The One State is the perfect society, ruled over by the enlightened Benefactor. It is a city made almost entirely of glass, where surveillance is universal and life runs according to algorithmic rules to ensure perfect happiness. And D-503, the Builder, is the ideal citizen, at least until he meets I-330, who opens his eyes to new ideas of love, sex and freedom. A foundational work of dystopian fiction, inspiration for both Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley's Brave New World, WE is a book of radical imaginings - of ...
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The One State is the perfect society, ruled over by the enlightened Benefactor. It is a city made almost entirely of glass, where surveillance is universal and life runs according to algorithmic rules to ensure perfect happiness. And D-503, the Builder, is the ideal citizen, at least until he meets I-330, who opens his eyes to new ideas of love, sex and freedom. A foundational work of dystopian fiction, inspiration for both Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley's Brave New World, WE is a book of radical imaginings - of control and rebellion, surveillance and power, machine intelligence and human inventiveness, sexuality and desire. It is both a warning and a hope for a better world. This new edition also includes Ursula K. Le Guin's essay 'The Stalin in the Soul' on the enduring influence of Zamyatin's masterpiece, and George Orwell's 1946 review of WE.
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Add this copy of We to cart. $1.37, fair condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by Harper Voyager.
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Fair. Used book-May contain writing notes highlighting bends or folds. Text is readable book is clean and pages and cover mostly intact. May show normal wear and tear. Item may be missing CD. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of We to cart. $2.59, very good condition, Sold by Half Price Books Inc rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by Harper Voyager.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of We to cart. $2.79, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by Harper Voyager.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of We to cart. $2.92, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by Harper Voyager.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of We to cart. $2.92, very good condition, Sold by Half Price Books Inc rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by Harper Voyager.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Add this copy of We (Modern Library Classics) to cart. $2.95, good condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2006 by Modern Library.
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Used book in good and clean conditions. Pages and cover are intact. Limited notes marks and highlighting may be present. May show signs of normal shelf wear and bends on edges. Item may be missing CDs or access codes. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of We (Modern Library Classics) to cart. $2.95, fair condition, Sold by ZBK Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Woodland Park, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 2006 by Modern Library.
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Fair. Used book-May contain writing notes highlighting bends or folds. Text is readable book is clean and pages and cover mostly intact. May show normal wear and tear. Item may be missing CD. May include library marks. Fast Shipping.
Add this copy of We to cart. $3.19, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Ruby rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1983 by Harper Voyager.
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Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
This edition of the book (McAllister Editions 2021) is very poor. Aside from being displeasing to the eye, the text itself contains quite a few errors. Errors, specifically, that it seems unlikely that a human would make. My guess is that they used scanning and/or AI to capture the content (which I believe is public domain at this point) and then print it into some books. It feels like what it is, which is a cheap cash grab. As for the book itself, the reader will see points of commonality between We and 1984 or Brave New World. While interesting, We is clearly the work of an inferior novelist.
booksqrl
Mar 19, 2009
Nineteen Twenty-One
This dystopian book is similar in many ways to Nineteen Eighty-Four, but was written over twenty years earlier in bolshevik Russia. Zamyatin perceives a future in which a tiny number of survivors on Earth live in the domed city of the "One State", where their every action is regulated to the last chew of their food.
Protagonist and narrator D-503 is writing a series of notes to the 'aliens' intended to be contacted via the Integral (basically, a spaceship) that he is in charge of building. The plan is to convert even extra-terrestials to the peace and solidarity of the One State. But when D-503 encounters the heretical and elusive I-330, both his life and the narrative start to run off the rails.
Zamyatin tentatively explores conformity, both in the in 'top-down' dictatorship from the Benefactor and in the pressure of the citizens' peers. Every wall in the One State is glass; every action (except sex) is open to view. This lack of privacy is similar to Orwell's ubiquitous viewscreens, except that here, there is literally no corner in which to hide.
Sadly, D-503 proves to be no hero.
This translation is readable and the story moves along at a reasonable pace. The book is only short, especially when compared to Orwell's lengthy tome. Definitely worth reading both in order to make a comparison, and it was instructive to see where Orwell may have got some of his ideas.
