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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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Summary

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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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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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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Honestly this story is almost worth reading for the intro by Margaret Atwood and the commentary by Orwell and LeGuin at the end.

It’s an interesting take on the dystopian society which has convinced itself that it is a utopia, and a deeper view that Brave New World managed.

Thought provoking early 20th century dystopian story.

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Given this was written in the 1920s it feels reasonably contemporary. As with all science fiction it gets quite a few predictions of the future wrong but mostly not wildly so. Some attitudes portrayed are a bit archaic but it's mostly pretty progressive.

It's quite interesting that it is set sufficiently far in the future (several generations) that people's attitudes to the One State are so ingrained that they are not questioned.

The similarities with 1984 are extensive to the point you feel Orwell must have borrowed some of the ideas.

Feels like a blend of 1984, Brave New World & Metropolis

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