Jun 29, 2003 12:51 AM
6459 Views
(Updated Jun 29, 2003 12:54 AM)
Life... To Live... not just to breathe... It is much more than that... Life is for living with a purpose, to have an ultimate goal in life - not of success, but of happiness. Happiness is not a means to achieve anything, any specific goal. It is an end in itself. Live, not to be successful, live to be happy...
Ayn R@nd wrote a novelette named ''Anthem'' to kick-start her career. The philosophy she propounds is called ''Objectivism''. ''We, the living'' was the first novel which introduced Ayn R@nd to the literature scene. The novel was quite a success.
''We, the Living'' is a novel of the pre-Russian Revolution era. Set against the background of the Red rule of the communists, in the year 1925, it charts the story of a young girl's emphatic struggle to live against all odds., her solid belief that things would improve some day and that she would, finally, get to live her life the way she wanted to.
The Plot...
Kira Argounova is the daughter of an aristocrat, referred to as a 'bourgeois' by the Reds, who are working towards establishing the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat', a common collectivist entity in which everyone is equal...
Leo Kovalensky, is a revolutionary-turned-nothing (yes, nothing.) who meets Kira and sparks fly... almost literally...
Andrei Taganov is a dedicated party worker, who worships the Party and stands by its ideals as if they were his own. Little does he know, that he is, but a small wheel, in the huge well-oiled machinery of the Proletariat...
Fate brings Kira and Leo together, but the Reds catch up with them before they can escape 'abroad' (read: out of Russia). They begin to share their lives and find that, it is not so easy to live in a land where the ideals you set for yourself are exactly the opposite of what is practised by the people. They try to escape, but when they realise they can't they conform unwillingly and with dead emotions, as if for the sake of a routine chore. They go through the motions of the peoples' ideologies, (which they hate) as a routine exercise and nothing more.
Meanwhile, Leo falls sick and the social ideologists turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to his suffering. Andrei Taganov steps in and he unknowingly helps Kira send Leo to the Crimea to recuperate. For that, Kira ends up paying a heavy price, that of her life...well, almost her life...
Ayn R@nd is a master of philosophical story-telling. She blends philosophy into her stories so easily and so effortlessly, you don't realise you are reading philosophy, until suddenly, you realize that the same applies to your life too! The characterizations are deep and perfectly sketched... One thing is for sure, Kira, Leo and Andrei can never exist in real life, but she brings them alive in this exotically penned novel. The more one delves deep into the book, the more one achieves profound insights into one's own life.
Bottomline...
I would never dare to recommend this book to anybody with a sane bent of mind. This book is to be read by only those people, who have a deep desire to live, and not just breathe. I recommend the book only for those people who have the guts to think differently, those who have the guts to speak differently, and those who have the guts to act differently. This book is for those people who have a consistency in their thoughts, words and action.
If you think you can stomach it, go read it, right now...
If you can't; run, run as far as you can, because you aren't safe... even from yourself...
A FINAL Note:
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''We, the living'' is one of Ayn R@nd's best novels and it is fitting that I end my reviews on MS with a review on a subject I would never have dared to write - Ayn R@nd. I know I haven't written much and my stint at MS was a very short one, but whatever it was it was enjoyable. I'll be updating my personal details soon as a special ''Thanks'' to all of those who were curious about me. Sorry to have kept you waiting...
