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“Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “We”: both have constant surveillance of the individual, though through different means. Both have the protagonist discovering a class in society that is free, but powerless. Both have state control over passion, albeit in rather different ways. But “1984” (the new title) ...
D-503, a true believer in the authoritarian future he finds himself in, has his faith in the structures of society shaken by love. <-- a quick and dirty recap of We, D-503's diary. The world-building in these older dystopias is very different from today's, but you can draw a straight line from We (t...
Several things drew me to We. Comparison to 1984 is unavoidable, yet it predates it by several decades. A science fiction dystopia written in 1921 Russia that is still being read and discussed today seems like the type of foundation literature I should be familiar with. The book is definitely an i...
Some brilliant poems (#223; #344;#351;#388 to name a few), but overall I couldn't connect with the poet's voice on any deep level. Perhaps the dense classical allusions, which forced me to rack my brain for my long ago Classical Culture studies, stopped me from being drawn into this volume.
Osip Mandelstam in the eyes of the NKVD The people need poetry that will be their own secret to keep them awake forever, and bathe them in the bright-haired wave of its breathing. Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) was born in Warsaw to a wealthy Jewish family that was sufficiently well connected t...