Before there was Huxley; before there was Orwell; there was Zamyatin. The grandfather of dystopian fiction wasn't George Orwell or Aldous Huxley; it was an obscure writer, one they both borrowed from. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin was written in-and smuggled out of-Soviet Russia. In it, the One State is a world where people are numbers, free will is a disease, and life has been reduced to a mathematical equation-that is, until one man tries to factor in the ultimate unknown: love.
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Before there was Huxley; before there was Orwell; there was Zamyatin. The grandfather of dystopian fiction wasn't George Orwell or Aldous Huxley; it was an obscure writer, one they both borrowed from. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin was written in-and smuggled out of-Soviet Russia. In it, the One State is a world where people are numbers, free will is a disease, and life has been reduced to a mathematical equation-that is, until one man tries to factor in the ultimate unknown: love.
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New. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 268 p. Wordfire Classics. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
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Fine. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. With dust jacket. 268 p. Wordfire Classics. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
This dystopian book is similar in many ways to Nineteen Eighty-Four, but was written over twenty years earlier in bolshevik Russia. Zamyatin perceives a future in which a tiny number of survivors on Earth live in the domed city of the "One State", where their every action is regulated to the last chew of their food.
Protagonist and narrator D-503 is writing a series of notes to the 'aliens' intended to be contacted via the Integral (basically, a spaceship) that he is in charge of building. The plan is to convert even extra-terrestials to the peace and solidarity of the One State. But when D-503 encounters the heretical and elusive I-330, both his life and the narrative start to run off the rails.
Zamyatin tentatively explores conformity, both in the in 'top-down' dictatorship from the Benefactor and in the pressure of the citizens' peers. Every wall in the One State is glass; every action (except sex) is open to view. This lack of privacy is similar to Orwell's ubiquitous viewscreens, except that here, there is literally no corner in which to hide.
Sadly, D-503 proves to be no hero.
This translation is readable and the story moves along at a reasonable pace. The book is only short, especially when compared to Orwell's lengthy tome. Definitely worth reading both in order to make a comparison, and it was instructive to see where Orwell may have got some of his ideas.
