Talk:We (novel)

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Contents 1 Links 2 Big Brother type 3 What was the Original Title? 4 Copyright 5 Bible Codes and We 6 200-year war Survival Rate 7 Wallsend 8 Ebook - is it available? 9 Natasha Randall translation 10 Transliterations 11 Further editing of the lead paragraph 12 rationalisation of labour 13 vague and unsourced claim about bible code 14 What translation of We should be used? 15 Reorganization 15.1 Template and expansion 16 Religious Allusions and some Citations 17 Mathematical References 18 Correct name of the protagonist

[edit] Links

The link which I had inserted was removed

• Prof David Womersley Yevgeny Zamyatin's We - The most enduring of the twentieth-century dystopias Social Affairs Unit Web Review

In my view it should be restored - it is a serious examination of the novel by Prof. David Womersley - Thomas Warton Porfessor of English Literatute, University of Oxford

looks more like a blog rather then serious examination. btw, just curious why Proffersor of English Literature is researching about we? -- tasc ^talk_deeds 16:57, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Big Brother type

the article says that the Benefactor is "a Big Brother type leader", would not it be more correct to say that Big Brother is a Benefactor type leader?

[edit] What was the Original Title?

The following was anonymously posted: "the title translated literally from Russian as "My"". Could somebody provide the actual title and not the translation? --sp00n17:talk 05:29, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

I think it's clearer now in the article. "My" is a transliteration, not a translation. -- Reuben 01:04, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, that's clearer. --sp00n17:talk 05:29, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

Anyone know the status of the copyright as to the original and English language translation? Ellsworth 14:53, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Best I can do to demonstrate 1924 was the year of the official english translation is this link to library of congress' We Catalog Entry.--sp00n17:talk 04:13, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Talk:We (novel)/Sources has bibliographic records, including one for the 1924 translation. --Jtir 05:38, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bible Codes and We

I am the original discoverer of the Bible Codes in We. In 1984, I published an article in Extrapolation, the Science Fiction Journal of Kent State University, outlining my theory. Here is a brief overview in my theory and the codes (Zamiatin was the son of an Orthodox priest, he knew the bible well; he also spoke English, the novel's alphanumerics were written using the English alphabet):

D-503- Deuteronomy 3:5-6 describes cities surrounded by walls and many people, the same setting as We.

O-90- Obidiah 9 Refers to the slaughter of the descendents of Esau, the people outside in We are described as hairy men, just like the biblical Esau.

I-330- Isaiah 3:3-4 lists a series of people and positions, each one is found as a character in We.

R-13- Revelations Chapter 13 is the famous text of the beast whose number is 666, in the center of Zamiatin's city the plaza of the cube is surrounded by 66 concentric circles of seats. A cube has six sides putting the numerical value of 666 right in the center of the dystopian society.

S-4711- Sirach 47:11-12 describes a religious gathering where all of the people sing, this also happens in We (note: Zamiatin used the Eastern Orthodox Bible).

Every character with an alphanumeric name has a relevant biblical verse that relates to or reflects on the action or setting in We. Given the time Zamiatin lived in and the nature of the novel, it is the ultimate commentary on then current events: Zamiatin dared to criticize the emerging Soviet state and used his novel to compare Soviet Russia to the coming of antichrist.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.33.246.44 (talk • contribs) 16:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I am the discoverer of the relationship between the specifications for Zamyatin's favourite icebreaker Saint Alexander Nevsky and the numbers used in WE. The Armstrong Whitworth yard number and tonnage is as follows:

A/W 905 3300 round tonnage

Where O-90 and I-330 hold between them the hapless D-503 (305 would have been muddling)

4711 was a famous perfume of the day, used by both men and women - hence a suitable number for an ambiguous 'number'.

Nevertheless, The Bible thesis is brilliantly ingenious (it explains R-13!) and I will investigate this further. With permission I will quote it in my running 'Zamyatin in Newcastle' article (most published in the early '90s in the Slavonic and East European Review). It's on my website at http://pages.britishlibrary.net/alan.myers

Bandalore 02:47, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[Later] Alas, I find that the biblical references are really too tenuous to support a deliberate Zamyatin code. At this time in Newcastle, Zamyatin was poring over icebreaker drawings both at the shipyards and at home in Jesmond. The numbers are just another example of Z's direct use of the alien English setting - same in his two Newcastle novellas - as a backdrop for his dystopia. He may well have been sketching in ideas for WE in Newcastle in 1917 and the subsequent career of his favourite vessel was dramatic enough in 1918-19 to keep it in the forefront of his mind.

R-13, however, which has no icebreaker connection as far as I know, could certainly be a deliberate reference to the well-known Revelation chapter. It would fit the dark mathematical humour and religious dimension of the novel. Anyway, very stimulating. Thanks.

Bandalore 11:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 200-year war Survival Rate

The text I have states "only 0.2 of the world's population survived", which sounds strange to me; it would have seemed more clear to write 1/5th. Is there a possibility that a percent sign was missed/omitted in translation/publication, or is this to be prescribed as a function of D-503's mathematical nature (that he innately would see no difference between 1/5th and 0.2)?

Anyone have any insight?

It is "выжило только 0,2 населения земного шара" in the original (note that in Russian the comma is used as the decimal point). It seems that expressing fractions as decimals is more common in Russian; indeed, it looks more natural to me than if it were "1/5th", at least in Russian. It's hard to say whether such things should be changed by the translator or not. 128.189.158.39 00:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wallsend

Wasn't it Wallsend he worked at, rather than Jesmond? Jesmond is an affluent suburb of Newcastle, Wallsend is the traditional shipbuilding area which is just outside Newcastle, in North Tyneside. Although he may have lived in Jesmond, shouldn't it be made clear that the shipyards are in Wallsend as that is the principal area from which he drew his influence? hedpeguyuk 16:00, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

The opening paragraph seems all right to me. Both Jesmond and the Tyne shipyards are mentioned as influential. Zamyatin travelled to several working locations around Tyneside, though Wallsend was his chief focus. The novel he wrote in Newcastle 'Islanders' is specifically set in Jesmond and contains many of the ideas expressed in WE. The latter novel actually quotes the earlier in several places. The pendant 'A Fisher of Men' also continues these themes, though it is notionally set in London, in Chiswick (where he never went, as far as is known). There are many Jesmond echoes in this novella too. The description of the church is almost certainly St George's Jesmond.

Bandalore 19.05 4 June 2006

[edit] Ebook - is it available?

I was just wondering if you could find this novel somewhere in cyberspace. There is not much that I know of about this novel - perhaps there could be some ebook sites that may offer this novel? --Lord X 00:12, 7 June 2006 (UTC)User:Xinyu

I have added two links to full text versions -- one in Russian, one in English. I don't know the copyright status of either one, although I would guess that the English version is infringing the copyright on the translation.

--Jtir 00:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Natasha Randall translation

I've just added

A new translation by Natasha Randall was published in July 2006 (ISBN 081297462X).

to the article. Then I noticed that Amazon.com has at least 6 translations, so maybe I shouldn't have done that. (It's not hard to search Amazon.com for "Yevgeny Zamyatin", after all.) Feel free to revert me. Cheers, CWC(talk) 16:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Joshua Coxwell has just changed that sentence into a list of 4 translations. Good stuff! CWC(talk) 05:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Transliterations

What kind of transliterations are those: "Mu-ee", "Moi", or "Mwee"???! To me they seem completely nonsensical, neither corresponding phonetically nor transliterating letter by letter, but then maybe you have some reference... --Ben ^T/_C 17:36, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I would suggest replacing them with the Latin transliteration and the IPA pronunciation. The article does give the Russian title, as do many other articles about Russian novels (War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The First Circle). However, there is no consistency as to what additional information about the title is given. Articles on Russian authors are equally inconsistent (Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn). The Tolstoy and Dostoevsky articles provide audio clips, which is great idea.

---Jtir 05:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

As it stands the reader sees no reference to the IPA. I suggest changing the end of the second sentence from "pronounced [mɨ]." to: "pronounced [mɨ], and transliterated as my". (Note underlying link to Yery!) (Also: Although that looks phonemic, I did not add /slashes/, since transliterations claim to represent spellings, not phonemes.) --Oryanw 19:34, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I like your idea of linking from the transliteration, but I would have missed it if you hadn't pointed it out. There is a guideline that tells how to handle IPA pronunciations. I'm not sure it really addresses transliterations, but it seems like the style for Foreign_names can be adapted. I made an edit incorporating these ideas, and added a footnote attempting to explain why the transliteration My looks exactly like an English word that is similar to the English translation. It still needs work.

"We is a novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin" is a shorter sentence than the explanatory details about the two letter title.  :-)

--Jtir 23:00, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Good edit. Much better than my suggestion! If you would like "is a novel by" closer to the beginning, then maybe something like the following?

We (Russian: Мы) is a novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin, (written: 1920-1921), first published in English translation (1924), and not published in the Soviet Union until 1988. <possible footnote start> The title is the Russian first person plural personal pronoun, (Romanized: My, and pronounced IPA: [mɨ]). <Alternative footnote start>The Romanization of the Russian letter ы (Yery) is the letter y. (The reader is cautioned against confusion with the English word my.)</footnote>
It was written in response ...

--Oryanw 00:09, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

That reads much better. Even though it is not standard, I put the additional info about the title in the footnote, because it solves the problem of a casual reader confusing the transliteration My for the English title. I'm not sure corresponds is the right term to explain the Romanization of (the?) yery. Shortening the first sentence also allows it to be expanded with more generally useful info. The characterization of the novel as dystopian comes from the introduction to Clarence Brown's translation, hence the second footnote on the first sentence.

--Jtir 15:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

A solid improvement over my wording. Again! :-) I agree the word corresponds is troublesome; to me it suggests more than it says, and, I think, more than we want. I suggest the corresponding ;-) clause read as follows: "because the English letter y is used to transliterate the Russian letter ы (Yery)".

--Oryanw 00:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Using transliterate works much better, except I preserved the before(ы)/after(y) structure.
Is transliterate as standard usage?

--Jtir 19:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Jtir: Your last edits look great! as seems standard. Dictionary.com quotes Random House Unabridged Dictionary as giving the example: to transliterate the Greek Χ as ch. Quick Google test has transliterate as outnumbering transliterat with four to one.

--Oryanw 21:54, 21 September 2006 (UTC) p.s. I enjoyed working on this with you.

Thanks and likewise! Guess we are OK on as. Thanks for checking -- you gave me a new bookmark.

--Jtir 23:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Further editing of the lead paragraph

I agree with your idea to give the 1988 pub date in the USSR. The second sentence would be a good place to say more about the publishing history, including that it was banned in the USSR. The It was written in response ... sentence has too much biography for the lead paragraph, but I'm not sure whether it should be editted or transposed.

--Jtir 15:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Your other comments make sense to me too. A new second sentence could read: "Banned by Glavlit, the new Soviet censorship bureau, in 1921, the novel was first published in English in 1924, but its first publication in the Soviet Union had to wait until 1988, when it appeared alongside George Orwell's 1984. "
I think that the current balance of the first paragraph, "It was witten ... on a large scale." should be a second paragraph, or better perhaps, be moved to first place in the following section ==History and influence==. But the question for me becomes: has ==History and influence== been overly butchered? Should some of the informarion be repeated, perhaps with new words" As I see it, ==History and influence== wouuld then read like this:

1st paragraph: The novel was witten ... on a large scale.

2nd paragraph: The initial draft dates to 1919. ... intercession of Maxim Gorky.

3rd paragraph: George Orwell was familiar with ... Huxley was lying."

The above is sketchy, I'd be surprised if ==History and influence== can not be further(:-)) improved. It seems thematically to have become two sections: == Genesis of the novel == and == Influence ==

--Oryanw 00:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] rationalisation of labour

What is rationalisation of labour? It seems to have been introduced by anon User:213.1.45.2 in this edit.

--Jtir 16:47, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

It'a the extreme division of labour - what most people would refer to as the "conveyor belt". It allowed workers to be very well trained in one minor aspect of production but ignorant of the overall process.

--Yablochko 01:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] vague and unsourced claim about bible code

However, some have claimed the names are a bible code.
This sentence is vague (Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words) and unsourced (Wikipedia:Verifiability). It was introduced without an edit summary by anon User:68.62.11.166 in this edit. Should it be removed?

--Jtir 17:43, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Removed here. --Jtir 23:14, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What translation of We should be used?

It is not clear what translation of We is used in this article. It seems to me that one translation should be chosen as "preferred", with others being referenced as needed (e.g. when noting that one translation uses OneState where another uses United State). The translation by Mirra Ginsburg is online and would be very convenient for copy/paste of quotes. However it could disappear sometime and it might not be an exact copy of the printed version. --Jtir 16:04, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I edited it based on google results. Zamyatin "One State" got 500 results, while Zamyatin "United State" got 1500 results. I actually prefer the spellig Onestate which also got 500 results--Acebrock 17:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Excellent research job! Clarence Brown uses "OneState" (with the upper case "S" in the middle), even though he considers it "ugly". "OneState" is what I prefer. --Jtir 18:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I've never seen it referred to as the United State in any of my readings. Rather than refer to it as one or the other, we can refer to it as both. --Andrewwinter 12:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I replaced "United State" with "One State" throughout and cited all three translations in a footnote. The journal article by McClintock uses "United State" in the article title, but I don't have access to the rest of the article, where the translation might be identified. The footnote can be easily expanded. How does it look? --Jtir 13:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization

I have reorganized the page slightly. All the content is the same, but Significance and Criticism has been moved nearer to the top (and changed to Signficance and influences). Lines such as "it is considered the grandfather of the genre" seem more suited to an introduction paragraph.

I believe it flows much better this way, as the sentances flow well into one another. As well, critical information, such as the influences of Taylor fit should be near the beginning. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Andrewwinter (talk • contribs) 15:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template and expansion

I've brought the article in line with the Novel Template. I've also put in several sub-headings that can be expanded upon. Hopefully this will encourage the article to grow. Areas that need further expansion are: Major Themes: Individualism, and Probably Communism/Totalitariansim Allusions: Dostoevsky and Biblical References --Andrewwinter 16:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! That is a huge improvement. I like what you did with the journal articles. There are also mathematical references throughout the novel. I'd like to move the math paragraph from Trivia to a subsection under Allusions and references to other works when you are through reorganizing. --Jtir 16:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religious Allusions and some Citations

The Mephistopheles connection is referred to in this article on page 481:

• McClintock, James I. (Autumn 1977). "United State Revisited: Pynchon and Zamiatin". Contemporary Literature 18 (4): 475-490. 

Is that enough?

This is one of a few articles I found which refer to the One State as the United State using the 1952 reprinting by EP Dutton of the 1924 translation.

In my search to find a source for this Mephi - Mephistopheles assertion, I also found a source dealing with numerous religious aspects and allusions in We.

• Gregg, Richard A. (December 1965). "Two Adams and Eve in the Crystal Palace: Dostoevsky, the Bible, and We". Slavic Review 24 (4): 680-687. 

Interesting points:

-correlations between We and Genesis chapters 1-4 abound ex: I-330 as eve, her "bite-smile" as a reference to biting the apple. S as the Snake etc.

bite-smile from Ginsburg:

• Sixth Entry: bite-smile, white sharp teeth. "I mean, to be exact, the most absurd of all
• Thirteenth Entry: Rising quickly, she put on her unif and her usual sharp bite-smile. "Well,
• Seventeenth Entry: "here" was? The familiar, saffron-yellow silk, the bite-smile, the veiled

-quotations such as "We is of God, I is of the Devil" (22nd Entry, near the end)

As well it contains several allusions to work by Dostoyevsky. Worth reading and incorporating into the influential works I would say. I will update further once I've done a little more reading. Is the article a bit old is a major question. --Andrewwinter 19:24, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Excellent research. I guess you have access to JSTOR. The McClintock ref was already in the article. I added Gregg (and thanks for using the cite template). Feel free to develop any sections based on sources like these. The article is using the <ref></ref> tags and inline short cites (e.g. <ref>Gregg</ref>). There is still debate about whether page numbers are needed — personally, as a reader, I like them because they add amazing credibility to an article (see for example 0.999).

I don't think the date of an article is a concern (the novel is from 1921 after all). If there are differences of opinion among articles — that's just more material.  :-)

"...the United State using the 1952 reprinting by EP Dutton of the 1924 translation." Fantastic! That's the Zilboorg translation. I'll add it to the footnote.

--Jtir 21:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mathematical References

I haven't read the book, so I don't know what it claims. However, i isn't an irrational number, it's imaginary. If the book claims it is irrational, then this should be clarified, and if it doesn't than that section needs to be reworked entirely. Arturus 20:53, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

"the irrationality of square root -1 bothers him greatly" is that the line you're referring to? The book quite correctly describes the irrational nature of this concept. Although mathematicians use the label irrational number to describe a number that cannot be decimalised, it is not incorrect to call an imaginary number irrational. (Yablochko 03:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC))

Okay, that makes sense, although I'm still uncomfortable with the section. I have great difficulty not reading the word irrational as the technical meaning in a context like that, but I don't know how this could be clarified without awkwardness. It seems to me that perhaps describing the construction as arbitrary rather than irrational would be more accurate, but if this is how the book approaches it then this is a problem I have with the book, not the article. Arturus 12:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Correct name of the protagonist

The correct name is actually D-503 not A-503. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xelnanga (talk • contribs) 01:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC). Xelnanga 01:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but in the article it did not say A-503, but Д-503. It is the Cyrillic alphabet letter corresponding to D. Perhaps your browser does not correctly show it? --Goochelaar 17:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see the problem now. Yes, it was a problem with my browser. I apologize for the inconvenience. Xelnanga 21:34, 25 March 2007 (UTC)