August 23, 2024
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (Entries 5-40)
Reading progress log and notes on the novel We by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
Observations
Symbols
- X: deviation from and doubt of the One State
- The narrator compares his records to a seismograph, which records even the faintest tremors that may be warnings
Favorite Quotes
- So it’s clear—there’s no longer the slightest cause for envy. The
denominator of the happiness fraction has been reduced to zero and the
fraction becomes magnificent infinity (41/209)
- “Liberation?” Astonishing how the criminal instincts do survive in the
human species. I choose the word criminal advisedly. Freedom and
criminality are just as indissolubly linked as … well, as the movement of an
aero and its velocity. When the velocity of an aero is reduced to 0, it is not
in motion; when a man’s freedom is reduced to zero, he commits no crimes.
That’s clear. The only means to rid man of crime is to rid him of freedom.
And now when we’d only just managed to get rid of it (in the cosmic scale
of things, centuries amount to “only just”), suddenly some pathetic
morons… (51/209)
Vocabulary
- promulgate: promote or make widely known
- majolica: a kind of earthenware made in imitation of Italian maiolica, especially in England during the 19th century.
- edifying: providing moral or intellectual instruction
Records 12-15 (Aug 8)
Records 16-18 (Aug 9)
Quotes
- Through the glass, dim and foggy, the blunt muzzle of some beast looked
at me, its yellow eyes insistently repeating one and the same thought,
incomprehensible to me. We looked each other in the eye for a long time—
through those shafts connecting the surface world to that other beneath the
surface. And then a little thought wormed its way into my head: “And what
if yellow-eyes, in his stupid, dirty pile of leaves, in his uncalculated life, is
happier than us?”
I waved my hand, the yellow eyes blinked, backed off, vanished in the
foliage. Pathetic creature! How ridiculous—him happier than us! Happier
than me—that could be, all right. But then I’m simply an exception, I’m
sick. (95/209)
Record 19-24 (Aug 12)
Quotes
- Without her the sun tomorrow won’t be anything more than a disk cut out
of tin and the sky will just be tin painted blue, and I myself … (131/209)
Record 25-26 (Aug 13)
Quotes
- Oh, if only I could stand up right this minute and—
even if it choked me—scream out the whole truth about myself. So it would
be the end of me, so what! At least for one second I’d feel that I was clean,
I’d feel that all the thoughts had been swept out of my head, and I’d be like
that tender blue sky. (133/209)
Vocab
Symbols
Fever and illness are recurring symbols.
- The hum of the wheels stands out against the silence—sounds like
feverish blood. (141/209)
- “No, listen,” I say. “Imagine this. You’re in an old aeroplane, the
altimeter reads 5000 meters, you’ve lost a wing, you’re going down like a
tumbler pigeon, and on the way you’re going over your schedule:
Tomorrow from noon to two … then from two to six … dinner at six …
Wouldn’t that be crazy? But that’s just what we’re doing!” (141/209)
Record 36-40
Quotes
- And that was when I learned from my own experience that a laugh can be a terrifying weapon. With a laugh you can kill even murder itself. (184/209)
- I’d never known this before, but now I do, and so do you: Laughter comes in different colors. It’s only the distant echo of an explosion inside you. It might come in holiday colors —red, blue, golden rockets. Or it might be the bits of a human body flying out. (192/209)
- And suddenly it hit me with shameless clarity, like a bolt of lightning to the head: He was one of them. And everything I’d done, all my pains, everything I’d brought here with my last ounce of strength, my great heroic feat—it was all a joke. It was like the ancient story about Abraham and Isaac. Abraham, in a cold sweat, had already raised the knife over his own son, over his very own self, when suddenly there came a voice from on high: “Forget it! I was only joking!” (199/209)
Observations
It’s strange to me that the Benefactor has a long conversation with D-503; sometimes it’s easy to forget D-503’s high rank within the One State. Throughout the book, I was always expected the Benefactor to strike, and it just seems like he took his time, especially during the attempted INTEGRAL hijacking.