Book Review: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

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Synopsis:

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We is set in an urban glass city called OneState, regulated by spies and secret police. Citizens of the tyrannical OneState wear identical clothing and are distinguished only by the number assigned to them at birth. The story follows a man called D-503, who dangerously begins to veer from the ‘norms’ of society after meeting I-330, a woman who defies the rules. D-503 soon finds himself caught up in a secret plan to destroy OneState and liberate the city.

The failed utopia of We has been compared to the works of H.G. Wells, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley. It was the first novel banned by the Soviets in 1921, and was finally published in its home country over a half-century later.

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My Review

There were two in paradise and the choice was offered to them: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness.

When I was studying for my masters, another student recommended We to me and I finally got around to reading it.

This classic novel was published in Russia in 1924 and has been described as the influencing 1984, Brave New World and others. This book was so controversial for its time, that Zamyatin couldn’t publish it in Russia under Stalin’s rule.

There are no more names, people are called numbers, which they wear on their chest. Everything runs to a tight schedule, right down to when they have sex. The main character D-503 is an engineer, working on a spaceship that will take them to other planets to colonise them. He follows the rules of society. Until he meets a lover involved with rebels, she makes him think about his soul, and position in this dystopian world.

My main issue was that I struggled with the narrative, I found the plot confusing at times and it took me a while to get through the novel. The book isn’t badly written I just felt that it was janky at times and it wasn’t to my taste.

It is worth a read, especially as it is one of the novels that inspired other dystopian worlds and I enjoyed the concept behind the novel however it isn’t one that I would read again.

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