annebonnie's review
challenging
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
In itself not a badly written book, despite Ayn Rands political thought. I found myself more sympathetic to the characters towards the end, yet the strong dislike I first had never faded. The story is oft boring and repetitive. Kira makes little sense as anything but Rands self-insert character.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Rape, and Suicide
wwatts1734's review
2.0
In the foreword that she wrote for the 1959 edition of her own novel "We the Living", Ayn Rand wrote, "I had not reread this novel as a whole, since the time of its first publication in 1936, until a few months ago. I had not expected to be as proud of it as I am." Well, I'm glad that Rand is so proud of her own first novel. As for me, I am less than impressed.
The novel takes place between 1922 and 1926, during the turbulent years after the Bolshevik Revolution. Most histories and novels that I have read about that turbulent time tell of a Russia that was struggling for existence, barely legitimate in the eyes of her own citizens, in the midst of an ongoing civil war, and experimenting with a limited form of Capitalism that Lenin euphamistically called the "New Economic Policy." But that's not the Soviet Russia that Rand portrays in "We the Living". Instead, Rand describes a government that is an ultra-efficient in its oppression of its own citizens, which was able to find dissenters who merely think questioning thoughts about the new Soviet reality, and which is able to perform super-human feats to keep their own citizens in line.
I find many similarities between "We the Living" and Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle". Both novels were completed earlier in the careers of their authors, who both went on to write more influential works. Both are works of political propaganda. And both portray a world in which the oppressors (who are the evil Chicago capitalists in "The Jungle" and the Soviet government in "We the Living") can completely oppress anyone that they want. Granted that the political views of Sinclair and Rand are very different. But their political novels are very similar. It's ironic, isn't it?
I am no fan of the Soviet government. I really enjoyed Solzhenitzin's works that detail the oppression of the Soviet Union. I have no doubts that many people suffered from the Soviet tyrrany in the 1920s. But, please, even Solzhenitzin will acknowledge that the Soviet secret police were not Supermen. They could only do so much, in fact, must of the suffering that they caused was not because of their evil intent but rather because of their incompetence.
Another problem with Rand's novel is the same problem that exists in Rand's more well known novels, "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." That problem is Rand's political philosophy, which is a strange combination of Nietzche's UberMensch, Bakunin's Anarchism, and a good dose of narcissism. A healthy dose of narcissism. In fact, Rand's philosophy is the worship of the self, the dogma of narcissism. And narcissism, in literature as in life, leads to emptiness and disappointment.
"We the Living" is the story of Kira, a young daughter of a man who owned a factory in the days of the Czar, who wants to become an engineer in the new Soviet experiment. She falls in love with another pre-Soviet aristocrat named Leo, and she causes another man, Andrei the Soviet soldier and GPU agent, to fall in love with him. Now, Tolstoy used the device of the love triangle to masterfully tell the story of Anna Karenina in the 19th Century. In that novel, the triangle caused a tremendous amount of agony for Anna and her lovers. But in "We the Living", the love triangle is really no big deal to Kira. When her two lovers find out about each other, bad things happen, as you could imagine. But Kira is not in the least concerned. It's very strange.
This novel is heavy with the self-righteousness of Rand's philosophy. That makes it hard to work through most of the time. Granted, there are a few places where the novel looks as though it will become interesting. But it never really does. That's a shame, because Rand has a ton of things to work with, given her setting in 1920s Russia, the love triangle, and her amoral outlook. But she can't get it done. In the end, the novel fizzles and dies. It's very disappointing.
I would really not recommend this novel to anyone, unless that person is just absolutely in love with Ayn Rand, and even then it's iffy. If you want to read a great novel about the Russian Revolution, I would recommend Sholokhov's "And Quiet Flows the Don", Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" or Solzhenitzin's epic trilogy about the First World War and the revolution. It's really not worth reading "We the Living" if you can read any of those works.
The novel takes place between 1922 and 1926, during the turbulent years after the Bolshevik Revolution. Most histories and novels that I have read about that turbulent time tell of a Russia that was struggling for existence, barely legitimate in the eyes of her own citizens, in the midst of an ongoing civil war, and experimenting with a limited form of Capitalism that Lenin euphamistically called the "New Economic Policy." But that's not the Soviet Russia that Rand portrays in "We the Living". Instead, Rand describes a government that is an ultra-efficient in its oppression of its own citizens, which was able to find dissenters who merely think questioning thoughts about the new Soviet reality, and which is able to perform super-human feats to keep their own citizens in line.
I find many similarities between "We the Living" and Upton Sinclair's novel "The Jungle". Both novels were completed earlier in the careers of their authors, who both went on to write more influential works. Both are works of political propaganda. And both portray a world in which the oppressors (who are the evil Chicago capitalists in "The Jungle" and the Soviet government in "We the Living") can completely oppress anyone that they want. Granted that the political views of Sinclair and Rand are very different. But their political novels are very similar. It's ironic, isn't it?
I am no fan of the Soviet government. I really enjoyed Solzhenitzin's works that detail the oppression of the Soviet Union. I have no doubts that many people suffered from the Soviet tyrrany in the 1920s. But, please, even Solzhenitzin will acknowledge that the Soviet secret police were not Supermen. They could only do so much, in fact, must of the suffering that they caused was not because of their evil intent but rather because of their incompetence.
Another problem with Rand's novel is the same problem that exists in Rand's more well known novels, "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." That problem is Rand's political philosophy, which is a strange combination of Nietzche's UberMensch, Bakunin's Anarchism, and a good dose of narcissism. A healthy dose of narcissism. In fact, Rand's philosophy is the worship of the self, the dogma of narcissism. And narcissism, in literature as in life, leads to emptiness and disappointment.
"We the Living" is the story of Kira, a young daughter of a man who owned a factory in the days of the Czar, who wants to become an engineer in the new Soviet experiment. She falls in love with another pre-Soviet aristocrat named Leo, and she causes another man, Andrei the Soviet soldier and GPU agent, to fall in love with him. Now, Tolstoy used the device of the love triangle to masterfully tell the story of Anna Karenina in the 19th Century. In that novel, the triangle caused a tremendous amount of agony for Anna and her lovers. But in "We the Living", the love triangle is really no big deal to Kira. When her two lovers find out about each other, bad things happen, as you could imagine. But Kira is not in the least concerned. It's very strange.
This novel is heavy with the self-righteousness of Rand's philosophy. That makes it hard to work through most of the time. Granted, there are a few places where the novel looks as though it will become interesting. But it never really does. That's a shame, because Rand has a ton of things to work with, given her setting in 1920s Russia, the love triangle, and her amoral outlook. But she can't get it done. In the end, the novel fizzles and dies. It's very disappointing.
I would really not recommend this novel to anyone, unless that person is just absolutely in love with Ayn Rand, and even then it's iffy. If you want to read a great novel about the Russian Revolution, I would recommend Sholokhov's "And Quiet Flows the Don", Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" or Solzhenitzin's epic trilogy about the First World War and the revolution. It's really not worth reading "We the Living" if you can read any of those works.
dbzvin's review
2.0
“We have to answer this! If we don’t—history will answer it for us. And we shall go down with a burden on our shoulders that will never be forgiven! What is our goal, comrades? What are we doing? Do we want to feed a starved humanity in order to let it live? Or do we want to strangle its life in order to feed it?”
- Rand, Ayn. We the Living (p. 389). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Fiction is designed to challenge us. As a registered democrat, I wanted to know more about Ayn Rand's work since it had a major cultural impact on the neoconservative movement. I chose her first published novel as a starting point, eventually I'll go through her whole catalog (currently I'm reading Atlas Shrugged).
I won't spend a lot of time explaining why Ayn Rand is a brilliant philosopher, story teller, political commentator, capitalist, and some may argue anarchist. Her depiction of the state only producing evil is very one-note, but her points are valid and worth our consideration. This review is solely on the scope of the book as a work of fiction.
Sure, fiction is a powerful tool to explore allegory but when Ayn Rand is hellbent on allegory, it's borderline preachy, and I think that can be said about her whole fiction catalog: Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Anthem, and now We the Living.
Kira Argounova is a strong-minded and outspoken young woman during the Russian Revolution. We see the effects life under totalitarian communist Russia in such horrid detail that any room for hope or optimism is crushed. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth in repetitive fashion through propaganda speeches, group-think dialog, and even the description of state-issued rations can bring about that sensation of stale bread. Kira falls in love with a man, Leo Kovalensky, who we presume is in trouble with the Soviet state, who at the beginning mistakes her as a prostitute and they end up living together. At the same time, Kira enrolls in an education program to study engineering. Listening to lectures propagandizing Leninist ideas she runs into her fair share of communist/socialist students and active members of Russia's secret police, one of which is Andrei Taganov. Andrei is romantically interested in Kira and together they all form the love triangle, if one defines love as the terms of self-interest. Leo and Kira, I feel, are in an open relationship but at the same time Leo is jealous of Andrei, and Andrei doesn't like Leo. Kira, although begins the story as a strong characters that professes no attachment to people (like some kind of ambitious logic machine).
The book felt dated and the writing prose okay. I can see Rand's Objectivist thought this early in her career in parts of the story. The proletarian speeches capture the spirit of the Russian Revolution. And the characters who fight for their desire to live, live in making their own choices, are admirable and compelling in their own right.
jrk's review
4.0
I enjoyed the perspective of a young lady's struggles in Russia. I also was captivated by the (paraphrased) "this is as close to an autobiography as I'll write" statement from Ayn Rand about We the Living since getting to glimpse (even somewhat) into the experiences (even if they're metaphorical) of the author behind the mind-opening (for me) Atlas Shrugged was incredible.
I think I'd read this book again and would recommend it to anyone who wants more Rand after reading Atlas Shrugged but doesn't yet want to take the other behemoth, Fountainhead
I think I'd read this book again and would recommend it to anyone who wants more Rand after reading Atlas Shrugged but doesn't yet want to take the other behemoth, Fountainhead
soft_rains's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ikolar's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
wawna's review
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
spicysav's review
3.0
was a gift from my aunt when I graduated highschool. maybe the first book-gift that i took really seriously.
kylewilkinson's review against another edition
3.0
A great ending elevates a stodgy and repetitive middle section. Also couldn't help but shake the feeling that Leo and Kira weren't the most intriguing of characters. Andrei's moral dilemma and his awareness of the corruption and the tyranny that engulfs his party is a more compelling subplot. Nonetheless, it sometimes works as a powerful commentary on a system that has no interest in people like them.