Book Review #4 - We the living by Ayn Rand

Good Day,

We the living

By Ayn Rand

"We the living" by Ayn Rand is a very depressive story giving us the touch of reality of that period in Russia, after the Revolution.

Story:
Kira Argounova is the sun of the book. In times when all your decisions were made by the party, no freedom of speech or thought was to be exercised by the citizens and party was the supreme force not to clash with. She was the kind of person who had her own philosophy, values, and dreams of becoming an engineer, she knew what she wanted rather she was a perfect iconoclast, a maverick of bourgeois decent yet she had to surpress her traits for love. She belonged to an opulent family which lost everything owing to the nationalization after revolution.

So the story changes when she comes across a very handsome stranger on a very ugly street. Leo Kovalensky was his name, son of Admiral Kovalensky.  Admiral was involved in counter revolution which led to him being blinded and executed. After meeting several times Leo and Kira fall in love which was going to change their lives.

Meanwhile Kira makes a very dear friend at the institute where she was studying. Andrei Taganov was communist by heart, he had a tragic childhood and worked for the party when it was not only risky but promised you a sentence in Siberia if caught. He was also a decorated war hero and the title complemented the scars on his body. Andrei and Kira became friends instantly, despite their different social pasts, for their ideologies, their approach towards life was very similar.

Kira does not live past a series of tragic events, but lives a very daunting life managing her job, study, love, family, friendhship and family.

Review : 

The story has many tragic events to handle in one book. Author has not been very lucid in describing the physical appearance of characters but the imperative scenes in the book from story point of view are very rigorously written as if you can picture those scenes in front of you.

I feel that reading this book is like you are falling down an utterly deep chasm where you know the outcome but whilst you are falling different events take place which may certainly not surprise you yet they will occupy you down your fall.

There are some beautiful ideas discussed in this book regarding God, theory of collectivism and many others. It provides a very heavy insight to the scene of a new 'Red Russia'. Author has thoroughly depicted her abomination for Russia in her book.

I would suggest this book to those who are not savvy with Russia's revolution and time after that as I have found it very hard to digest. Those who are in depression, please do not read this book unless you are optimistic enough to feel that their  condition was far worse then yours.

At the end this book also suggests that humans will not leave their trait of being solipsistic and exploiting those inferior then them whether you change philosophy, hierarchy or even the whole system.