an atmosphere that does not have a peer in anything else I’ve read.

This book is recommended and enjoyable for a reason, and I would not care to spoil it as the opening of those eager to explore its world draws you in very fast. The openness and artful nature of what we perceive as awful reality, yet more now than ever has the risk of being a very tangible evil in our present world gives We weight, while the novel itself is written with a light and entertaining quality. Zamyatin intended people to think, there is a boldness in arguing that blind positivity and the ‘virtues’ can be ever so slightly twisted to become an almost inescapable cultural prison is a stroke of genius. I have no doubt of We inspiring my writing, and perhaps an amusing coincidence, the style and verve of the story itself causes me to sing its praise while heeding its caution about the possible future.

Reference: 

We. Y. Zamyatin. Penguin Books, London 1993.