But every time I read a story about the importance of stories, I can’t help but think of the inherent narcissism of the notion.

For one thing, I wouldn’t have this blog. I would not want to live in a world without stories. Here, it is a clear allegory for the way Soviet Russia censored a lot of fiction, including We itself. A lot of dystopian settings outlaw creativity for various reasons. The latter half of that is the main reason I didn’t enjoy this book. What we get is half travelogue guide to OneStae, and half meditation on the nature of art. So one citizen simply records his thoughts as he goes about his daily life, only to begin questioning whether or not he is truly happy with life in OneState. The problem with this is that under OneState, creativity is stifled, and there are no artists. The idea behind the book is that OneState has ordered its citizens to create art to promote OneState to potential outsiders (ie. But there is always merit in seeing why these things don’t work for me. As it turns out, dystopia has always been fairly boring. To see if it was a modern trend that kept me away from the genres, or if it was baked into the DNA of the thing.

One of the original dystopias? The source of this genre I dislike so intensely? I has to read it for myself. Finding the roots of all these modern branches is fun for me, and so We came to my attention. I love the history of science fiction almost as much as I like science fiction itself. That monotony grows boring very quickly, and it has to be something very special to pull me into a book that is open about its dystopian nature.īut this past month I’ve been reading a lot of classics. What’s that, your job is chosen at birth and you work it until death? Sounds a lot like working in agriculture to me, and who doesn’t like a bit of job security? But the bigger problem is that when you make a dystopia, you make everything bad. the first is that some don’t actually sound that bad. I mean that I don’t enjoy reading about them. After all, is not the point of a dystopia that it is unpleasant? But I don’t mean that I wouldn’t like to live in one. Now OneState reaches for the stars, to bring perfection to other worlds. The world is united under OneState, but the mission does not stop there. Publication Date: 1924 (This translation 1993)

Yevgeny zamyatin books