We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

My commentary contains major spoilers. I have revealed significant aspects of the book’s conclusion in order to make some of my points.

We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, is one of the earliest dystopian novels. I recently read the Clarence Brown translation. Written in the Soviet Union in 1921, it precedes such important works such as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty - Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.  Both of those and many other “Oppressive Future” novels draw heavily in terms of plot, characters and theme from this work.

Set in the 26^th century, Zamyatin has created a world where the oppressive One – State, ruled by a paternalistic figure known as “The Benefactor,” controls a society whose goal is to stamp out individuality, freedom and genuine emotion. A major tenet of the dictatorship is that it is supposedly based on science and pure rationality. A two hundred year war has ended within the last century. Clues in the narrative indicate that a mechanistic, over controlling, city - based faction defeated a rural-based, naturalistic faction. One - State, a highly technological urban society, is now separated from the undeveloped, natural world by a seemingly impenetrable wall. Descendants of the survivors of the losing side live in relatively primitive conditions outside of the wall. This dark future was clearly influenced by Zamyatin’s reaction to living under Communist oppression. 

Our narrator is known as D – 503. He is an engineer who is chief designer of One - State’s first starship, known as the Integral. The narrative is presented in the form of D – 503’s journal. Relationships form a key part of the novel. Sexual and romantic relations in One – State are basically on demand, with anyone having the right, upon request, to sexual relations with anyone else. Initially D – 503, his poet friend R – 13 and a woman, O – 90, are involved in a romantic triangle. The three are emotionally close and there seems to be minimal jealousy involved.

Enter I -330, a woman who aggressively pursues D – 503. I – 330 is charismatic, bold and independent, but also controlling and manipulative. She turns out to be the leader of a rebel movement whose goal is the overthrow of One - State. She plans to steal the Integral and use it against the powers that be. Throughout the story, D – 503 is constantly wavering between his loyalty to One – State and the belief system that goes with it, and his increasing obsessive feelings for I – 330.

The story is engaging. D – 503 is something of a philosopher whose thoughts champion One - State as well as its mechanistic and uniform lifestyle and soulless existence. As he begins to fall for I – 330, breaks rules and has thoughts unbecoming of the conformist lifestyle, he begins to become disconcerted and at times disorientated. He starts to see the world around him as being off - kilter and distorted, as if reality itself was mirroring his thoughts and outlook. He imagines and describes himself and the world around him, in terms of numbers, equations and machines, but of numbers, equations and machines that have something going very wrong with them. At one point he observes,

“I'm like a machine being run over its RPM limit: The bearings are overheating - a minute longer, and the metal is going to melt and start dripping and that'll be the end of everything. I need a quick splash of cold water, logic. I pour it on in buckets, but the logic hisses on the hot bearings and dissipates in the air as a fleeting white mist.”

Philosophically, Zamyatin goes into some interesting directions here. The oppressiveness inherent in the society that he has fashioned is largely driven by a wildly overzealous belief in science and rationalism, at the expense of nature, natural behavior, authentic feelings and individuality.

Personally, I believe that twenty-first century popular and political culture tends to unfairly demonize rationality and logical thinking at the expense of unthinking feelings and intuition.  I believe that our current world would only benefit from more rationality and logical thought. Of course, this book was not written by a person living in a twenty - first century westernized nation as I do. The Russia that Zamyatin was living in was horrendously oppressive and operated under the pretension of super rationality that was supposedly leading down a path ending in ultimate human happiness. Like many generally positive things, supposedly logical ideologies, when taken too far, and when forced upon people, can lead to not just bad, but monstrous results. Communist Russia was but one example. Thus, Zamyatin’s book serves as a warning that needs to be heeded, even by those of us who champion rationality.

In the end, the author seems to be illustrating what he believes to be a timeless and universal struggle between the forces of naturalism verses the forces of logic. Both sides win victories, and there are great triumphs as well as disheartening defeats. The book ends with D – 503 giving in to his conformist instincts and voluntarily betraying the rebellion as well as I – 330. For her part, I – 330 valiantly resists torture and gains a great moral victory, but she will presumably be executed. The rebels have seized control of large parts, but not all, of One – State. The civil war rages on with no clear victor apparent. 

A Few Words on Zamyatin's View of Christianity

Zamyatin makes another interesting ideological connection between the operation, ideology and oppressiveness of One - State, and the history and ideology surrounding Christianity. On several occasions both D – 503 and I – 330 identify Christianity as a precursor to One - State. Parallels are drawn between the two belief systems in the shared messianic messages, the end result of a final, perfect happiness for mankind, as well as progress and eventual happiness through suffering.

At one point, D – 503 is actually called before the Benefactor himself, and the conversation centers around One State’s execution of dissidents. The Benefactor also draws parallels to One State and Christianity,

“this same Christian, all merciful God, the one who slowly roasts in the fire of hell all who rebel against him – is he not to be called executioner? And those who the Christians burned at the stake, are they fewer in number then the Christians who were burnt?”

Others have connected Christian thought and Communist ideology. Recently, is his The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, Steven Pinker spells out many similarities, including those highlighted by Zamyatin. I believe that Communist thought systems have borrowed from Christian thought systems in ways that both authors have illustrated. However, in all fairness, Christian belief can in no way, except perhaps by its worst excesses, be blamed for the fact that Communist ideology was influenced by it.

In Conclusion

This novel is an extremely important and influential work. It has affected so much of what has come since. It is also an extremely enjoyable read, filled with interesting characters that engage in interesting relationships and thoughts. As usual, there is a lot more here than I have touched upon. I have only focused upon a few points that I found thought provoking. There are many more. This is a must read for anyone interested in the included themes, science fiction in general or in dystopian literature.


05/24/14 - I made some minor edits to the above in order to correct a certain error I originally made in regards to Russian history.

The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov

Unpublished during his lifetime, The Foundation Pit by Andrey Platonov is a deeply philosophical novel filled with ruminations upon life and the human condition. It is also satirical and in parts veers into the absurd. 

Like Platonov’s Happy Moscow, this book is set in the Soviet Union. It is the 1920s, and factory worker Voshchev is laid off from his job for too much thinking and not enough working. Shortly thereafter, he joins a work crew of diggers who are tasked with excavating a foundation pit that is the first step in the construction of a huge communal housing building. We are subsequently introduced to the various characters who are part of the excavation team. 

Voshchev himself is in search of truth and the meaning of life. Various other members of the work crew exhibit interesting personalities. Safronov is the earnest and hard working group leader. Kozlov is a one hundred percent true believer in communist and party ideals.  Prushevsky is the engineer who often tries to look at life in terms of material reality and rational calculation. Chiklin is an unthinking and somewhat violent enforcer of party ideology. Zhachev is also violent as well as legless and likes to terrorize those he deems as members of the bourgeois upper classes. This diverse group, as well as the project itself, is ripe fodder for musings about the meaning of life and humanity, as well as communist ideals.

When a bourgeois woman from Prushevsky’s and Kozlev’s past dies, the crew adopts her young daughter Natasha, who clearly represents the future of communism. Eventually, the narrative changes to surrealistic absurdity. Horses who begin to collectivize their own hay and a bear, who is a blacksmith’s assistant and who has a tendency to rough up members of the upper class peasantry, are introduced. 

The novel is highly symbolic and allegorical. It almost seems that every sentence is infused with layers of meaning. I believe that this work is ultimately an exploration of humankind’s search for purpose and universal truth. For example, Voshchev is obsessed with discovering the meaning behind human existence. 

This all seems to relate to the book’s complex exploration of communism. Though ultimately an indictment of the ideology, Platonov acknowledges that the system has many good intentioned adherents who are genuinely interested in improving the world and believe that the quest is a worthy purpose to life. This is, however, a tragic mistake.

Again and again, Platonov provides evidence that communism is destroying the human soul. In one of many examples, a priest who has “converted” to socialism remarks,

 “Living’s no use to me” and later “I no longer feel the beauty of creation – I’m left without God, and God’s without man”.

Too much science and logic are also excoriated as spiritually vacuous. At one point, the rationalist Prushevsky sinks into suicidal despair and is unable to reconcile true human emotions with his analytical way of thinking. 

“It seemed to Prushevsky that all his emotions, all his desires and his old longings met in his reasoning mind and gained awareness of themselves down to the very sources of their origin, mortally destroying the naivety of hope. But the origins of emotions remained a troubling place in life, by dying one could lose forever this single happy, true area of existence without having entered it.  But good God, what was to be done if he lacked any of those self – obvious impressions that quicken life and make it rise and stretch its arms forward toward hope”

If there is any solace here, it seems to come from human recognition of the value of life, even seemingly unimportant life. Throughout the narrative, Voshchev continually collects little mementoes of deceased and bygone people, animals and plants and thoughtfully reflects upon both the objects and the lives. 

Though at one point a group of the economically well off are placed on a raft and forever cast adrift at sea to “liquidate” them, this is not a story of state oppression, secret police or arrests. Instead it depicts extreme forms of collectivization and modernization as soul wrecking malignancies. Amazingly, as per the commentary by translator Mirra Ginsburg, Platonov did attempt to have this published in the Soviet Union, but unsurprisingly failed.

This is a challenging work; what begins as a somewhat conventionally written character study evolves into what is at times a bizarre and highly whimsical tale. I have also overgeneralized the ideas presented here. Platonov is anything but a simplistic writer and his themes and metaphors take all sorts of twists and turns that we are often presented cryptically. At times I found it really difficult to get my head around his main points.

I found that Happy Moscow was a more poignant and aesthetically stronger work. Though both books had similar motifs, Happy Moscow seemed more tightly focused on the universal themes and problems of modernity and rationality. My commentary on that novel is here. 

However, if one is not hesitant to read a story filled with unconventionality as well as tackle a complex blend of ideas, this book is a good choice. It is filled with interesting characters and intriguing musings upon life. 

Richard over at Caravana De Recuerdos also recently posted commentary of this novel here.

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder

The world can be ugly and brutal. Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin subject is Eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s and the impact that both Hitler’s and Stalin’s murderous policies had on the population of the region. This time and place was as ugly and brutal as it ever got. The book is remarkably well researched and morbidly fascinating. It is also a difficult and troubling read. The subject of this book involves what are likely the darkest and most disturbing events in human history. This work catalogues killings upon killings. Tales of mass, intentional starvations, torture, and sadism abound here. Most distressing is the scale of death involved.  Not hundreds, not thousands, not even millions, but tens of millions of people were murdered and exposed to atrocities. This was perhaps the worst mass murder and in world history (I say “perhaps” as some scholars contend that the Mongols killed more people in the 13^th and 14^th centuries). It encompassed the Holocaust as well plenty of other barbarisms.

For those who are not familiar with Stalin’s crimes, he perpetuated horror on a comparable scale to Hitler. He practiced intentional mass starvations, mass shootings as well as multiple terror campaigns that were actually the model for many of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis.

As is often the case with insightful and well thought out books, there are many themes to contemplate here. One particularly important strand in the narrative is the exploration of the motivations behind the mass atrocities. From my experience, I find that that many people think of Hitler on very simplistic terms as “a madman who was trying to conquer the world.” I often encounter those who no nothing of Stalin. Some of those who know just a little bit about the Soviet leader have a vague notion that he was an evil dictator who liked to kill people (he was, but there is more to it).

As Snyder explains, both leaders pursued their own “Utopian Ideologies”. Stalin was attempting to collectivize agricultural production over a vast area, encompassing a huge population. A little later the Russian dictator began what is known as the “Great Terror”, the goal of which was to eliminate potential internal support for foreign invaders. These campaigns added up to an attempt to eliminate entire social and political classes, first through a planned, intentional famine, and later through a state sponsored terror, culminating in mass executions and nightmarish forced labor.

Hitler was attempting to establish a vast eastern empire, mostly for its agrarian potential. His plan was to exterminate and enslave the enormous populations currently occupying this segment of the earth. He envisioned a huge expanded Reich, stretching from Siberia to the Rhine that would be a paradise for the German people. Hatred for Jews was an added political and social motivator.

The result was genocide (this is a term that, as Snyder explains, he prefers not to use), untold misery, and the blackest moments in human history. Partial blame for these horrors can be laid upon fanatical, un-skeptical and uncompromising devotion to these ideas. These were belief systems so ill conceived and uncritically accepted that they led unspeakable horrors on a barely imaginable scale.

I do not want to give impression that I believe these crimes were committed solely because of mindless adherence to ideology. There were many other reasons, some connected and some not so connected to these horrendous philosophies. Ingrained racism and anti- Semitism, the depravations of First World War, the cult of personality, etc. were also major factors. However, one important lesson here is that blind faith in uncompromising mindsets and plans, reinforced by unceasing propaganda, can lead to terrible consequences.

Those interested in further reading into the hell that the world descended into during this era might want to try Niall Ferguson’s The War of the World. Though this is another book that is not a cheery read, Ferguson details the surge in killings and violence that occurred in the first half of the twentieth century and attempts to identify its causes.

I Married a Communist by Philip Roth

I Married a Communist is one of Philip Roth’s  “Zuckerman” novels. It is the seventh in the series. Over the last few years I have been working through this sequence and reading the books in order. I love these works.

I have immensely enjoyed everything that I have ever read by Roth. His writing contains multiple insights into people and the world. His wit, as well as his characters, are often hilarious. When he is tragic, it is devastatingly effective. The tendency is moving toward tragedy, and less lighthearted playfulness in the Zuckerman Series, as the books progress and the characters age. His writing style is easy to digest yet not simplistic. His structured plots are artfully interlaced with complex and thought provoking themes.

 Though a “Zuckerman” Book, Nathan Zuckerman is not the main character in I Married a Communist. Instead, he is more of a bystander influenced by the main players, as well as an interpreter of their actions. The protagonist here is Ira Ringold, an unsophisticated Newark tough, who goes off to fight World War II, and who becomes seduced with communist ideology. When Ira returns from the war, he eventually finds success as a radio actor and marries into upper crust American society. Ira is not a menace to America, he is no spy or saboteur, just an very overbearing and naive ideologue. Ira is eventually brought down less by McCarthyism, then by a terribly dysfunctional relationship with his wife and stepdaughter.

I Married a Communist follows the brilliant American Pastoral in the series.  American Pastoral was superb. It was one of the best twentieth century novels that I have read. I Married a Communist is not quite up to that level; it does not pack the same emotional punch and is not as esthetically satisfying.  Nonetheless, in my opinion this is still a really good, perhaps great novel. American Pastoral is just a tough act to follow.

The Zuckerman books are full of interesting themes. I will mention that some readers have found that these works become repetitive. Roth has come under criticism for this perceived redundancy. See the below link to a New York Times piece about Carmen Callil’s opinion on this and other issues. Callil contends, among several complaints, that Roth repeats himself. While in a way, Callil has a point, I ultimately do not agree with the conclusion.

Roth does tend to explore similar or even the same themes over and over again in the course of many books. In my opinion, in Roth’s case, this is not a flaw. Like the composer of a complex piece of classical music, who starts with a musical theme and repeats it in a variety of forms over the course of the entire work, Roth imaginatively and expertly looks at several aspects of the human condition from multitude of angles and points of view. He accomplishes this over a series of books. Like the composer who restates a chosen theme using different keys, emphasis. tempo, etc., Roth takes an idea, and applies it to various people and situations that may be too diverse to fit into one novel.

One of Roth’s most important reoccurring motifs is the concept of human identity, or the way in which a person and others thinks about “self”. Roth’s thinking about what it means for a person to have identity owes much, to both Shakespeare, who is often referenced directly and indirectly by Roth’s characters, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, particularly the  Great Gatsby’s conception of the American propensity to reinvent and shift identities.

How precisely does Roth explore identity? In I Married a Communist, the various characters try to establish their identities, slip in and out of identities, hide their identities, fake identities, and finally have invalid identities forced upon them by others. The later sub - theme; that of having a false identity forced upon you, fits in well with the era described here. Most of the narrative takes place of post World War II America, when a multitude of non - communists were falsely accused and identified as being communists. The way that Roth weaves together this complex lattice of character and identity, as the various personalities evolve and interact, is a wonder.

For instance, I Married a Communist’s character of Eve Frame is born and raised Jewish. As she becomes accepted in the White Anglo Protestant world of mid twentieth century upper class America, she hides, perhaps even from herself, her Jewish origins, and actually develops real feelings of anti – Semitism. Later she is indifferent to the fact that her husband is a dyed in the wool communist (not someone who is falsely accused, but the real thing). Later still, she changes her “self” again and poses as a right wing, flag waving, anti –communist patriot, but privately admits that this position is just an act. Eve’s shifting persona interacts with a variety of others, who also share the all too human trait of having shifting, false, and misinterpreted selves.

My advice for anyone wishing to delve into the Zuckerman books is not to start I Married a Communist since it is late in the series. As a “Completest”, I would start at the beginning with Ghost Writer. The first four novels can actually be found in one volume as Zuckerman Bound. If one definitely does not want to read all the books, American Pastoral can be read standalone (Nathan Zuckerman is not even the main character in this one either), and is well worth it.

I have two more books to go, The Human Stain, and Exit Ghost cannot wait to get to them!

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/philip-roth-wins-man-booker-international-prize-in-disputed-decision/