24/08/2025 - Book review: 'We' by Y. Zamyatin (1920)
Yesterday I finished reading 'We' written by Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin, translated by Mirra Ginsburg. This will be my first time writing a 'serious' book review.
I was on a dystopian reading spree, so in the last couple of months I finished reading '1984' (G. Orwell), 'Cat's Cradle' (K. Vonnegut), 'Brave New World' (A. Huxley), 'The Power' (N. Alderman), 'The Circle' (D. Eggers) and 'The Handmaid's Tale' and 'The Testaments' (M. Atwood).
Right from the get go it's clear that the stories and settings in 1984 and Brave New World were inspired by 'We' and its One State (Big Brother and Mustapha Mond by the great Benefactor). D-503 even reminds me of Winston, in his awakening, and I-330 of Julia. Where '1984' has telescreens, mics and the Thought Police, 'We' simply has buildings made of see-through glass - basicaly making any sort of surveillence unnecessary and by default - and ultimately the great operation.
Wow, just wow. Zamyatin's writing style is one thing I fell in love with. The writing style just completely drew me into the mind of D-503. I felt what he felt (or didn't feel). His monologues were especially interesting to me. The author has a talent for making absurd concepts sound completely logical which I really loved, usually in contrast to what we are used to in the modern world. One of my favourite passages happens when D-503 looks through the glass wall that separates the One State from the outside world:
But fortunately between me and the wild green ocean was the glass of the Wall. Oh, great, divinely bouding wisdom of walls and barriers! They are, perhaps, the greatest of man's inventions. Man ceased to be a wild animal only when he built the first wall. Man ceased to be a savage only when we had built the Green Wall, when we had isolated our perfect mechanical world from the irrational, hideous world of trees, birds, animals...
Through the glass the blunt snout of some beast stared dully, mistily at me; yellow eyes, persistently repeating a single, incomprehensible thought. For a long time we stared into each other's eyes - those mine-wells from the surface world into another, subterranean one. And a question stirred within me: What if he, this yellow-eyed creature in his disorderly, filthy mound of leaves, in his uncomputed life, is happier than we are?
I raised my hand, the yellow eyes blinked, backed away, and disappeared among the greenery. The paltry creature! What absurdity - that he could possibly be happier than we are! Happier than I, perhaps; but I am only an exception, I am sick.
What I love about this passage is first of all the observation that we make through D-503. While reading we are looking with him through the glass wall at all of the life behind it which in his eyes is irrational and hideous. From their glass, straight-lined One State, you might even agree with him that it ís irrational and hideous. But what he sees there (I'm guessing a boar) isn't charging at him or doing something mindless, it's seeing him just as much as he sees it. We don't know if the boar is repeating a single, incomprehensible thought...or it wouldn't stop in its tracks to lock eyes with D-503. That's why I find his next thought so fitting, the silence and attention of the moment is making him doubt whether he might not be the thing he is describing, maybe he is the one that is trapped and unhappy, is he simply projecting this onto the boar. He even waves at it (what else could he be raising his hand for?). Obviously a boar doesn't know what that is and the connection is broken, which also breaks his train of thought that the boar might be better off. It shows the amount of conditioning that citizens of One State have gone through, to think otherwise than that they have found the ultimate happiness is absurd.
The funniest thing is then that he has already embraced the idea that he is sick for having fallen in love and dreaming (all symptoms of having a 'soul'), and that the boar might actually bé happier than him as an individual for this reason. Even though I think the opposite is true: he is probably happier than his neighbours exactly because of his awakening. Aren't his complicated feelings and emotions exactly what should set him apart from a boar? This is just one of the examples which shows exactly what I love about Zamyatin's writing style, he is able to put a lot of information into a very short and dense piece of writing if that makes sense. This short piece already tells us so much about D-503 and the world he lives in, and the beliefs he has. It is pure 'show don't tell'.
The story can get a little confusing at times. It switches fast between situations and places, and sometimes I found it hard to follow who was speaking. But at the same time this helped to crawl into D-503's skin. And I think it could be the result of things getting lost in translation, which is why I want to read one of the newer translations at some point. I'm curious if the same 'idiosyncrasies' of the writing are kept, such as the fact that characters often don't finish their sentences, especially when they are emotional. Which I just think is such a beautiful, realistic and relatable detail, another thing I really enjoyed reading, it made the characters feel alive.
This review is already quite long so I think I'll leave it at this. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys dystopias and especially '1984' and 'Brave New World'. It's genuinely witty, funny, intelligent writing and the story is a classic, but I mean it was written in 1920 and revolutionary for its time.