Saturday 20 December 2014

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin



“What if today’s essentially irrelevant occurrence – what if  all this is only the beginning, only the first meteorite in a whole series of rumbling, burning rocks, spilling through infinity  toward our glass paradise?”


Every now and then, as a reader, you discover a perfect book. Something dangerous, something that makes you think, something that makes you feel; most importantly something that makes you question.This, is one of those books.

It is expertly crafted and tantalisingly develops its strange plot. Mathematics is the answer to everything and everyone is designated by a letter and a number. Sex is something that requires a pink ticket and zero emotion, imagination can be removed by surgery and the One State controls all.

A precursor to George Orwell's dystopian view, it is incredulous to me that this novel which seems so contemporary was written way back in 1921. Now that I've read it, I really want to re-read it - which is really unusual for me.

5 out of 5 totalitarian regimes end in revolution

No comments:

Post a Comment