Tuesday 12 July 2011

Book Review: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

We We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wonderful little book with big content. Perfectly apt for these changing times, We was written by Yevgeny Zamyatin almost a century ago yet its basic premise of human kind's desire for happiness has altered little.
Set in the future, the story of We is narrated by Number D-503 and written as his report of events preceding the launch of the INTEGRAL spaceship of which he is designer and engineer. The spaceship will take his report and other manifestations of the glorious One-State in which D-503 lives, along with its ideas of a perfect world, to other planets and galaxies beyond Earth, enabling others to benefit from One-State's ultimate wisdom and achievement of happiness for all.
As D-503 describes his life and how happiness has been acquired, we see that all is not as rosy as it might be, particularly with the threats to coherence that lie not just in the unknown world beyond the Green Wall surrounding One-State but also within, from human kind itself.
A brilliant, enthralling read.


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