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A review by katiescho741
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
3.0
This book took me ages to read! It's short but it's not exactly a page turning thriller. It's definitely worth a read if you're a fan of Brave New World or 1984.
It's in the form of a diary by a mathematician. Everyone has a combination of letters and numbers as their ID instead of a name and the Benefactor rules society. The majority of the book very obviously inspired sections of Brave new World... the pre-arranged sex, the organised activities and such on. Towards the end you can see where it inspired 1984. Even the ending is very similar.
I found it interesting that our protagonist seems to be on board with the society he lives in...he enjoys the logic and reason and organisation of it all. And he often disdains of the idea of individuality and embraces the concept of "we".
It's told in disjointed prose and the events are told in a bit of a chaotic way because it's a diary. The writing itself feels surprisingly modern, if I wasn't aware it was written in the 1920s I would have thought it a recent release. It hasn't dated too much with regards to technology or ideas. Except for the slightly racist obsession our protagonist has with his friend's lips. This detail is mentioned quite a lot and at first you think it's very forward thinking that Zamyatin has included a person of colour as a friend, but every single time the friend appears, there's several racist lines about his lips which are extremely awkward reading.
This book is interesting from the perspective of how it influenced the two big dystopia novels, but it was a tough book to get through. I'd recommend it if you're a fan of Orwell and Huxley but I can't say I would enjoy it outside of the comparison.
It's in the form of a diary by a mathematician. Everyone has a combination of letters and numbers as their ID instead of a name and the Benefactor rules society. The majority of the book very obviously inspired sections of Brave new World... the pre-arranged sex, the organised activities and such on. Towards the end you can see where it inspired 1984. Even the ending is very similar.
I found it interesting that our protagonist seems to be on board with the society he lives in...he enjoys the logic and reason and organisation of it all. And he often disdains of the idea of individuality and embraces the concept of "we".
It's told in disjointed prose and the events are told in a bit of a chaotic way because it's a diary. The writing itself feels surprisingly modern, if I wasn't aware it was written in the 1920s I would have thought it a recent release. It hasn't dated too much with regards to technology or ideas. Except for the slightly racist obsession our protagonist has with his friend's lips. This detail is mentioned quite a lot and at first you think it's very forward thinking that Zamyatin has included a person of colour as a friend, but every single time the friend appears, there's several racist lines about his lips which are extremely awkward reading.
This book is interesting from the perspective of how it influenced the two big dystopia novels, but it was a tough book to get through. I'd recommend it if you're a fan of Orwell and Huxley but I can't say I would enjoy it outside of the comparison.