I’ve just finished reading Eugene Zamiatin’s “We”. The author began as a supporter of the Soviet Communist Party but rapidly became disenchanted with the Soviet Union.
In “We” the writer portrays a society in which all individuality is quashed. People have no names but are mere numbers living in glass buildings who’s every move can be monitored. All time is rigidly controlled with citizens being allowed only “the personal hour” in which they may have some very limited privacy.
Zamiatin’s world is one of nightmares and the novel becomes still more nightmarish when the state’s gazette announces that all citizens must subject themselves to “the operation” which will destroy that part of the brain responsible for imagination thereby rendering the inhabitants of “the one state” happy with no extraneous thoughts, in fact they will become like machines.
“We” has had a profound influence on distopian literature with both George Orwell (in 1984) and Huxley (in Brave New World” drawing on the novel.
For a review of “We” visit http://www.challengingdestiny.com/reviews/we.htm
