Synopses & Reviews
Zamyatin's intuitive grasp of the irrational side of totalitarianism- human sacrifice, cruelty as an end in itself-makes We superior to Huxley's Brave New World .
-George Orwell
An inspiration for George Orwell's 1984 and a precursor to the work of Philip K. Dick and Stanislaw Lem, We is a classic of dystopian science fiction ripe for rediscovery. Written in 1921 by the Russian revolutionary Yevgeny Zamyatin, this story of the thirtieth century is set in the One State, a society where all live for the collective good and individual freedom does not exist. The novel takes the form of the diary of state mathematician D-503, who, to his shock, experiences the most disruptive emotion imaginable: love for another human being.
At once satirical and sobering-and now available in a powerful new modern translation-We speaks to all who have suffered under repression of their personal and artistic freedom.
One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
-Irving Howe
Synopsis
Inside its glass dome the One State is a place of mathematical precision, a community where everything belongs to everyone, and integrity, clarity, and unerring loyalty reign over all. D-503, Builder of the Integral, is an honest Cipher, ashamed of the hairy hands that link him to a barbaric ancestry. And yet he is tormented by the figure v-1, that impenetrable x, the legacy that makes him lust, imagine, that has given him a soul. Consumed by his sickness and obsessed with the mysterious I-330, he escapes outside the Wall, to where the humans are wild, the land is green, and plots to overthrow The Benefactor and return his civilization to natural chaos are rampant. Only The Operation can return order to the perfect world, and allow reason to win.
About the Author
Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884–1937) was a founding member of the Modernist group, the Serapion Brothers.