Readable Fiction: October 2006

     There are few stories out there that can compare with the likes of George Orwell's Animal Farm, or Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, but Anthem seems to have achieved this status. Or, if you want to be technical, it set the bar back in 1938, before the other two were even conceived!

     Ayn Rand, the world-famous author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, created, or rather, envisaged, a future that was very grim indeed. Based many centuries in the future of mankind, Anthem starts you off with "[i]t is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no other think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone." These powerful statements transport you to a time when after so many years of "as a whole" thinking, society is no longer free and joyful. There is no joy in this world.

     The majority of the story takes place in a city, presumably like all of the cities on their world, and revolves around our protagonist, Equality 7-2521. We go through how he came to be where he is: his terrible childhood, filled with whippings and nights in the cellar for doing no more than understanding the teacher; his unfortunate placement as a street sweeper; his discovery of something from the unmentionable times; and so on. What's most important, though, is not what Equality 7-2521 is doing, but rather, the events taking place around him and because of him.

     For example, when Equality 7-2521 is able to understand the lessons and remember them later, he is punished for being greater than the other students. When the City Council comes to decide all of the students' future careers, they give him street sweeper as a punishment for being better. This is not to say that they had careers in the literal sense, but rather they had jobs to do for all men. No one must think for themselves or about themselves.

     All of this (and so much more) packed into ~105 beautifully written pages leads us up to one final analogy, one final and instant meaning for the entire creation. Ego.

Quote From Book

The Teachers were just, for they had been appointed by the Councils, and the Councils are the voice of all justice, for they are the voice of all men. And if sometimes, in the secret darkness of our heart, we regret that which befell us on our fifteenth birthday, we know that it was through our own guilt. We had broken a law, for we had not paid heed to the words of our Teachers. The Teachers had said to us all:
"Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students. You shall do that which the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you. For the Council of vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds. And if you are not needed by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies."

An essay on the conflict in Anthem can be found here.

Where to Buy