"We"

by Yevgeny Zamyatin

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin was written in 1920 and 1921 in Soviet Union. Modern critics frequently compare it to Brave New World and to Orwell's 1984. Indeed the similarities are striking: all these books talk about futuristic totalitarian societies where law and order are taken to an extreme with the help of massive propaganda and ubiquitous surveillance technology. While We is much less sophisticated than 1984, and its dialogues leave plenty of room for improvement, I found it much more unpredictable--and consequently more interesting--than Brave New World. Indeed, the narrative takes several interesting turns and the final picture is very different from what we are accustomed to.

While the choice of science fiction as the genre for a novel criticizing the young Stalinist Soviet Union may be surprising, it is worth keeping in mind that SF's reputation for being detached from reality gave Zamyatin a hope of slipping the book past the censors and seeing it published. He did not succeed, however, and the book was first published in English in 1924 and in Russian not until 1952. And even then it was not in Soviet Union but in New York. Other Eastern European authors had more luck. Most notably, Stanislaw Lem enjoyed quite a lot of freedom in communist Poland by branding himself as a science fiction writer.

As far as writing is concerned, the unreasonable abundance of ellipses in sentences breaks the rhythm of the narrative and fails to provoke thought. It is especially disturbing in dialogues because it makes them look more like disorganized thoughts rather than spontaneous speech. This said, a very good translation by Mirra Ginsburg makes it a smooth and enjoyable read.