We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin. The granddaddy of all dystopian novels, written in 1920-1, precursor to 1984 and Brave New World. Must read. (I read the Mirra Ginsburg translation in the cover pictured above.)
As in Flowers for Algernon, We is written as a kind of journal/series of personal notes; that made for some interesting correlations between the two, as their main characters both undergo a rather profound psychological/mental transformation that is dangerous, emancipating, and ultimately unpredictable (with potential for complete disaster and an unknown possibility for redemption). I do very much recommend reading these two one after the other!
Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith. (p. 59)
You, who read these notes, whoever you may be- you have a sun over your heads. And if you have ever been as ill as I am now, you know what the sun is like- what it can be like- in the morning. You know that pink, transparent, warm gold, when the very air is faintly rosy and everything is suffused with the delicate blood of the sun, everything is alive: the stones are alive and soft; iron is alive and soft; people are alive, and everyone is smiling. In an hour, all this may vanish, in an hour the rosy blood may trickle out, but for the moment everything lives. (p. 81)
Is it just me, or isn't that incredibly Russian?
"[W]e shall break down the Wall- all walls- to let the green wind blow free from end to end- across the earth." (p. 157)- Sounds good to me!
"Their mistake was the mistake of Galileo: he was right that the earth revolves around the sun, but he did not know that the whole solar system also revolves- around some other center; he did not know that the real, not the relative, orbit of the earth is not some naive circle..." (p. 175)
And I learned from my own experience that laughter was the most potent weapon: laughter can kill everything- even murder. (p. 210) I had never known this before, but now I know it, and you know it: laughter can be of different colors. It is only an echo of a distant explosion within you. (p. 220)
"Remember: those in paradise no longer know desires, no longer know pity or love. There are only the blessed (with their imaginations excised- this is the only reason why they are blessed) angels, obedient slaves of God..." (p. 214)
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