WE by Yevgeny Zamyatin Review

In the dystopian future, engineer D-503 (because future people are numbers - individuals don’t matter, only the collective we are the Borg) is working on the rocketship Integral to spread the doctrine of Utopia’s Benefactor to the stars. But then he falls in love with I-330 - and love, imagination, anything that smacks of human nature, is punishable by death! What’s a supposedly-mindless drone to do?!

Yevgeny Zamyatin’s WE has been on my radar for some time now, purely because I heard that it was a major influence on Orwell’s 1984 and I loved that novel. And it clearly was, and I’m glad to finally tick that box of having read this, but, man alive, is it not fun to read!

Orwell’s 1946 review of WE is included at the back of this edition and it’s ironic because he spends a part of the review going through the similarities WE has with Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and, though it does, Orwell basically completely ripped off WE shortly after writing this review, essentially rewriting it as 1984!

Dystopian future, totalitarian state, overbearing supreme leader, discouraging independence in all its forms, the main character undergoes an awakening, falls in love with a female character, secret resistance, and then the finale - WE and 1984 are practically identical in all facets. And yet 1984 is by far the better novel, possibly because Hitler/Stalin/WW2 had happened by the time Orwell came to write it and could lend that nightmarish realism to his book, but mainly because Orwell was a better writer.

Zamyatin’s prose is unengaging and the story lacks the sense of urgent danger, paralysing fear and sickening oppression of Orwell’s vision. Sure, Zamyatin’s book is more original in its details but it’s still dull to read. Once D-503 falls in love, nothing really happens for much of the novel until the uninteresting ending. I was never once taken with the characters or world or any aspect of the story.

You know how it’s said there’s only seven or so stories and everyone’s just reworking them over and over? All that really means is that the storytelling is more important than the story itself. And that’s the case here: Zamyatin and Orwell told a near identical story but Orwell’s had a vastly bigger impact on our world because he’s the better storyteller and 1984 is a much more compelling narrative. A lot of Shakespeare’s plays were rewritings of pre-existing plays (Hamlet, Lear, etc.) but Shakespeare’s versions are the definitive ones because they were the better written and more enthralling to audiences.

Also included in this edition are dreary essays by Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin that I wouldn’t bother reading, not least because Atwood’s introduction, like too many introductions to literary classics, brazenly includes spoilers. If you ever get a book with an introduction, always read it AFTER reading the book itself.

Even if you’re a fan of 1984, I still wouldn’t recommend reading WE as a curio because it’s so, so boring. I appreciate its literary place as the inspiration for Orwell’s masterpiece, and it should be remembered for that, but I definitely didn’t enjoy reading it at all and don’t rate Zamyatin as much of a writer; he was a fine ideas guy but not a great storyteller.