We Audiobook By Yevgeny Zamyatin cover art

We

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We

By: Yevgeny Zamyatin
Narrated by: Grover Gardner
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Set in the 26th century A.D., Yevgeny Zamyatin's masterpiece describes life under the regimented totalitarian society of OneState, ruled over by the all-powerful "Benefactor." Recognized as the inspiration for George Orwell's 1984, We is the archetype of the modern dystopia, or anti-Utopia: a great prose poem detailing the fate that might befall us all if we surrender our individual selves to some collective dream of technology and fail in the vigilance that is the price of freedom. Clarence Brown's brilliant translation is based on the corrected text of the novel, first published in Russia in 1988 after more than 60 years' suppression.

Public Domain (P)2011 Tantor Dystopian Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Satire Science Fiction Comedy Funny

Critic reviews

"One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century." (Irving Howe)
Pioneering Dystopian • Influential Classic • Excellent Narration • Thought-provoking Ideas • Philosophical Depth

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It's a shame more people don't read "golden age" scifi like this gem. Even in translation from the original Russian, it is a tremendously powerful allegory of the politics of oppression and the dangers of giving up one's freedom for the perception of safety. Couldn't be more topical now, as citizens of the world's mature democracies vote for ever-escalating surveillance and run toward the candidate who promises to keep them "safe" . . . from what, exactly?

[I listened to this as an audio book performed by Grover Gardiner, who did an excellent job of conveying the irony of the book without sacrificing believability]

Couldn't be more topical . . . great narrator

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Really a 3.5 on story, but sooo ahead of its time, I had to bump it up. Grover Gardner is always great - he and Simon Vance are tied for my #2 behind Jim Dale.
The story does bog down, and get very strange 2nd half - need to listen again. Main thrust is the main characrer's order versus soul battle.

Orwell and Huxley Ripped Him Off!

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Yevgeny Zamyatin may have been the first to write a story like this but I don't buy that robot to lust and jealousy constitutes a soul. It was more like complete control to complete (emotional at least) loss of control.

WE are not impressed

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I didn't know that George Orwell based "1984" off of Yevgeny Zamyatin's book "We." This classic science fiction novel has been retold before in many other forms. "We" feels very dated, but as a fan of this genre, I wanted to read the original of anti-Utopia. Will I remember Zamyatin's art? Probably not, but it explains a lot of the same plot that has been repeatedly told over and over in this genre.

Anti-Utopia

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This classic of early science fiction was the prototype for nearly every dystopian novel written since. George Orwell identified We as his inspiration for 1984, and the similarities are obvious.

Yevgeny Zamyatin's "OneState" under its "Benefactor" are not as fully developed as Orwell's Oceania and Big Brother - Zamyatin wanted to represent ideas which were (obviously) allusions to the communist regime that he had to flee, but he didn't go as far as Orwell did in creating a society meant to be believable and similar to our own. Also, the prose (allowing for the translation from Russian) is often clunky, the dialog sometimes laughable, and the plot verges into the absurd. But it is an early work of science fiction and deserves its laurels for inspiring the better novels that came after it.

Besides the obvious dystopian elements of OneState and the iconic figurehead of a "Benefactor," one can also see Orwell's inspiration in the up-is-down, black-is-white logic of OneState, which holds annual elections so everyone can vote in perfect unanimity for the Benefactor and which manages to reify ideas into what Orwell would later call "thoughtctimes."

In OneState, everyone lives in a glass apartment building. Society runs according to strict scientific algorithms, making everyone equal and everything fair. For example, human beings have been freed from lust and jealousy by the simple expedient of making everyone a public good - if you want to have sex with someone, you just put in a request for their number and at an appointed time they will show up to perform their duty.

I can see a few obvious problems with this scheme that even a dystopian police state would have trouble controlling, but again, this book is more of a thought experiment than a carefully designed setting.

Zamyatin's tale of D-503, a scientist/drone whose previously unquestioned loyalty to OneState is suddenly shaken by a desire to get laid by someone sexier than his assigned short, plain, girlfriend O-90, is at heart a fairly typical story that even has a few pulp action scenes at the end. I can see it being an inspiration not only for George Orwell but also Isaac Asimov and other writers of the generation who would have read Zamyatin's novel growing up.

It was interesting to read, but We is very much an artifact of its time, and Zamyatin's writing unfortunately fell flat for me as most Russian writers tend to.

Rough inspiration for 1984

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