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We

By: Yevgeny Zamyatin, Bela Shayevich - translator, Margaret Atwood - introduction, Ursula K. Le Guin, George Orwell
Narrated by: Louise Brealey, Margaret Atwood, Toby Jones
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About this listen

The One State is the perfect society, ruled over by the enlightened Benefactor. It is a city made almost entirely of glass, where surveillance is universal and life runs according to algorithmic rules to ensure perfect happiness. And D-503, the Builder, is the ideal citizen, at least until he meets I-330, who opens his eyes to new ideas of love, sex and freedom.

A foundational work of dystopian fiction, inspiration for both Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley's Brave New World, We is a book of radical imaginings - of control and rebellion, surveillance and power, machine intelligence and human inventiveness, sexuality and desire. It is both a warning and a hope for a better world.

This new edition also includes Ursula K. Le Guin's essay 'The Stalin in the Soul' on the enduring influence of Zamyatin's masterpiece, and George Orwell's 1946 review of We.

©2020 Yevgeny Zamyatin, Bela Shayevich, Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, George Orwell (P)2021 Canongate Books Classics Dystopian Science Fiction Fiction
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Excellent story expressing rebellion against conformity to the desires of industrial society. The human not being a cog in a machine.

Personal conflict of Reason and Emotion

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There's so much to delve into here, so much to analyse and find similarities to our own societies. I love books like this for inspiring brutal self honesty and self reflection on our own cultures.
The narrator was perfect for emulating the naivite and indoctrination of a person within a totalitarian regime, and their progression throughout the story.
I would highly recommend this for anyone who utilises literature as a form of speculating on our own current societies.

Excellent

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Great discovery, Toby Jones reading drew me to try this book (he's always a good reader), and I'm so glad I did. It's over 100 years old but feels so current.

Fabulous - it inspired Brave New World and 1984

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If you ever read and enjoyed 1984, or Brave new world, you almost certainly need to read this.

Fascinating, and useful

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A good performance, though I can't help feel there was a touch of Alan Bennett about the performance of the character i, which made her seem much cosier than I think she was written.

Sometimes hard to follow, but good.

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