We

Name: We
ISBN: 9787544740913

叶甫盖尼·扎米亚京Yilin Press2013

3.9

Chapters: 40
Series: The Utopia Trilogy
ISBN: 9787544740913

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Summary

We is a novel by the Russian-Soviet writer Yevgeny Zamyatin, written around 1920 and regarded as the founding work of dystopian literature. Told in diary form, it is written as a series of "records" by D-503, a model citizen and mathematician of the future world-state One State, intended to extol that nation's order and happiness to alien civilizations. In this twenty-sixth-century country, citizens have no names, only numbers; they live in transparent glass houses, wear uniform clothing, keep to a uniform schedule, eat chemically synthesized food, and even have sex by ration, all ruled by a never-changing "Benefactor." Reason, numbers, and the collective are held as the highest values, while beyond the walls lies the "Green Wall" world regarded as savage and chaotic. Yet the appearance of a female citizen numbered I-330 shatters D-503's calm. She takes him through the glass and into rooms of the old age, and makes him feel for the first time "soul" and "imagination"—things diagnosed as an illness—growing inside him. The conflict between reason and emotion, collective and individual, happiness and freedom grows ever fiercer in this model citizen's notes. With a cold, richly symbolic style, the work depicts a world that trades freedom for "happiness"; long banned in the Soviet Union yet circulated in the West, it deeply influenced later works such as Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Editor's review

读反乌托邦，很多人从《一九八四》开始，却不知道这条线从《我们》起笔。《我们》写于1920年前后，比赫胥黎和奥威尔都早，被奥威尔称作“焚书年代的文学珍品”。它不是单纯的寓言，而是一部有体温、有痛感的笔记体小说：透明玻璃墙、统一时刻表、编号公民、配给式的一切，这些后来成为反乌托邦文学的标志性装置，最早都在这里出现。扎米亚京本人的经历也为这部书添了注脚：工程兵出身，参与过革命，又因坚持写作被逐出作家协会，最终流亡巴黎、客死异乡。译林版由俄语翻译家范国恩直接从俄文译出，保留了原文的数学比喻与口语杂糅的文体；这一点对理解D-503这个“用数字思考的人”非常重要，因为从英文转译往往会磨平他叙述里的犹疑和反讽。全书篇幅不大，节奏却相当紧，适合作为理解二十世纪极权想象的第一块基石：等你读完再回头看《美丽新世界》和《一九八四》，会发现它们有多处呼应，也会更清楚《我们》提出的是另一个问题：人是否愿意用自由去换幸福。

Who it's for

A good fit for

对反乌托邦文学有兴趣、想追本溯源的读者
读《一九八四》《美丽新世界》后想读前传式源头的读者
喜欢笔记体、象征与意识流笔法的文学读者
思想史与政治哲学爱好者，关注自由与幸福之辩

Not a good fit for

期待紧凑情节与快节奏叙事的类型小说读者
对俄苏文学背景与讽刺性叙述完全不熟悉者

Reading tips

先读奥威尔的序言和译者的说明，了解成书与被禁的背景，再进入正文。
留意D-503叙述中的数学比喻与自相矛盾处，那正是“人性”渗进来的裂缝。
读完后对照《美丽新世界》《一九八四》，比较自由、幸福、真理三个主题的处理差异。
可配合徐贲、止庵的解读文章，把“一体国”放进二十世纪思想史脉络中理解。

About the publisher

Yilin Press China · Founded in 1988

Yilin Press focuses mainly on translated foreign literature. Its current catalogue of 318 titles covers common categories such as mystery and detective fiction, foreign literature, world classics, biography, and social novels. Representative books include The Complete Sherlock Holmes 2: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Pride and Prejudice, To the Lighthouse, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, and Lives of the Artists: Michelangelo, often presented in bilingual or English-language editions that serve both original-text reading and language learning. Its author resources include foreign writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Romain Rolland, as well as translators including Li Jiazhen, Gao Fen, and Ma Ye. The catalogue also includes Chinese works such as Li Jieren's Ripples Across Stagnant Water. The press shows a concentrated publishing strength in foreign classics and bilingual readers; given limited public information, this overview is based only on catalogue data.

A Literary Gem of the Age of Book Burning (George Orwell)
Record One
Record Two
Record Three
Record Four
Record Five
Record Six
Record Seven
Record Eight
Record Nine
Record Ten
Record Eleven
Record Twelve
Record Thirteen
Record Fourteen
Record Fifteen
Record Sixteen
Record Seventeen
Record Eighteen
Record Nineteen
Record Twenty
Record Twenty-One
Record Twenty-Two
Record Twenty-Three
Record Twenty-Four
Record Twenty-Five
Record Twenty-Six
Record Twenty-Seven
Record Twenty-Eight
Record Twenty-Nine
Record Thirty
Record Thirty-One
Record Thirty-Two
Record Thirty-Three
Record Thirty-Four
Record Thirty-Five
Record Thirty-Six
Record Thirty-Seven
Record Thirty-Eight
Record Thirty-Nine

FAQ

《我们》和《一九八四》有什么关系？

《我们》创作于1920年前后，早在赫胥黎《美丽新世界》和奥威尔《一九八四》之前，被公认为反乌托邦文学的开山之作。奥威尔读过此书并撰文评价，称它是“焚书年代的文学珍品”，后两部作品在透明生活、编号公民、集体秩序等设定上都能看到它的影子。

这本为什么叫“我们”而不是某个主角名？

书名“我们”指向的是全书的核心矛盾：在一个以集体为唯一合法主体的国度里，个人被压缩成编号，“我”被“我们”取代。主人公D-503写下这些笔记，本身就是为了让“我们”的名义得到颂扬，而书名恰好把这种合并定格下来。

译林版和其他版本有什么不同？

译林本由俄语翻译家范国恩直接从俄文译出，没有经过英文转译，保留了原文的数学比喻、口语化叙述和讽刺语气；译林同时把它作为“反乌托邦三部曲”之一出版，与《一九八四》《美妙的新世界》配套。市面上另有赵丕慧、陈超、王莒光等译本，可对照阅读。

读这本书需要了解俄苏历史吗？

不需要专门的知识，但了解基本背景会更有收获。作品写于苏联建立初期，作者因政见与文风受到压制，小说长期无法在本国出版，1931年经高尔基斡旋获准出国，此后定居巴黎。了解这些背景，会更明白书中对“统一”“透明”“集体幸福”的讽刺从何而来。

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About the author

叶甫盖尼·扎米亚京 Author

Yevgeny Zamyatin was a Russian writer whose biographical details are relatively limited in publicly available sources, yet he occupies a significant place in the lineage of dystopian literature. Four of his works are included in this catalog, among them the novel We, as well as a "Dystopian Novel Trilogy" collection placing it alongside 1984 and Brave New World, and a three-volume "Dystopian Trilogy" set. These works are generally classified under foreign literature and world classics. Set in a highly rationalized future society, We explores the tension between individual freedom and collective order, with a cold, symbolically charged narrative. Zamyatin's style is concise and restrained, using a science-fiction framework to reflect on social systems, and his writing has had an inspiring influence on later dystopian fiction.