Totalitarian Dystopia

We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, is one of the very first science fiction novels. Zamyatin sets the story in a dystopic universe controlled by the One State and led by the great Benefactor. The individuals of the One State are identified not with names but as Numbers. The family as an institution has ceased to exist. The inhabitants of this dystopia live in apartments with glass walls, making solitude impossible though every individual lives alone.

The narrator of the tale is D-503, who is purportedly recording his thoughts as part of a larger social writing project sponsored by the One State. D-503 is the chief engineer of The Integral, a spaceship bound for outer space. This space ship will carry the writings of the many Numbers to other lands and life (though the details of space life forms are left deliberately vague). However, with each entry D-503 adds to his notes, the more his life seems to veer away from the prescribed patterns given by the One State.

The instigator behind D-503's unorthodox actions and thoughts is I-330, a woman who seems to have taken an interest in him simply because he is interesting. She invites him to the Ancient house where she asks him questions and challenges his views of the world. As he is challenged D-503 seems to lose his stability, and to swing back and forth between the official version of reality as given by the One State and alternate possibilities proffered by I-330. The effect is disconcerting as D-503's entries become increasingly confused – reflecting his states of mind. His ability to be confused at all is threatened when the One State decides to perform imagination lobotomies on all Numbers.

The One State is a prefiguring of a totalitarian regime, and many people suggest that it resembles Stalinist Russia which came into existence after the novel. The book is not hampered by being told through D-503's diary entries, but it is limited to the perspective of D-503. As he is an unreliable narrator it would be useful to hear the perspective of another character.

The delineation of individuals is done succinctly (and repetatively) by describing specific features. I-330, for instance, is delineated by the sharp lines of her face. O-90, D-503's assigned partner, is described in terms of circles and roundness. This technique is particularly appropos for the setting of the book where individuals have been shorn of their identities – they are still individualized by features that can not be erased. Originally published in Russia in 1920-21 I read the translated version by Mirra Ginsburg, published in 1972.