M F ALFREY

WE by Yevgeny (Eugene) Zamyatin, a Review

1984, Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World … they’re the titles that roll off the tongue for most lovers of dystopian fiction. Sure, there are more, though these are often the most cited. So, what in the great Well-doer is WE and who wrote it and why should you read it if you enjoy dystopian fiction?

First, a potted history: WE is considered to have influenced the emergence of the dystopian genre. It was written in 1920 – 1921 by Russian writer Yevgeny (Eugene) Zamyatin, yet the original Russian text was published in 1952 and not published in Soviet Russia until 1988, for reasons which become obvious when you read WE.

Myself, I love dystopian fiction. From novels to novellas and short fiction, to movies and TV series and short film. All, of course, varying in levels of the ever subjective “good”. With WE and me, the story goes like this: I’d been re-reading the classics in dystopian fiction and had just finished struggling through The Handmaid’s Tale in preparation for drafting my own offering to the dystopian overlord when my wife said, “Hey, ever heard of WE?” to which I replied, “Nope, first I’d heard of it.” When she explained WE was often viewed as one of the earliest influential dystopian fictions I could hardly ignore it. If I’m writing a dystopian novel I kinda owe it to myself and my readers, right?

So, I started it.

At roughly 60,500 words (around 266 pages), I thought I’ll breeze through this in a weekend, easy. Then I hit the prose … Now I’ve a new thing I say about “good” books – books worth reading because of when, where, and who and what they say. It goes like this:

“A worthwhile book may not be easy or pleasant to read but is worthwhile reading precisely because it is uneasy and unpleasant.”

Obviously, that didn’t come off the top of my head. The original phrase was much simpler:

“Sometimes a good book is hard to read.”

This is probably does the trick just as well. You choose which you like. The point is WE was written in 1920 in Russia in a very particular setting and very much has a message. So, some of the historical and cultural messages may pass us by or seem odd to a modern reader. Zamyatin employees the free use of … ellipsis, and often leaves sentences—

You get the point.

This happens both in the narrative, a retrospective document written by D-503, the main character, and happens in dialogue. The prose has a poetic literary edge and is full of wild unbridled metaphors which can be baffling at times.

But stick with it.

There’s method in D-503’s (Zamyatin’s) metaphorical madness and mental ramblings. I won’t spoil it, but this was definitely a book I had to work hard with. I failed to finish the first attempt and flopped halfway through. Yet I was determined to read it and, about a year later, when I picked up the drafting of my WIP dystopian, I thought, “Right!” rolling up my sleeves and got back to it right from the beginning (because I am a glutton for punishment). I read on and on, rolled my eyes, became frustrated, confused, bemused, mildly mad …

I stopped and started but I—

I found the ellipsis and the abrupt em-dashed speech appearing freely and abundantly in my own writing … I cursed Zamyatin! (I am currently culling … and —). However, I finally got to the end of WE … And then it happened—

One simple line. Simply one. With this one line Zamyatin puts all those … and the many — into perfect context and shows what he was up to all along.

Like I said earlier: “Method to the madness”.

I realised Zamyatin had played me like a balalaika. The confusion, the bafflement, and frustration belonged to D-503, yet I’d become so entwined with the character through the prose Zamyatin had me experiencing the story as D-503. And I love it when I get played by an author. Phillip K. Dick always gets me, even when I’m on my guard. I now add Zamyatin to that short list of authors who play me like I’m made for music.

If you’ve read the titles above but not WE, then I recommend it. Like me, you may hate it at first but give it a chance. Sometimes good books are hard to read, remember. I felt the same with The Handmaid’s Tale but found WE much harder work in terms of prose style. Was it worthwhile?

Totally, but …

During the research for writing this little bit about WE I discovered it wasn’t exactly the first dystopian, so now The Iron Heel (1908), by American writer Jack London (of White Fang fame), is on my dystopian TBR pile. Excellent!

YOU! Go read WE and tell ME what you think below!

Also, anyone out there read The Iron Heel … What did you think?

Just one more ellipsis, there … done.