The book that I-330 gave me, where her monicker comes from is WE, by Yevgeny Zamyatin. I asked her to write about it and she was more verbose than I'll be. It's a great book that is as relevant now as it was when written in 1921. Interestingly, it was not published in the Soviet Union untill 1988.
I truly enjoyed this work, it's classic dystopian literature. I did need to keep reminding myself that it was a precursor to later works though. Does D-503 stray from One State because of the influence of I-330 or did he seek her out because he was straying from authority? I think the latter.
I've always enjoyed reading dystopian works because of their pure sterility. Human lives distilled into their most minimalistic form. By stripping away as much humanity as possible, it is then an examination of humanity in a crucible. The human strugggle for existence is key. This is a struggle we all live with, whether we know it or not. Most do not it seems, and are so much more like characters in this type of novel than they could comprehend.
People in general are little better than sheep and submit to treatment as such.
As extreme a view dystopias present, utopias do the same, just at the opposite apex of the swing of the pendulum. I wouldn't want to live in either.
Below is I-330's take on the book:
We – a grotesque vision of a society through a looking glass
A dichotomy between Utopia and Dystopia
I like seeing utopias as dreams we want to fulfill, and dystopias as the nightmares we attempt to escape. There is an underlying difference, however, in the perspective. One person’s utopia could be another person’s dystopia, for underneath the surface, utopias are the ultimate tyranny – one person’s usurped way of imagining society as it "should be", with no other versions or alternatives allowed. There is a point where utopia might almost seamlessly overlap with the fabric of dystopia.
A society where trying to take a mouthful of freedom was regarded as an act of dissidence and any individualistic attempt was considered opium for the masses can hardly be described as utopian. (Observant readers will certainly be able to find analogies to the works of Orwell and Huxley. Though the events that serve as the armature of We were, unfortunately, subsequently implemented in reality. Zamyatin must have had prophetic powers…)
The novel serves as a critical and in-depth study of totalitarianism and its far-reaching repercussions, depicting a human being and his condition.
In a homogenous society described by Zamyatin We certainly exists. But does I exist? Is there any room for individualism? This question might be asked or looked at in two contexts: primo, in terms of the communist idea of existing in a community (but wouldn’t it be vegetating – being deprived of any traces of individualism and the opportunity to represent a subjective vision and a state of mind?); secundo, through a slightly more philosophical and provocative prism, encouraging us to interpret and analyze the human existence in general.
The product of that gloomy era could be described as homo sovieticus, a neologism coined to describe a particular species of human beings generated in Soviet times – disciplined by the individualism-suction apparatus. The novel’s protagonist – a conformist serving as another screw of the Integral (as a synecdoche for an “ideal” society) would be this species’ prototype. He does have a chance (we always have a choice) to metamorphose and shed his cocoon, but he myopically refuses to do so.
But doesn’t it lead to intellectual/social/emotional auto-destruction?
Trotting around in our [largely] monochromatic lives, we could still ask ourselves a seemingly banal question: Who am I? How do I manifest myself in life?
I would be a dry homo sapiens (though a chirring cricket to some). A selective homo legens and a homo dicens (though some would say homo chastisingus). Unfortunately, a homo faber and a homo ludens in my own ways.
It is hard to a sentient person, however, to conceive the idea of pursuing a chimera and leading a life as a homo sovieticus – a hybrid of a man and a Soviet screw!
Really, is depriving human beings of individualism and creating a hermetically sealed society a panacea for all of society’s ailments?
How misanthropic could one be to create something as damaging and destructive?! Or was it the history with a capital H and its unstoppable flights of fancy?
A pause for mental digestion...
