REREADING AND REVIEWING- WE, A NOVEL BY YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

I've decided to reread We by Yevgeny Zamyatin not just because it is such an important novel (often referred to as the grandfather of the dystopian genre) but also because I really wanted to.  It is an anti-utopia that fascinated me the first time around and I wanted to see what my impression of it would be twelve years later. Today I finished rereading it, so why share a review or two? My review won't be long as I managed to find my original review dating back to 2011, so I will just add to that. Meaning you'll get two reviews and hopefully with no repetition. 

However, before I get round to reviewing, I'd like to share a bit of information about the author and the book. No work of literature exists on its own, it is forever tied to its writer and the era it was written it. However, for some books the historical context is especially important.  We is one of the first dystopian novels ever written. In addition, a work that contains autobiographical elements, so one needs to keep Zamyatin's biography in mind. 

There is quotation from Britannica below for those who would like  a more detailed biography of this writer. In a nutshell, Zamyatin was a scientist/writer and a pre-Revolution Bolshevik turned post- Revolution Soviet dissent. A Bolshevik before the Russian Revolution, Zamyatin became critical of the communist party following the Revolution. Like Orwell, Zamyatin was able to foresee the totalitarianism aspect of communism and warn us against it. Zamyatin dissociated himself from the communist party early on and remained critical of it. 

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN- AN ENGINEER, A SCIENTIST AND A REVOLUTIONARY

Cited from Britannica: "Yevgeny Zamyatin, in full Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin, Zamyatin also spelled Zamiatin, (born February 1 [January 20, Old Style], 1884, Lebedyan, Tambov province, Russia—died March 10, 1937, Paris, France), Russian novelist, playwright, and satirist, one of the most brilliant and cultured minds of the postrevolutionary period and the creator of a uniquely modern genre—the anti-Utopian novel. His influence as an experimental stylist and as an exponent of the cosmopolitan-humanist traditions of the European intelligentsia was very great in the earliest and most creative period of Soviet literature. Educated in St. Petersburg as a naval engineer (1908), Zamyatin combined his scientific career with writing. His early works were Uyezdnoye (1913; “A Provincial Tale”), a trenchant satire of provincial life, and Na kulichkakh (1914; “At the World’s End”), an attack on military life that was condemned by tsarist censors. Zamyatin was brought to trial, and, although acquitted, he stopped writing for some time. During World War I he was in England supervising the building of Russian icebreakers. There he wrote Ostrovityane (1918; “The Islanders”), satirizing what he saw as the meanness and emotional repression of English life. He returned to Russia in 1917. A chronic dissenter, Zamyatin was a Bolshevik before the Russian Revolution of 1917 but disassociated himself from the party afterward. His ironic criticism of literary politics kept him out of official favour, but he was influential as the mentor of the Serapion Brothers, a brilliant younger generation of writers whose artistic creed was to have no creeds. In such stories as Mamay (1921)—the name of the Mongol general who invaded Russia in the 14th century—and Peshchera (1922; “The Cave”), Zamyatin painted a picture of the increasing savagery of humankind in postrevolutionary Petrograd. Tserkov Bozhiya (1922; “The Church of God”) is an allegorical tale affirming that power based on bloodshed cannot lay claim to virtue. His essay “Ya boyus” (1921; “I Am Afraid”), a succinct survey of the state of postrevolutionary literature, closes with the prophetic judgment: “I am afraid that the only future possible to Russian literature is its past.” During this period Zamyatin wrote some of his best short stories. His most ambitious work, the novel My (written 1920; We), circulated in manuscript but was not published in the Soviet Union until 1988 (an English translation appeared in the United States in 1924, and the original Russian text was published in New York in 1952). It portrays life in the “Single State,” where workers live in glass houses, have numbers rather than names, wear identical uniforms, eat chemical foods, and enjoy rationed sex. They are ruled by a “Benefactor” who is unanimously and perpetually reelected. Often classed as science fiction, We is the literary ancestor of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four (1949). The publication abroad of We was one of the reasons for the repressive campaign launched against many writers in 1929. Zamyatin announced his withdrawal from the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) and for all practical purposes ceased to be considered a Soviet author. He was no longer published, and his plays, which he had begun to write in 1923 and which had run successfully in theatres, were removed from the repertory. In 1931, after his appeal to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the intervention of writer Maxim Gorky on his behalf, Zamyatin was granted permission to leave the Soviet Union for an extended stay abroad. He lived in Paris for the rest of his life. His literary productivity during those years was scant." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yevgeny-Zamyatin 4.1. 2023. 

A NEW REVIEW FOR WE, A NOVEL BY YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

What was reading We this time around like? The first time I read it I was in my twenties, now I'm in my thirties. The experience is not the same because I'm not the same. I feel that I tend to judge the literally characters less the older I get. Perhaps the accumulations of personal mistakes makes it easier to forgive? Moreover, the older one gets, the more acutely aware one becomes of the world one lives in- and I have to say, it looks more like dystopia by the minute.

 Obviously reading We was a different experience because I knew how the novel was going to end. Now, the ending of the novel can be open to interpretation and it is hard to comment on it too much without spoilers. On overall, this book is not as bleak as the famous 1984 it helped to inspire, but it is obviously not a merry story. I think it's no spoiler if I write that this anti-utopia does not have a typical 'happy end'. Even if the end of the book can be open to interpretation, it is a chilling tale at times and one not missing human tragedies. 

Knowing of tragedies to come, made the reading a bit more melancholic at times. I felt a definite feeling of almost overwhelming sadness reading it. Either it is something  I missed the first time I read it or is it something that is more a recent personal experience/reading of mine. Either way, this time around this book kind of broke my heart.  Not only sadness, but I picked up on other emotions such as loneliness, isolation and longing that were all the more powerful because they were suppressed. 

I still found the novel wonderfully funny at times. I'm not sure everyone will enjoy this kind of reverse logic jokes and dry (even dark) humour, but I did.  Nevertheless enjoying its humour, the novel appeared more tragic and pessimistic this time around. Not just when it comes to fates/lives of individual character, but in general. I don't think I noticed before how this novel views humanity as a fragile and naive entity doomed to repeat its mistakes. Perhaps it's just me or perhaps I was more focused on those 'dark' elements of the book, but I did see things in a more tragic way the other time around. 

Rereading my old review, I can say that I experienced some things differently this time. To start with, I didn't dislike the protagonist (and I didn't hate him at times). Seeing him as someone who was raised in a totalitarian society made me realize that it is really hard for him to see things the other way around. Some of his actions were still frustrating, but it was easier to understand him. Moreover, I found it easier to sympathize with other characters. They appeared more real, layered and interesting on the second reading, especially the female characters. In many ways, this novel was ahead of its time.

WE, AN ANTI-UTOPIA WORTH REREADING SO THAT IS WHAT I DID

 This time around I took my time reading We. I read the online English version of We on project Gutenberg and listed to an audio one in Russian. I often make sure I read an English translation of books I read in a foreign language just to make sure I understood everything. Unfortunately, my other languages are not quite on the same level as English (especially when I work on jobs that require only English as is the case at the moment), so I still depend on English translations. This time around I tried to really pay attention to all the details. I don't really have time to put all my  detailed observations on paper right now, so I'll leave you with a review I have already written:

 MY REVIEW DATING BACK TO 2011 (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON GOODREADS): The fact that the novel is written as a series of diary entries can be distracting. However, Zamyatin managed to make the most of it. He's got the reader making psychoanalysis of the protagonist (D-503). As the plot progresses and you see the gap between D-503 recorded thoughts (that is diary entries) and his actual deeds you start wondering about what is the D-503 thinking and about what is really going on. After all, every bit of information you get is processed by D-503. Still, you can catch things he doesn't want you to know. (Good use of sub psychological information about the character made available via his dreams, etc). Zamyatin was really good at revealing enough about this character to make you interested but not enough to figure him out. It is that uncertainty that makes this novel so fascinating and modern. The same applies to other characters, and although they are all in a way portrayed in D-503 words, you manage to get a feel about them. It is hard sometimes trying to see trough D-503 emotional breakdowns and ideological preaching, but it makes the novel more convincing, more engaging (even if you are sometimes engaged in hating him). There are passages that are funny as hell and a lot of references to communism obviously. The context of the story as in most literature is important. As the grandfather of the satirical futuristic dystopia genre, this novel deserves tribute. It is easy to see how much it influenced other dystopian literature. Seriously, all the dystopian authors that published their novels shortly after him, should have written him a thank you note or something. Towards the end things got a little fuzzy for me. Perhaps I just didn’t get it. Not that I was expecting it to end happily or in any particular way. I just had a feeling that things happened too fast and that it was kind of unfinished. Maybe not unfinished but with some things left in the air. I think that the part towards the end could have been a little better. It is almost like the author was under some time pressure to finish it. Perhaps that is the point- ending the way it does. I don't know.

To conclude, the novel is definitely worth the time and effort you put into reading it. I’ve only read the English version so I don’t know what the original is like. I’ll give Russian version a try.  (END OF MY 2011 REVIEW)

Thank you for reading!