Review of “We” by Evgenii Zamiatin
(Alternative author name spellings: Evgenii Zamyatin, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Eugene Zamiatin)
Available here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61963
Buy it here: https://amzn.to/3acIoPJ
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I took notes while reading this book. Before you read: some parts may be difficult to follow. I discuss why later.
Record 1-8
I only had the vaguest knowledge of “We” before I started reading it, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
This story is written as a diary by D-503. People here are called Numbers instead of people, and they live in a society based solely on collectivization and math. They get up at the same time, take walks at the same time, go to their auditoriums at the same time, etc. They have two hours designated for personal time that D-503 thinks that one day can be designated for certain actions, too.
In this society, instead of people fighting over lovers, it’s more like they fill out an application. D-503 spends his designated ‘pink time’ with O-90, but his friend, R-13, also spends time with her. He believes their society has advanced beyond jealousy because they’ve logically solved this problem.
D-503 is a mathematician, and he’s talked about the “Integral” that he helped build. This is like a spaceship that they’re sending out to explore the universe.
The story starts when, in the newspaper, there is a request for people to write about how amazing their society is so that others can see how great it is and “subjugate to the grateful yoke of reason the unknown beings who live on other planets”. Thus, D-503 starts writing because he wants to explain to aliens why their society is the best.
D-503 can’t take anything that isn’t perfectly uniform and planned. He hates clouds because they’re fluffy and nonsensical in shape. He dislikes a mishmash of colors. Their society mocks ancient society as remedial and backwards.
Then I-330, a “she-Number”, invites him to go to ‘the Ancient House’. He doesn’t like her but he goes anyway, and they go inside of the place after he sees her grandmother. She mentions that she “loves that woman,” but she can’t state a clear reason why, as family seems to be an outdated concept to them.
In the Ancient House, which is basically an apartment, it’s completely different from the glass walls they have on their homes. He’s put off by the whole thing, and when she puts on some different clothes they have a bit of an argument. It’s time to go to the auditorium. He refuses to stay, but he sees her call someone else to meet her, so he knows that she didn’t go as she’s supposed to.
He thinks of reporting her but ends up not, and he starts feeling like he’s become ill because he has a dream of the things he saw in the apartment, and people aren’t supposed to dream.
Thus far it seems like I-330 has an interest in him and also has an interest in the ancient ways and is showing them to him. D-503 is completely enamored with their society and believes that it is right. I predict that their love triangle has more troubles than he thinks it does, because he chose O-, and O- chose him, but R- chose O- as well, so does she even want to be with him at all?
D-503 is also prone to bouts of anger. He gets mad and irritable about anything that challenges his worldview. He honestly seems to spend more time upset than not because he’s unable to handle anything but what he’s been taught is perfection.
There is a lot about this that is reminiscent of 1984. Of course, this came well before 1984, so I decided to look them up and noticed that, indeed, it looks like George Orwell was inspired by this. I think that really shows how writers borrow from each other and build their own worlds all the time.
Record 9-16
D-503 and the other Numbers witness their version of the death penalty, which sounds basically like someone being incinerated.
Then he gets told he’s been claimed by I-330 and he’s upset about it. He goes to see her, and she informs him that it’s been beyond the 48 hours that a Number has to report someone to the Guardians, and he still hasn’t reported her.
Therefore, she basically owns his life now. He has his first taste of lust and jealousy, and then she shows him his badge with the time on it and he realizes he’s going to be late. He runs off to go to bed, as everyone must. It’s their duty to sleep at night. But, he can’t get sleep. He’s getting all messed up.
D-503 starts to seriously question who he is and, meeting with R-, he blurts out asking if he’s ever had a chance to try alcohol or nicotine. When he mentions I-330, it seems like R- is already familiar.
D-503 is starting to notice that everyone else is moving mechanically and he can’t seem to fit in anymore, and he desperately wants to see I-330 again, but he hasn’t seen her besides spotting her on a walk. He ends up back in the Medical Bureau, where the doctor who gave him a sick note before tells him that he’s developed a soul. Another doctor wants to operate on his to take away all fancy, but D-503 now finds himself hesitant to do that. They mention that there is an epidemic.
The doctor he met before says that he’s working on the Integral and that might interfere with his work, saving him from the operation. Then he prescribes that D-503 should go on long walks, as far as to the Ancient House.
At this point I’m waiting for someone involved in all of this to betray D-503. I’m expecting this to be a test at some point, where he’s suddenly experiencing all of these things and will be punished for it.
Record 17-24
D-503 gets a letter from O- that she’s basically cutting herself off from him now because she loves him and he’s different.
During work on the Integral about a dozen Numbers get killed in an explosion, and everyone carries on like nothing happened. I- sends him a letter asking him to close his curtains as if she were there and apologizes.
O- shows up at the time he’s supposed to be with I-. He doesn’t care what I- wants, he just wants what he wants, and he wants her. So when O- shows up, and she asks for a baby and she’ll leave him alone, he goes back down to the controller with the pink check I- gave him.
The old controller seems like she’s interested in him but is still deciding, and D-503 is in a state of still talking about how great the United State is and of acting emotionally. He wants to meet with I-330 again, but she keeps hinting that she can’t for some reason.
The Day of Unanimity is coming up, which D-503 describes as a day they all vote for the Well-Doer. It’s basically a farce of an election day, but he thinks it would be strange to vote in an election where you don’t already know the result. In this election everyone is watching everyone else and they’re all voting for the Well-Doer.
At this point it would seem that I-330 has some sort of plans to carry out on the Day of Unanimity.
Record 25-32
On the Day of Unanimity, I-330 and many others raise their hand opposed to re-electing the Well-Doer. D-503 sees R-13 running off with I-330 and gets upset, running after him and taking her. It briefly mentions O-90 protecting her stomach.
The next day “Mephi” is painted all over the place. The Integral will be ready for its test flight soon.
I-330 takes D-503 outside the wall where there seems to be a group of hundreds who want to steal the Integral. He describes them as being naked, and the men have facial hair, and they seem to be taking hallucinogens.
Back home, D-503 seems to be in his own home with I-330 when they get a warning that guards are coming. D-503 seems to realize that it would be bad for them to read his recent writings and he sits on top of them to hide them, instead starting to write out nonsense about how great the Well-Doer is. The guards see his nonsense and move on.
O-90 shows up to see him and she’s pregnant, but he says she will be killed and the baby taken. Then he offers to save her by going to I-330, but that upsets her and she says never to mention such a thing again. She runs off upset.
He has a conversation with I-330 about taking the Integral, which is set to make its first flight soon, and thereby start a revolution, but he feels uncertain about this.
Then the newspaper has an article stating they figured out how to remove fancy from humans. The flight of the Integral is postponed so that everyone can go run and get the Great Operation. D-503 is excited, but when he talks to I-330 she tells him it’s a choice between her and getting the Operation.
D-503 sees O- again, and she wishes to keep the baby even though she’s having it without permission. He again suggests she leave with I-330, and writes a note for her because he is always being followed and knows he can’t lead the Guardians to I-330.
People are also saying that they saw a naked hairy man within the walls.
Record 33-40
Everyone is summoned to get an Operation in the newspaper.
Then it describes the test flight of the Integral. While on board one of the Guardians is there and shouts that they don’t know their numbers, they know about their plans, and the test flight will go as it should. D-503 remembers that U- saw his writing, and realizes she must have told. I-330 accuses him of telling.
D-503 ends up getting struck and goes unconscious.
D-503 decides he’s going to kill U-, and when she shows up at his place the next day he pulls the curtains without permission because he realizes no one else can see. She thinks he pulled the curtains because he wants pink time with her, and the notion is so absurd that he starts laughing instead.
Then D-503 receives a call from the Well-Doer telling him to come to him at once.
The Well-Doer gives a speech about how the ancient God had burned tons of people and was still considered a God of love, and then talks about how they nearly have happiness, no desire for all, and D-503 has considered destroying it. He then tells D-503 that the ones he has been working for only cared for him because he was the builder of the Inegtral.
D-503 seems to lose it and runs off laughing.
In the next part D-503 is eating among a bunch of other Numbers and the Wall is destroyed. Birds come into the city, its chaos all over, and he’s trying to find I-330.
I-330’s room is a mess, and D-503 ends up going to his room and collapsing into sleep.
When he wakes up I-330 is at the table. She asks if he talked to the Well-Doer, and he tells her everything, then he says good-bye.
He ends up going back to the doctor and telling him everything, but the doctor knew all along.
Then he just happens upon a different character in the chaos, a neighbor of his, who says he has figured out that the universe is finite.
After that it ends with him and everyone else having gotten the Great Operation. He is with the Well-Doer while ‘that woman’ is being tortured for information in a gas chamber. She doesn’t talk, but others she worked with do. They have set up a new, temporary Wall, and are working on rebuilding the United State.
***************************************************
If some of the summary feels a little jarring, it’s because the story can be as well. There are various reasons it can be hard to follow what’s happening.
It was far too verbose at points. For example, this passage:
“This evening the distant earth reminded me of itself. In order to fulfill the recommendation of the doctor (I desire sincerely, most sincerely I desire to be cured), I wandered for two hours and eight minutes over the straight lines of the deserted avenues. Everybody was in the auditoriums, in accordance with the Table. Only I, cut off from the rest, I was alone. Strictly speaking, it was a very unnatural situation. Imagine a finger cut off from the whole, from the hand; a separate human finger, somewhat hunched, running over the glass sidewalk. I was such a finger. What seemed most strange and unnatural was that the finger had no desire to be with its hand, with its fellows. I want either to be alone or with her; to transfuse my whole being into hers through a contact with her shoulder or through our interwoven fingers.”
By the time we get to this part and he says it’s an unnatural situation, we’re well-acquainted with how he usually lives in the world and why he would think it’s unnatural, because he’s always followed a schedule along with everyone else. But the paragraph goes on and on, and that happens many times in the story where we already know why something would be odd to him but he explains it excessively and I was waiting for him to get on with it.
I remember getting distracted once because I’m pretty sure he said there are 10 million Numbers, but when a dozen numbers die he said they “scarcely represent one hundred millionth part of the United State.”
“The spears of her eyelashes moved apart to let me in…”
I know this is probably supposed to mean her eyes opened, but when I imagined it her eyelashes were moving sideways. It was strange descriptions like these that made it harder to picture the story. Characters would be described as having gills, wings, soft knees, folds on the wrist, and other very random things – and I don’t mean gills or wings as literal. Gills were supposed to describe a character’s mouth or cheeks.
Excessive amounts of ellipsis were also used where sentences or thoughts won’t be finished, both in dialogue and the narration.
There were also gaps. For example, near the end the Well-Doer summons him, and he seems to run off and then get caught, and you would think something would be done to him after that. But, in the next part, he seems to just be eating with other Numbers, and then the Wall explodes and chaos commences. Stuff like that left me confused. Did they just put him back even though they know he was working with people trying to destroy the city? When you’re given the impression that they would have him disintegrated, it seems strange that he’ll be hanging out in the next scene.
This made it hard to follow the story as well, because often it felt like I was trying to figure out where he was now and why. It took me a while to get through it all.
I also think that, to some extent, my judgment of this book while reading is a bit unfair. Nowadays things like 1984 are often required reading in school, and many books came after “We” that were inspired by it. So, when I was reading it, I had a feeling of, “I’ve seen this sort of story before”.
In a way it’s like how many people were inspired by Tolkien. So when we see a lot of the same ideas re-used and then go back to read the original, it doesn’t feel as novel as it would have been at the time. That, of course, is a bit unfair, but it’s hard to help.
On the other hand there are things it did well. It definitely had, and stuck to, a certain style. I think it had a good portrayal of collectivism, and how people in these ideologies can act like villains while thinking they’re the hero. At the same time, how collectivists become one of a Number. There is no longer anything special about them. Their only value becomes what they can do for the group, and many times we see immense acts of cruelty or death brushed off easily by the others because individuals don’t matter.
We unfortunately see this type of ideology emerging, where people identify not as themselves but as a group, and we see the same type of cruelty emerging at the same time. D-503 describes how U-, for example, is cruel with the children because it’s necessary to be cruel, and he believes this to be a virtue. As he becomes more human and U- is practically stalking him because she’s jealous of I-330, he nearly ends up killing her. The actions she takes that she believes are justified are actually smothering and evil. She’s trying to protect D-503 from his ‘illness’ – that is, having a soul. But all of us know that having a soul is a good thing.
It’s no surprise since the author was writing from his experience in Russia, so he captured what he was seeing. People in this story are not happy. They’re being crushed, but they’re required to be soulless entities for the United State.
I think my favorite part is this:
“If only I had a mother as the ancients had,—my mother, mine, for whom I should be not the Builder of the Integral and not D-530, not a molecule of the United State but merely a living human piece, a piece of herself, a trampled, smothered, a cast-off piece.... And though I were driving the nails into the cross or being nailed to it (perhaps it is the same), she would hear what no one else could hear; her old grown-together wrinkled lips....”
In this part, D-503 is wishing to be loved and accepted as an individual. I think it encapsulates the overall meaning of the story very well. When you become a collectivist it may be easy to go with the flow but you give up yourself and your individuality, and in the end you have no one who cares for you as you. You might be surrounded by people, but you end up very much alone that way.
I don’t know if I would recommend this story because it can be a bit hard to read, but for people who enjoy stories like 1984 it’s good to see where the inspiration for it came.
Incidentally, on the way to hockey there is what I presume to be an engineering building with a sign outside that has a little spaceship on it and the word "Integral". Now I know what that's a reference to.
Next week I’ll be reading “Anthem” by Ayn Rand. Here’s some links if you’d like to read along!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1250
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001377058
Buy it here: https://amzn.to/3nBu7yX
Braille here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Anthem-by-Ayn-Rand-in-braille-for-blind-and-visually-impaired-students-7017473
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