We
24 journalers for this copy...
1001 Bookray - participants so far
1. livrecache (au)
2. cat207 (au)
3. crimson-tide (au)
4. Jubby (au)
5. jsmeltser (usa)
6. Maurean (usa)
7. bookpatch (usa)
8. TerraceWest (Can)
9. Supertalya (SK)
10. UnwrittenLibra (usa)
11. bilbi (fr)
12. butterfly-noir (Port)
13. k2005 (uk)
14. VariC (fin)
15. stubee (uk)
16. KT-J (uk)
17. Releanna (ost)
18. Tubereader (lux)
Released 15 yrs ago (6/9/2008 UTC) at To the next participant in Bookring/Bookray, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada
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Sent by mail to Melbourne.
I've read other books this week, but in different genres. I'll get back to this one when I'm feeling stronger. I can see its worth and why it's on the 1001 list. I'll finish as soon as I can. In the meantime, I have read two other bookrings, so it's not all bad. I was just finding this book very confronting earlier in the week.
This review expresses what I'd want to say, only better.
We is a groundbreaking work in the genre of science fiction, a book which George Orwell credits as being a major influence on his own classic 1984. Orwell also believed that it was likely that Aldous Huxley read it.We is a work of science fiction written before that term had been coined. It is a suspenseful and oftentimes sardonic must-read for any fan of sci-fi/fantasy.
Centered on D-503, a state mathematic for the One State and the engineer of a spaceship called the Integral, We contains several dystopic pre-echoes of 1984. However, D-503 and the people of his world seem to be fairly content with their lives. We might be considered a post-war Oceania. Indeed, there has been a Two Hundred Year War in the One State’s past, and it is the sole survivor, a hermetically glass-sealed city of ten million (though some people live outside the city walls, “primitive” people covered in hair, called the Methi). It could be thought of, in these respects, as a sequel to 1984 - or, since We was written first, 1984 is a prequel to We.
Rabotat is a Russian and Czech word meaning “worker”; it is the word from which the word robot derived. That was a goal in both Russia and America: to produce workers who were like machines, who never erred, repeating the same mind-numbing behaviour over and over again. D-503 is perhaps one of the strangest narrators in all of literature, always thinking in terms of mathematics, seeing people as ciphers. Logic and numbers are beauty to him, and his friend R-13 even composes poems about numbers. [That part of the blurb put me right off. However, his language becomes increasingly poetic throughout the book.]
What would a person consumed by logic and numbers fear the most? Illogic, and anything that appears to be nonconforming, of course--like the irrational root of -1: “This irrational root had sunk into me, like something foreign, alien, frightening, it devoured me--it couldn’t be comprehended or defused because it was beyond ratio.” Perhaps what bothers and discombobulates D-503 most of all, though, is I-330, a woman who at the beginning of the novel “has a strange and irritating X to her, and I couldn’t pin it down, couldn’t give it any numerical expression.” If D-503 can be thought of as being an inspiration for Orwell’s Winston Smith, then I-330, who later becomes D-503's love interest, is like Julia from 1984 .
D-503 goes from being a cipher who thinks he’s perfectly well-adjusted and happy into being a man who, while rationalising that love is illogical, is regardless falling in love and growing a soul: “Can it be that all that craziness (love, jealousy, etc.) Isn’t only the stuff of idiotic ancient books? And to think it involves me!” Eventually, D-503 goes to a doctor he describes as “scissorslips”, who diagnoses him: “How awful for you! By the looks of it, you’ve developed a soul.” Reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, D-503 wonders: “But still, why - all of a sudden - a soul? I never had one - never had one - and then suddenly...Why doesn’t anyone else have one, but me?”
Will D-503, unlike Winston Smith, hold up under torture and not turn I-330 in? What use is an “imagination”? What is the Grand Operation? In a world where sex is a transaction one can engage in with whomsoever they wish as long as they present a pink ticket, why is an archaic thing like love important?
Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Douglas R. Cobb, 2006
This book deals with all this, and more, and has sent me rushing back to read more about the history of the time, as well as wanting to read the 'spin-offs' again.
I've pm'd the next person, but not yet heard back (which is unusual). I'll try again now.
Another 1001 book on the road again . . .
Will get this in tomorrow's mail to crimson-tide. X
Thanks cat207, and thanks too for the very colourful card. :-)
Glad I had an opportunity to read it - thanks dave. It's probably one I should read again but I'm not planning to right now. Will be posting it to jubby tomorrow.
Released 15 yrs ago (8/25/2008 UTC) at Balingup, Western Australia Australia
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Sending on to jubby to continue the journey.
Released initially by post at the Balingup Post Office, and then hopefully in five or six days time into a letter box in Sydney.
Thank you.
After reading some of the journal entries here already, I will approach this book with some trepidation...
Thank you.
There were moments there when I questioned myself, but here I am!
I think the problem was the actual language. The vocabulary wasn't at all difficult, but I kept losing the thread of the story, and struggled with the descriptions.
I'll never know what was wrong with I-330's teeth (described as needles a couple of times!), and D-503's lusty actions had me scratching my head, but overall the story itself is awesome.
Such an imagination to think of this story.
I can see where the seeds of Orwell's '1984' came from also.
But, just quietly, I rather like the sound of the imagination removal. I wonder if I could get my hands on one of those? I'd re-jig it to remove other aspects of people's make-up (like intolerance). It would make classroom teaching so much easier!
Thank you for sharing this book with me.
I've contacted jsmeltser, and will post the book one once I've confirmed his postal details.
Released 15 yrs ago (10/7/2008 UTC) at Bookring, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases
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Posted off to jsmeltser.
Released 15 yrs ago (10/24/2008 UTC) at Bookring/Bookray, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada
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Wonderful book. I was a bit lost at times, and had to re-read a page or two. Like one of the previous readers, I never could figure out exactly what was going on with the female character's teeth. You can definitely see how this influenced 1984 and Brave New World.
Thanks for sharing this one, Dave...
Released 15 yrs ago (12/31/2008 UTC) at Bookring/Bookray, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- Canada
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Posted today to TerraceWest. Hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.
After reading the other journals....I'm looking forward to this!
Happy readings everyone, again, my apologies for not moving this on sooner.
Sent off today via Baltimore-Mount Washington Station, Maryland to bilbi in Chambery, France, along with a small surprise RABCK...bon voyage, little book!
What's great is that I'm on holiday for 3 weeks !!!
So I have plenty of time to read... except when I'm not doing anything ;-)
Thanks for sharing
\o/
The book starts with the hero writing a kind of minute account of what's going on.
As soon as he tells me that I'm a primitive form of life because I know freedom and he explains that "poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist" - i.e. clouds in particular and sky in general, I could hardly put the book down.
I was really eager to know how his mathematical society become the only one to be worth living in...
It's amazing how such a novel that written in 1920-1921 can still be so modern !
Thanks a lot for sharing this book with me.
I'll try to find a copy in French for my sister, THEMIRAMIS to read.
The parallels to Soviet Union and also Orwell's 1984 were pretty clear. In fact, 1984 is extremely similar to this book, obviously thematically but also very clearly plot-wise. The perfect little cog in the machine of the State, the woman who rules him towards rebelling, the eventual revelation that the State is not quite as oblivious as it seemed.
A mechanistic state, one in which people are as interchangeable cogs as possible, and individuality is suppressed, seems common in dystopias. Funny to reflect on our modern world, where, in the name of "efficiency", individuality is also suppressed, workers are supposed to be interchangeable so that no one becomes irreplaceable, and so on...
I have stubee's address and will mail the book onwards next week.
Released 13 yrs ago (6/20/2010 UTC) at Controlled Release, A Bookcrossing member -- Controlled Releases
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Edit: I haven't had chance to update bookcrossing for a while but just for the record, I quite enjoyed this. I found it an easy to read book and thought the ideas and concepts in it were really interesting and a clear warning against the dangers of a controlled state. It is very different to Huxley's view although both portray possible future dystopias, and I think I preferred this just for the way it was written. I liked the development of the changing viewpoint of the narrator showing his growing confusion and I-330's influence over his actions throughout the story. Not one I'd read again but I'm glad I've read it!
EDIT: 23rd August 2010. I finished this a couple of days ago while I was on holiday in Zakynthos and I loved it! Being a massive fan of both George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World I guess you could say this book was bound to be right up my alley.
It's just a great novel I don't really want to give anything away by commenting on what happens but I did like D-503 narration and I thought the ideas set in the story where very interesting, you can tell that it's dated now but I still think this is a great novel.
I've got Releanna address so this will be in the mail very soon.
Next: Paul Magrs - Never The Bride
Released 13 yrs ago (8/24/2010 UTC) at Wien Bezirk 23 - Liesing, Wien Austria
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I'll try to read it soon.
the review posted by livrecache also expresses what I think about the book, but I couldn't find such good words and sentences.
I've already started reading it this evening!
Thanks davemurray101 for sharing and Releanna for sending it to me, definitely was worth reading it!
Sorry for the slight delay in posting it!
I found the almost ironic contrast between the setting, a high-tech far future, and the main character's conflict, whether or not to cheat on his wife-equivalent, intriguing. Often we expect some sort of epic heroism from sci-fi, especially dystopias, so having a MC who is not a man of action, but a bystander, unaware of the societal chaos he is fueling, makes for an unusual viewpoint.
I also loved the author's descriptions of characters and use of contrasts between them. O is a soft, friendly, familiar and natural women, while I is predatory, but dangerous and compelling and seductive because of her strangeness. R is outgoing, as much of a risk-taker as is allowed in this society, while D is extremely reserved in his expressions until being caught up in I's wake.
I thought the author did a good job showing D's mental state through his writing, which starts out as formulaic and precise, moves towards what we might term a "normal" style, and then goes farther, into a knotted mass of ideas and feelings which he has no experience trying to trap on paper, and finally the result of OneState's decision becomes clear in the remote brevity of his final entry.
There is a sheet of stickers tucked into the table of contents, maybe they'll help increase your catch rate.
Released 10 yrs ago (9/26/2013 UTC) at -- Mail or by hand-rings, RABCK, meetings, trades, Florida USA
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As I was reading this, I kept thinking of a very short film clip I saw once that may have been based on this novel, featuring robotic figures marching along 4-abreast in columns.
I'm glad I had a chance to read this, so thanks for sharing!
Reserved for a VBB.
Released 1 yr ago (4/11/2023 UTC) at First Sentences VBB, A Bookbox -- Controlled Releases
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