6 ms·

How Yevgeny Zamyatin shaped dystopian fiction

96 points by rutenspitz 6y ago

heisenbergs 6y ago
"We" by Zamyatin is one of the best books I read all of last year. It's out of copy right, so freely downloadable too. Found it much more compelling than either a brave new world or 1984, even though both those books are also great. "We" seemed much more coherent and thought through. Reading his back story makes this even more interesting, given that he was living in a totalitarian state. I'd recommend reading his Wikipedia entry too. In short: highly recommended reading.
- ylem 6y ago
  I read it in college for a science fiction class. It was amazing. Orwell also thought so(https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jun/08/george-orwell-1984-zamyatin-we https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jun/08/geor...).
- m463 6y ago
  https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61963 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61963
- a-dub 6y ago
  Yes, one of my all time favorites.
- vageli 6y ago
  Is there any specific translation you'd recommend?
  - opsgal 6y ago
    Natasha Randall's is the best I've found. She's thoughtful in how she approaches grey areas of translation.
- newscracker 6y ago
  In a nicely formatted version by Standard eBooks here: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/yevgeny-zamyatin/we/gregory-zilboorg https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/yevgeny-zamyatin/we/gregor...
mcavoybn 6y ago
>While Wells, Huxley and Orwell invented flawed worlds, the Soviet writer was living in one. Forgive me if I am reading too much into this, but the tagline for this article feels weird to me. It feels weird because it implies that the "worlds" of Wells, Huxley, and Orwell were without flaw. Was western civilization in the early 20th century really without flaw? Isn't every great dystopian work essentially a thought experiment where the author analytically deducts the endgame of the most pathological tendencies of the society they belong to? I get where they are coming from, but I think this idea that America was perfect in the earth 20th century really needs to be fought against. Don't get me wrong, there were many great things that happened during that period of time, but implying that it was without flaw makes the dystopian conversation about nationality rather than the universality of human imperfection and how that is reflected in the greater society, often insidiously. Anyways, I'm definitely going to pick up a copy of 'We' after reading this. I love dystopian novels and had no idea 'We' was the originator. I think the idea of dystopia is closely related to science fiction, both could be considered a subset of stories that project what the future or some alternate timeline might be like. I think the really cool thing about dystopian stories is that they can act as a sort of crystal ball where humanity can glimpse a gestalt of its potential future and make decisions based on that. For example, in Lord of the Rings, Frodo is shown visions of the Shire should he fail his mission. These visions provide a deep sense of motivation for Frodo's grueling mission to Mount Doom, and without the memory of his love for the Shire (which was reinforced by Samwise towards the end) it's likely that Frodo would have succumbed to the power of the ring and failed to destroy it. I think that 1984, Brave New World, War of the Worlds, We, and novels like this perform a similar function for the collective conscious of humanity. The only difference is that we are all collectively Frodo's and Sam's, the one ring is our own self-destructive pathology, and the Shire is the purity of conscious creation from which we originally emerged.
- jhbadger 6y ago
  I think a better way of phrasing this would be "While Wells, Huxley and Orwell invented totalitarian worlds, the Soviet writer was living in one." Of course Western society had flaws, and that was part of the point of Wells, Huxley, and Orwell writing their dystopias, but Zamyatin was living in the sort of society British authors could only imagine in their dystopias.
trhway 6y ago
I've never heard Platonov mentioned in the West when it comes to Russian/USSR literature dealing with ideological totality. Probably Platonov's language is very hard to translate in the way preserving his sound. To me his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_Pit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_Pit is if one removed all the fictional elements from "We", removed even any [anti] glory of "dystopia" and any color, got down to the very ground, and what raw core left would be it. On some plane it is close, though much more brutal on the reader, to the Strugatskis' "Snail on the Slope".
- konart 6y ago
  I deeply hated Котлован (The Foundation Pit) at school. To this day I can't understand why this on is even in school program.
  - trhway 6y ago
    Deep consolations to your fate :) It must have been real torture. Putting it on school program is worse than putting Dostoevsky there. While i was able to read Dostoevsky again later at University, and that time i was enjoying it and started to understand him (at least it was my impression that i was understanding him), i was able to start reading Platonov only when i was doing heavy physical labor 12-14 hours/day 7 days a week while working in summer construction in Siberia ("stroyotryad") - that puts you into the state of mind suitable for Platonov :)
opsgal 6y ago
"We" is amazing. Have read it several times because there is so much to the text. Nothing is accidental, even down to the numbers he picks for the characters (many are related through mathematical formulas). I love gifting copies.
atombender 6y ago
Does anyone know of a good Kindle version? This one [1] purports to be the Clarence Brown translation. But it bears no semblance to Brown's translation published in paperback by Penguin [2], and looks in fact to be the old version by Zilboorg. From what I can tell, the Brown version is much better. But it's not available on Kindle? There's a whole bunch of Kindle versions that all have terrible typography (even worse than most Kindle books, I mean). [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CKCHMV6 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CKCHMV6 [2] https://www.amazon.com/We-Yevgeny-Zamyatin/dp/0140185852 https://www.amazon.com/We-Yevgeny-Zamyatin/dp/0140185852
- acabal 6y ago
  https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/yevgeny-zamyatin/we/gregory-zilboorg https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/yevgeny-zamyatin/we/gregor...
  - atombender 6y ago
    That's the public domain Zilboorg translation.
orybak 6y ago
"We" can be easily considered a prequel to the "Equilibrium" movie
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
LeGuin had a great essay called The Stalin in The Soul regarding Zamyatin and We, I first read it in her book The Language of The Night about 40 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_of_the_Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_of_the_Night Haven't found it online, but did find this description of it http://jesseabrahamlucas.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-stalin-in-soul.html http://jesseabrahamlucas.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-stalin-in-... - for some reason I remembered it as the Stalin of The Soul. on edit: Note the description is anti-LeGuin, and her conclusions of the essay, but is still worth reading I think.

96 points by rutenspitz 6y ago

"We" by Zamyatin is one of the best books I read all of last year. It's out of copy right, so freely downloadable too. Found it much more compelling than either a brave new world or 1984, even though both those books are also great. "We" seemed much more coherent and thought through. Reading his back story makes this even more interesting, given that he was living in a totalitarian state. I'd recommend reading his Wikipedia entry too. In short: highly recommended reading.

ylem 6y ago
I read it in college for a science fiction class. It was amazing. Orwell also thought so(https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jun/08/george-orwell-1984-zamyatin-we https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jun/08/geor...).
m463 6y ago
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61963 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61963
a-dub 6y ago
Yes, one of my all time favorites.
vageli 6y ago
Is there any specific translation you'd recommend?
- opsgal 6y ago
  Natasha Randall's is the best I've found. She's thoughtful in how she approaches grey areas of translation.
newscracker 6y ago
In a nicely formatted version by Standard eBooks here: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/yevgeny-zamyatin/we/gregory-zilboorg https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/yevgeny-zamyatin/we/gregor...

mcavoybn 6y ago

>While Wells, Huxley and Orwell invented flawed worlds, the Soviet writer was living in one. Forgive me if I am reading too much into this, but the tagline for this article feels weird to me. It feels weird because it implies that the "worlds" of Wells, Huxley, and Orwell were without flaw. Was western civilization in the early 20th century really without flaw? Isn't every great dystopian work essentially a thought experiment where the author analytically deducts the endgame of the most pathological tendencies of the society they belong to? I get where they are coming from, but I think this idea that America was perfect in the earth 20th century really needs to be fought against. Don't get me wrong, there were many great things that happened during that period of time, but implying that it was without flaw makes the dystopian conversation about nationality rather than the universality of human imperfection and how that is reflected in the greater society, often insidiously. Anyways, I'm definitely going to pick up a copy of 'We' after reading this. I love dystopian novels and had no idea 'We' was the originator. I think the idea of dystopia is closely related to science fiction, both could be considered a subset of stories that project what the future or some alternate timeline might be like. I think the really cool thing about dystopian stories is that they can act as a sort of crystal ball where humanity can glimpse a gestalt of its potential future and make decisions based on that. For example, in Lord of the Rings, Frodo is shown visions of the Shire should he fail his mission. These visions provide a deep sense of motivation for Frodo's grueling mission to Mount Doom, and without the memory of his love for the Shire (which was reinforced by Samwise towards the end) it's likely that Frodo would have succumbed to the power of the ring and failed to destroy it. I think that 1984, Brave New World, War of the Worlds, We, and novels like this perform a similar function for the collective conscious of humanity. The only difference is that we are all collectively Frodo's and Sam's, the one ring is our own self-destructive pathology, and the Shire is the purity of conscious creation from which we originally emerged.

jhbadger 6y ago
I think a better way of phrasing this would be "While Wells, Huxley and Orwell invented totalitarian worlds, the Soviet writer was living in one." Of course Western society had flaws, and that was part of the point of Wells, Huxley, and Orwell writing their dystopias, but Zamyatin was living in the sort of society British authors could only imagine in their dystopias.

trhway 6y ago

I've never heard Platonov mentioned in the West when it comes to Russian/USSR literature dealing with ideological totality. Probably Platonov's language is very hard to translate in the way preserving his sound. To me his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_Pit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Foundation_Pit is if one removed all the fictional elements from "We", removed even any [anti] glory of "dystopia" and any color, got down to the very ground, and what raw core left would be it. On some plane it is close, though much more brutal on the reader, to the Strugatskis' "Snail on the Slope".

konart 6y ago
I deeply hated Котлован (The Foundation Pit) at school. To this day I can't understand why this on is even in school program.
- trhway 6y ago
  Deep consolations to your fate :) It must have been real torture. Putting it on school program is worse than putting Dostoevsky there. While i was able to read Dostoevsky again later at University, and that time i was enjoying it and started to understand him (at least it was my impression that i was understanding him), i was able to start reading Platonov only when i was doing heavy physical labor 12-14 hours/day 7 days a week while working in summer construction in Siberia ("stroyotryad") - that puts you into the state of mind suitable for Platonov :)

opsgal 6y ago

"We" is amazing. Have read it several times because there is so much to the text. Nothing is accidental, even down to the numbers he picks for the characters (many are related through mathematical formulas). I love gifting copies.

atombender 6y ago

Does anyone know of a good Kindle version? This one [1] purports to be the Clarence Brown translation. But it bears no semblance to Brown's translation published in paperback by Penguin [2], and looks in fact to be the old version by Zilboorg. From what I can tell, the Brown version is much better. But it's not available on Kindle? There's a whole bunch of Kindle versions that all have terrible typography (even worse than most Kindle books, I mean). [1] https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CKCHMV6 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CKCHMV6 [2] https://www.amazon.com/We-Yevgeny-Zamyatin/dp/0140185852 https://www.amazon.com/We-Yevgeny-Zamyatin/dp/0140185852

acabal 6y ago
https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/yevgeny-zamyatin/we/gregory-zilboorg https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/yevgeny-zamyatin/we/gregor...
- atombender 6y ago
  That's the public domain Zilboorg translation.

orybak 6y ago

"We" can be easily considered a prequel to the "Equilibrium" movie

bryanrasmussen 6y ago

LeGuin had a great essay called The Stalin in The Soul regarding Zamyatin and We, I first read it in her book The Language of The Night about 40 years ago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_of_the_Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Language_of_the_Night Haven't found it online, but did find this description of it http://jesseabrahamlucas.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-stalin-in-soul.html http://jesseabrahamlucas.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-stalin-in-... - for some reason I remembered it as the Stalin of The Soul. on edit: Note the description is anti-LeGuin, and her conclusions of the essay, but is still worth reading I think.