Mar 20, 2007

Book Review: We

Wow, I really set a blazing pace with books, eh?  My last review was 5 months ago!!  And it's not even cuz its a bad book, I loved it!  The book is We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and it's the last (but actually the first) of the three classic dystopian novels I read.  It was really good, and much different from the other two.  1984 still wins as the most politically and socially relevant when you compare to real life.  Brave New World has its own method, and had very interesting ideas about the functioning of societies.  This one definitely had things to say on both these things, but what stood out for me was how it was written.  It's first person, a man's journal, telling his experience of loving the utopia, being corrupted away (by a woman, naturally), and coming back to it, nothing new there (although it was when he wrote it).  But for some reason, to me at least, the book reads so much more smoothly.  The writing is almost poetic, it was enjoyable to just read, almost independent of the content.  It's a translation, so that may have something bad or good to say about how it reads, but I really liked it.  Anyway, it's not long, despite my huge delay in reading it, and like I say it's nice to read, so I'd definitely recommend it.

Next up: political fiction?  political biography?  history?  science history?  or straight up nerd town fantasy?  not sure yet :)

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