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Tertium non datur

A due abitanti del paradiso fu offerta la scelta: o la felicità senza libertà, o la libertà senza felicità: non c'è una terza via. Essi, idioti, scelsero la libertà e, naturalmente, poi sospirarono per secoli di aver le catene.

E. I. Zamjatin, [Мы, 1924], Noi, Milano, Garzanti, 1972 [Trad. E. Lo Gatto]

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Tá žena na mňa pôsobila tak nepríjemne ako nerozložiteľný iracionálny člen, čo sa náhodou votrie do rovnice.

Y. Zamyatin (We)

#jevgenij zamiatin #yevgeny zamyatin #zamjatin #we #novel #slovensky #citatelskydennik

Review: We (novel)

Author: Evgenij Ivanovič Zamjatin

Genre: dystopian sci-fi

Year: written between 1919 and 1921, was published in 1924 for the first time (in English, not in Russian)

Notes: wasn’t published in Russian until 1988, due to censorship reasons. George Orwell was heavily inspired by it. Read this review in Italian here.

We is written as a sort of journal: a man, called D-503, tells his story by taking notes of his daily life as chief engineer of the spaceship Integral. The journal is meant to be carried on the spaceship among other pieces of writing by state-sanctioned authors and poets, and he expects it to be read by people who have never seem human civilization. So he explains to us how he lives: it’s been centuries since the One State conquered the entire world and unified it, and now humanity has reached true happiness and perfection under the rule of the Benefactor. A wall separates the State from the wilderness, and every citizen’s daily life follows a series of rules. Everyone lives in glass houses and follows a strict routine, which includes two hours that can be spent freely. In these hours it is possible to “request” the company of a member of the opposite sex using a bureaucratic procedure, and this works for both men and women. There are no families in the traditional sense of the word, and children are raised by the state. As engineer and mathematician, D-503 is satisfied of his life: the Integral, his masterpiece, is almost ready, and he has friends and a woman, O-90, which visits him often.

One day, while he is walking with O-90, he meets I-330, and is immediately fascinated by her. The two meet in private, and he finds out she’s very different from other women: she flirts with him, she smokes and drinks alcohol, all of which are crimes against the state. D-503 is too intrigued, too fascinated and cannot bring himself to denounce her to the Bureau of Guardians. This meeting slowly shatters D-503’s life, as he finds out more about I-330, what she wants and about what’s behind the great wall.

Rightfully considered the grandparent of other famous pieces of dystopian literature, We shows us a man who breaks down and is forced to question everything he believed in, with results he would have never expected. The title is very meaningful, because the One State has transformed all citizens in something bigger, guided by principles of reason and math. This is what really surprises D-503, to find out there is something else, to even think about living a different life, to wear something different from his daily uniform and to live in something different from a glass house… this is almost unbelievable to his ears, and yet I-330 has much to show him. And to us. D-503’s writing style is something unique: he is an engineer, he lives in a world of mechanics and reason, so all his comparisons and metaphors refer to this. He goes back to math trying to use it to find a logic behind things, he understands that there’s something wrong with him, that he’s sick (that’s how the State would consider him), but he doesn’t know how to deal with it. We may be an old novel, but it’s the story of a man’s struggle to understand if everything he always believed in is true or not, which never gets too old. If you’re into dystopias, this is an absolute must. And if you’ve read 1984, you’re going to find many similarities, specifically one… which I’m not going to spoil.

Vote: 8+

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