Books/The Dispossessed: Difference between revisions

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'''Author:''' Ursula K. Le Guin<br>
'''Author:''' Ursula K. Le Guin<br>
'''Genre:''' Science Fiction
'''Genre:''' Science Fiction
This is the second book I'm reading from Ursula K. Le Guin, the first one being "The Left Hand of Darkness". I was reading Liu Cixin's books before this and noticed a marked difference in the writing styles of the two authors. Liu Cixin tries to keep his works focussed at a civilizational level, with less attention devoted to the lives and feeling of individual characters. There is no clear hero in his writings. On the other hand, Ursula K. Le Guin's approach to story-telling is from an individual's perspective, focussing on their feelings. Her writing probably cannot be classified as hard science fiction. She uses science fiction as a vehicle to explore other aspects of humanity, such as gender in "The Left Hand of Darkness" and Anarchism in this book "The Dispossessed".
This book can neither be classified as utopian fiction nor dystopian fiction. The subtitle says "an ambiguous utopia". The story is set on two worlds, with two political systems functioning in near isolation. They aren't evenly matched. The original home planet of the species is plentiful while its moon though habitable is a mostly desertified wasteland which the exiled anarchists must make a home out of. The book is told from the perspective of one male scientist born on the Anarchist world (Anarres) and moves to the Archist world (Urras) in his forties. The Archist world is hardly different from Terra in 2020, or 1974 for that matter. The book's chapters alternate between the author's past on Anarres and his current life on Urras.
I picked up this book when I was still below thirty years of age, which I think is kind of the right age for it. I probably wouldn't have understood or appreciated it when I was younger. The book is quite a hard read. The reader is plunged into an alien world with alien words, customs and ways of living which are only slowly explained through subsequent chapters. It takes patience and time to appreciate the author's way of thinking. The book's politics is limited to the effect it has on the hero life. The hero is not an average person, but a special one, so special in fact, that he is the physicist who will change the way civilizations on distant worlds interact with each other in the future. His vulnerability, his human faults, his mistakes are all part of the story. Most of the brilliance of this book is in its approach to putting the reader in the hero's shoes. Discussion of abstract concepts is limited in scope to what affects the hero's life. This book could've been propaganda for an anarchist style of life, but it isn't. Its seemingly neutral approach is what makes it a delight to read.

Revision as of 07:54, 26 December 2020

Subtitle: An Ambiguous Utopia
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Science Fiction

This is the second book I'm reading from Ursula K. Le Guin, the first one being "The Left Hand of Darkness". I was reading Liu Cixin's books before this and noticed a marked difference in the writing styles of the two authors. Liu Cixin tries to keep his works focussed at a civilizational level, with less attention devoted to the lives and feeling of individual characters. There is no clear hero in his writings. On the other hand, Ursula K. Le Guin's approach to story-telling is from an individual's perspective, focussing on their feelings. Her writing probably cannot be classified as hard science fiction. She uses science fiction as a vehicle to explore other aspects of humanity, such as gender in "The Left Hand of Darkness" and Anarchism in this book "The Dispossessed".

This book can neither be classified as utopian fiction nor dystopian fiction. The subtitle says "an ambiguous utopia". The story is set on two worlds, with two political systems functioning in near isolation. They aren't evenly matched. The original home planet of the species is plentiful while its moon though habitable is a mostly desertified wasteland which the exiled anarchists must make a home out of. The book is told from the perspective of one male scientist born on the Anarchist world (Anarres) and moves to the Archist world (Urras) in his forties. The Archist world is hardly different from Terra in 2020, or 1974 for that matter. The book's chapters alternate between the author's past on Anarres and his current life on Urras.

I picked up this book when I was still below thirty years of age, which I think is kind of the right age for it. I probably wouldn't have understood or appreciated it when I was younger. The book is quite a hard read. The reader is plunged into an alien world with alien words, customs and ways of living which are only slowly explained through subsequent chapters. It takes patience and time to appreciate the author's way of thinking. The book's politics is limited to the effect it has on the hero life. The hero is not an average person, but a special one, so special in fact, that he is the physicist who will change the way civilizations on distant worlds interact with each other in the future. His vulnerability, his human faults, his mistakes are all part of the story. Most of the brilliance of this book is in its approach to putting the reader in the hero's shoes. Discussion of abstract concepts is limited in scope to what affects the hero's life. This book could've been propaganda for an anarchist style of life, but it isn't. Its seemingly neutral approach is what makes it a delight to read.