Tag: we the living

“We The Living” - Ayn Rand

We The Living - Ayn Rand

Ayn Rands “We The Living” is about a young talented, freedom-loving woman living in the grim and repressive Soviet-Union, desperately and with all her might trying to preserve her love and her virtues.

Born as daughter of a once successful (his textile factory was seized and nationalize) industrialist, Kira the protagonist of the novel finds herself in the anti-burgoise environment of the Soviet-Russia of the nineteen-twenties, when returning (with her family) from exile to her hometown Petrograd. She starts pursuing an education as engineer aspiring to one day build skycrapers and bridges, knowing that she is meant for greatness. We then see the family’s decay as the conditions of living harden, greatly affecting her family, but leaving her semingly unimpressed, as she finds love in the freethinker (son of a Admiral who was on the wrong side in the revoution) Leo and meets her soulmate Andrei, a Communist and officer of the G.P.U (the secret police). As Leo falls ill with tuberculosis, Kria desperately tries to find a way to send him to a senatorium in the south, but fails due to the system, that does not value life. As a last resort she pretends to love Andrei (who fell in love with her) to get the money to save Leo. After his recovery Leo returns but is a changed man, he starts a business (as a so callled speculator) selling food stolen from the state with help of a corrupt Communist official. He and Kira slowly disunite as he also starts drinking and gambling, while Kira is trying to save money for their escape, knowing that it will not end well. But unlinke Leo, who has given up, Kira doesn’t and continues to believe in her dreams, sacrificing everything for them (best illustratet by the betrayal of her precious friendship with Andrei). As one of the revolutionist of the first days Andrei fits the longer the less into the party that has become a hoard of opportunistic beaurocrats only empt at improving their own profit and destroying lives, as he keeps on arguing his idealistic views he is kicked out of the party, discovering that Kria still loves only Leo he commits suicide. Having become emotionally numb Leo leaves Kira and Kira decides to leave the country, still pursuing her dreams with all her might. She dies very near the border, hit by a lucky shot of a guard.

I’m lucky that I haven’t written this review immediately after I’ve read the book, since the critique would have been slightly less appreciative, but I’ve had time to think about this book (and it does get you thinking) and some points I did not like now make me, in retrospect, enjoy the book even more. Firstly the portrayal of the living conditions is shocking and it gets to you, without being placative. Then there are the three most important characters of the book. Leo the attractive, first virtuous, but more and more disillusioned, and lastly broken man and one and only true love of Kira, then there is the idealistic, loyal and thoroughly respectful Andrei, Kiras soulmate despite their differing viewpoints. And then there is Kira the realistic but firm believer in her dreams and virtue, she fights the injustice of the system not by force but by not changing her beliefs and by an admirable endurability in the face of hopelessness. These three characters are what make this novel truly remarkable.

5/5