This is the first Ayn R book I read & none of her other books have been able to match the excellence she showed in writing this intense love story of 3 people struggling to make a life, in times of war & revolution.
The 3 main characters of ’’We The Living’’ are:
Kira Argounova, a young girl, who refuses to settle for anything less than what she desires and deserves.
The man she loves : Leo Kovalensky, a revolutionary who shares all of Kira’s ideals & values
the man who loves her : Andrei Taganov, a communist whose thoughts are exactly opposite to those of Kira’s but his determinations & his beliefs are fierce enough to make Kira realise that they do have lots in common.
Kira, an 18-year-old aspiring engineer, is returning with her family - father, mother & elder sister - to her hometown Petrograd, Russia. Before the revolution & new social order, her father was a rich textile factory owner & Kira’s family had a luxurious life. Now they have nothing left & are faced with difficulties to survive, without house, job or food.[Since Ayn was a witness to the Communist rule, there is a lot of detailed explanation in events, which leave a deep impact on reader] The family takes shelter in a rented house & Kira’s father takes up small jobs to provide the family.
At school Kira meets , Andrei, a Communist GPU [secret police] agent, who lives for the ideals of Lenin & for his own interests. Both are exactly opposite in their beliefs yet friendship forms between the two. Kira’s chance meeting with a revolutionary Leo turns into a much stronger relation & soon both fall in love with eachother. She does not tell Andrei about Leo, even though she is fully aware that by now Andrei has fallen in love with her. From here the story is that of a love triangle where all the 3 characters, being in a totalitarian state & on opposite sides, undergo the worst of circumstances,
When her parents don’t approve of Leo, Kira leaves her house & moves in with him. However, Leo finds it impossible to keep a job, becomes depressed, stays at home, drinking & soon they discover that Leo is suffering from tuberculosis & needs immediate treatment. Kira loves Leo, to her Leo is God & she was willing to give her life in order to save his. But Kira has no money & only other option she can see is to be with Andrei. So she responds to his love & believing that she is still living with her family Andrei is willing to support her financially. They meet secretly & she forbids him to come to her parents home as they wouldn’t approve of Andrei. With the money she collects Kira ’sponsors’ Leo’s treatment in another town [She lies to Leo abt his aunt sending the money] & then waits for him to return while she keeps her visits to Andrei.
A year passes & on his return Leo finds out the truth about the money for his treatment. There is an overnight change in Leo’s attitude & life becomes miserable for Kira. Her best efforts to keep her relation with Leo undercover, fail & Andrei finds out about Leo being Kira’s lover. He is heartbroken & although he realises that he has been betrayed by Kira, he understands her reasons & continues to help her, he is the one who helps release Leo from jail. For this, he faces some opposition from some members of his party & soon Andrei learns about the corruption going on in his party. Not the one to keep quite about such matters, he makes his best efforts to bring the wrongdoers to justice & totally disillusioned by life, Andrei commits suicide.
Meanwhile, Leo turns out to be unworthy of Kira’s sacrifices. He tells Kira that he is leaving her, to become a gigolo & travel around the world, with a lady he meet at the sanitarium. Leo, a man so strong & full of conviction, is eventually broken down by the communists & is on his way to self-destruction. Even after all this Kira, ideals/beliefs remain intact & solid. She is truly the strength of the story & her love for Leo does not change yet she doesn’t beg Leo to stay behind. Pregnant with Leo’s child, her dream is now to escape Petrograd & find a new happy life she deserves. However, misfortunes do not leave Kira & she dies trying to escape.
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My Word:
If there is any story written on life & love that deserves to be called a masterpiece, ’’We the Living’’ is the book Ayn has admitted that this is the closest she has ever come to writing an autobiography. So while reading we find that as compared to her other books, the characters in ’’We The Living’’ are more humane & practical.
The theme of We the Living is the struggle of 3 individuals against the state. They all want to live their lives on their own terms but the impact of the Russian Revolution doesn’t permit them to pursue their own happiness. Through her heroine Kira, Ayn has clearly conveyed her message: No should have right to control what & how you think, each individual matters & in each individual every thought & idea is a treasure
The story can be interpreted at different layers at the same time & even though it has a political background I saw it as a young woman’s struggle for existence as she fights the circumstances & tries to keep her love alive. It is an extraordinary tale of romance, betrayal & the extra ordinary strength of a girl who doesn’t give up trying till the end. In the beginning of the book Kira says: Society, is a stupendous whole. If you write a whole line of zeroes, it’s still- nothing. Such a strong minded character is ruined when she falls in love with the hero, who later turns into a coward. She is a braveheart who is in the wrong place at a wrong time. Kira is a perfect example of someone who did all that she possibly could to get what she believed she deserved, but the country, time period & her people, did not allow her to be anything but just another person in the crowd.
Ayn’s writing is very clear, concise & to the point. Every character in this novel fits very well & has a well defined part. In the beginning, we believe that Leo is the hero & Andrei is the enemy. As the story progresses, it is revealed that just the opposite is true, making the ending as tragic as the life these three led while living. The characters feel so real that the reader can actually see them- feel angry when Andrei is betrayed & he dies or when Leo turns into a anti-hero or when Kira dies in the end. The tragic end of Kira is disappointing. To learn that Leo still lives while the real ’’heroes’’ of the story - Kira & Andrei are the ones who suffer & die, is very depressing.
For all book lovers, this is a must read story.
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Thanx for reading :)