Along with my more focused efforts on climate fiction, I’ve also wanted to dissect the role of science and engineering within the science fiction fantasy genre. Player Piano sort of spurred on my more recent fervor, but I feel that my general critique of science fiction plays with these ideas. Hence, when we were sent a copy of the more recent publication of Yevegeny Zamyatin’s We, I put it on the docket. Despite my reservations about it due to its history being hoisted as a specifically anti-communist screed, I found myself engrossed in its portrayal of a totalitarian state built on Taylorism and utilitarian ideals.
D-503 is the builder of the Integral, a space-faring vessel that is meant to bring the glory of the OneState and the Great Benefactor to the stars. But while D-503’s mind is normally obsessed with math and the numbers that will propel his machine beyond the realm of the Earth, he seems to be coming down with an illness. He’s developing a soul. And in the rigid world of the OneState, where days are broken down into hours based around production, where time is given for sex, but not the sort that leads to pleasure, having a soul is a death sentence. Spurred on by the presence of the seductive revolutionary I-333, D-503 enters into a psychological battle with his rational and animal selves. Will he squash the spring of humanity within him, or will D-503 reassert himself to finish the work of those before him?
We is seen as the predecessor to a lot of modern dystopias of the 20th century, and with good reason. If you’ve read 1984, there are a lot of similarities between the characters and their position within society. There are very similar story beats despite their focus on two very different concerns about the direction a totalitarian society would take. While 1984 focuses on language and the use of “double-speak” to hide the true meaning of words, We focuses on how the state views humans as a vermin to eradicate and replace with automatons. Not through the use of robots, but through regimentation and scheduling. Through force of will, and eventually the elimination of the imagination. One does what the OneState tells them because it’s what’s expected, and your only other choice is to die.
A major point in We’s favor is that the society feels fully developed and on the cusp of its final transformation. Rebellion is hard in the OneState’s nearly crystallized form of society. D-503’s day happens to him. He does not make many choices beyond making sure he is on time to the things that matter to the OneState. It’s only through his growing obsession with I-333 where something within him breaks from the confines of his internal cell. Things spin out of control because he starts to feel the weight of doing things outside the laws and norms of the society he is a part of. Staying out beyond curfew, smoking cigarettes, and calling out of work radiate from the cracks within his identity of D-503. The infractions feel silly in some ways, but the D-503s emotional turbulence that stems from these infractions is palpable. It gives the feeling that so much of how the OneState operates is through self-policing, but there is always the lingering threat that there might be more to back everything up.
How We succeeds is heavily reliant on Zemyatin’s writing and the mission of the translator – Clarence Brown. It ping pongs between the more rational side of D-503 and the fear that something animal is trying to reclaim control over his body. This is depicted in his journal entries as he tries to describe the feeling of his “hairy paws” entering his vision, reaching out to make their mark on the world. These hairy paws are constantly searching endless for something to hold onto so the ape can pull itself out of the mindset etched into D-503’s daily routine. It gives him a distinctly human feeling that despite centuries of the OneState, they have not yet been able to eradicate the human(tm). This dynamic between D-503 and the beast inside escalates as he grows increasingly more erratic about the possible consequences he might face and his proximity to its project of spreading the OneState amongst the stars. It’s not overly complex in it’s portrayal, but it feels rich given the language used to describe it. The prose contrasts the very boring, by-the-numbers feel of the environment that he lives in with the vivid imagination surging within D-503. It strengthens the soul of the individual, making it feel unconstrained even when it’s repressed by his own language and self corrective tendencies. Which makes it feel all the more tragic when the realization sets in that an individual, regardless of his position within that society, still falls to the overwhelming might of the state.
The vision of the OneState is also fascinating in its forms of control. It is a society built solely on efficiency and optimization as goals in and of themselves instead of methods to reach other goals. Yes, they are building a rocket ship to export the OneState to the stars, but they seemingly have destroyed most of their enemies outside the dome they erected to protect themselves from the destabilized environment of the world. The Great Benefactor oversees all, but his role almost feels ambiguous, as if it’s a literal role that anyone can fill, despite the rhetoric about his power, intelligence, and charisma. The only true grand project that seems to be permeating society is the destruction of the imagination through a society wide mandatory surgery. There are no grand ideals beyond “don’t get noticed,” and “do your job.” The society extrapolates Taylorism to its bleeding edge – turbocharging the idea that the most efficient methods of production can be deduced through studying body movements and standardizing the industrial process so that the human body is a multi-purpose cog specializing in a very limited scope of the entire process. There isn’t a specific ideology that steers the OneState beyond its desire to persist. In We, it feels like a very pointed critique at historical fears of the time especially surrounding the consolidation of power within the Soviet Revolution in Russia and its aftermath. It gives it both the immediate feeling that it can arise from anywhere and challenge everything while not feeling overly specific – something that seems to be a mainstay within popular dystopian literature.
And at least in We it works. It doesn’t feel overly simplicized because ultimately the battle is between the human soul and the state’s desire to rationalize our existence into that of an automaton. I expected it to feel empty and cold, a desperate fight against the shackles of an unforgiving society. Instead, I read a funny attempt at realizing the fears of a human being crushed under the weight of a society that determined that having a soul is akin to illness. His frantic attempts to pledge his love to I-333 feel both heroic in the face of his society, but pathetic on a personal level. D-503 is manic about his place in society even though he seems entirely and passively bored with his daily motions. It makes the moments where he has to deal with the surge of emotions feel weighty and out of place, but entirely reasonable in context. Like most dystopian novels that draw from We, it ends in tragedy, but here it feels sad, instead of just ominous.
We, by Yevgeny Zemaytin, is not a must read for every science fiction nerd out there. But if you want to see something special that is the proto – 20th century dystopian novel, you’d be hard pressed to find something more dynamic than We. It’s a story that highlights the dangers of a society optimized for “rationality,” while also having a bit of a laugh about it.
Rating: We – Engineered to be Imperfect.
Alex
