There are many ways to consider We The Living: As a Historial view of post-Revolutionary Russia. A love triangle. A tragedy. Rand’s autobiography (to a point). The nascent presentation of Rand’s developing philosophy.
All would be right.
On the surface, the novel is a grand telling with profound nuance and insight of the destruction of human spirits brought on by the denial of human rights. It is about rapidly maturing Soviet Russia starving and learning to starve its populace into obedience. In the early 1920s — much like North Korea today — it is a wrenching depicting of life being wrung out of every man, woman, and child to force reverence to the state and the dictators who run it.
And it is about the corruption and private repudiation of what such regimes stand for by their own leadership because such regimes simply can’t function without corruption and black markets controlled by the ruling elites. It is the most glaring and brutally dishonest contradiction and a key element on which Rand’s plot turns.
It is difficult to imagine that Rand finished such a complex and complete novel at the age of 29 and as her first novel no less. There is so much insight and so much detail that few veteran writers could compare favorably.
Impressive? Let’s not forget that English was not her first language.
Arguably some of the secondary characters are a bit contrived and their motivation too simplistic. But given its large cast and the novel’s massive scope, these are minor (and debatable) shortcomings.
By modern standards it is wordy and there is too much “head hopping”. The style is also thick with “telling” rather than showing, but what it does not tell is the emotional destruction or the implications of what is happening — that you have to discern for yourself, and it takes some work. It is a very tightly woven narrative. This is my second reading and the nuances are clearer to me now as a result.
It is a hard story to read precisely because it is a very sad depiction of a large family descending into the ash, groveling to live while (some of them) attempt to hold on to basic values of human rights. And it is a depiction of how the intellectually weak and those without an understanding of morality turn on their own families, offering them up for execution to win favor with the state’s leaders.
I’m a fan of all of Rand’s “big three” novels, though in many ways this is my favorite. Where Atlas Shrugged is her resounding triumph in a variety of ways, it is grinding and relentless in making her political points. In contrast, We The Living is more “literary”, a more fluid and emotional read.
It was a pleasure to read it again after first reading it 30 years ago. I’m sure I’ll read it again before another 30 years go by, and I will enjoy it even more.
It is an important, timeless depiction of what happens when human rights are denied.
