We

De: Yevgeny Zamyatin

Narrado por: Grover Gardner

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

Reseñas de la Crítica

"One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century." (Irving Howe)

Couldn't be more topical . . . great narrator

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]

Orwell and Huxley Ripped Him Off!

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.

WE are not impressed

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.

Anti-Utopia

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.

Interesting history, prose a little outdated

WE tells the story of the "One State," a sanitized, regimented world in which the individuals ("numbers"...nobody has a name) live sanitized, regimented lives. Rocket scientist D305 lives his clockwork life as expected until he meets and falls in love with the revolutionary I330.

WE is one of the earliest examples of dystopian literature---you can see elements of WE in 1984 (Orwell), Brave New World (Huxley), Anthem (Rand), Player Piano (Vonnegut) and many others.

The story is presented as D305's personal journal. The prose is a bit dated---it was written around 1920 and has very flowery internal narration and not a lot of dialog, and I started to find it getting tedious, until we got close to the end.

The audio book starts with a fairly long and involved history of WE and its publication (and the various translations). Usually, I find such intros boring and low-value, but in this case, I found it helpful.

Grover Gardner's narration is quite good...he doesn't really add anything to the story but he doesn't take anything away, either.

[Footnote: According to Wikipedia, Aldous Huxley denied having read WE before writing Brave New World, but Orwell definitely cited it as a source for 1984.] Of course, all have different themes and draw different conclusions.