If you enjoy sci-fi, odds are that you have read – or at the very least heard of – George Orwell’s dystopic Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). And if you have, you are equally likely to have read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), often discussed in the same breath as its counterpart. But unless you are an avid reader or have studied Russian literature in-depth, I would be surprised if you had heard of We (1924), the novella which both texts heavily drew from. Yet, as Yevgeny Zamyatin’s book celebrates one hundred years in circulation, it continues to be overlooked in spite of its increasing ideological relevance.
This could be explained away, of course. As Orwell himself put it in a review of the French copy in 1946 – he was unable to get his hands on an English translation – We is “not a book of the first order”. Its prose, which teeters between simple and under edited, is mundane. Exchanges of little consequence are frequent while narrative inconsistencies sometimes make it unclear where or when the story is taking place. Its story, narrated by a colourless and rather vacuous character, is equally nothing to get excited about. But We’s larger-than-life ideas largely make up for its shortcomings.
Set in the 26th century AD, in a post-war world under the reign of an authoritarian party called the One State, the story begins as D-503, an engineer, is on the brink of completing the construction of a spaceship called the Integral. Its aim, he narrates in his diary, will be to “subjugate to the grateful yoke of reason the unknown beings who live on other planets”, using force if necessary. But after meeting I-330, a femme fatale who breaks all the rules, his faith in the world as he knows it waivers. As dissent spreads and the world becomes factioned between State believers and rebels known as the Mephis, D-503 has to decide what camp he falls into.
Over the years, the novella has been interpreted in many ways. Zamyatin’s background as a twice-imprisoned Russian has encouraged critics to see the One State as a reference for Soviet Russia, and the theory holds water. From the propaganda they publish to the obligation of its citizens to contribute to the common cause (or “one body with a million hands”), the One State’s operations do seem to ape those of the Soviets’. The story has also often been interpreted as criticism of the technological advancements of Zamyatin’s time. The strict Taylorite schedule that One Staters need to follow, where everything from sleep to sex is scheduled, would support that argument.
But having just discovered We this year, I did not find myself thinking of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nor of the proliferation of authoritarianism. Instead, I was struck by its depiction of xenophobia. D-503’s fears of those living outside of the Wall, deemed to be inferior to citizens of the One State because of their otherness, reminded me of the rhetoric of increasingly prominent politicians: Trump in the US, Le Pen in Western Europe, Orban in Eastern Europe. Fear of the unknown is instinctual, but when it spreads to how we interact with other cultures and is spurred on by those in power, it creates an ever widening and dehumanizing rift between us. Our differences grow until we becomes We, with a capital “W”. And then, as Zamyatin’s book suggests, things boil over.
We’s malleability is ultimately what makes it such a powerful book. The novella flirts with ideas in a way that leaves space for ambiguity of meaning. Like a lenticular print, it offers its readers a different picture depending on where they stand. But unlike a lenticular print, constrained through science to a finite number of versions of itself, We can be sliced, spliced and arranged ad nauseum. There is something in it for everyone, not least politicians, and that is what makes it timeless.
Words by Elkyn Ernst
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