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The Dispossessed (Le Guin)
Jan. 22nd, 2011 08:51 pmUm, okay. On rereading this post, I am not actually sure this will be interesting to anyone but me, but this ate my brain until I wrote it down, so I am inflicting it upon you.
Le Guin's recent work, I feel, sometimes has the feel that she's sacrificing a clear eye to Make a Point. Not so in The Dispossessed. The thing that struck me most heavily on reread is the merciless truth of her view of her "ambiguous utopia" of Anarres. It seems clear to me that we are meant to think of the anarchist (-ish) Anarres as superior and capitalist Urras as inferior; and Shevek, the protagonist, certainly thinks so. And Anarres has a number of wonderful things about it. But it is flawed too, and Le Guin does not shrink from enumerating those flaws.
I was very, very impressed by how incredibly spot on Le Guin gets the advantages and disadvantages of Anarres -- because a significant portion of my life is spent in a very Anarres-like setting, and I can attest that she gets it exactly right (so right that either she is extremely good at extrapolating or she lived her own version of Anarres, though clearly not my version). ( I refer to the LDS (Mormon) church here. )
Le Guin's recent work, I feel, sometimes has the feel that she's sacrificing a clear eye to Make a Point. Not so in The Dispossessed. The thing that struck me most heavily on reread is the merciless truth of her view of her "ambiguous utopia" of Anarres. It seems clear to me that we are meant to think of the anarchist (-ish) Anarres as superior and capitalist Urras as inferior; and Shevek, the protagonist, certainly thinks so. And Anarres has a number of wonderful things about it. But it is flawed too, and Le Guin does not shrink from enumerating those flaws.
I was very, very impressed by how incredibly spot on Le Guin gets the advantages and disadvantages of Anarres -- because a significant portion of my life is spent in a very Anarres-like setting, and I can attest that she gets it exactly right (so right that either she is extremely good at extrapolating or she lived her own version of Anarres, though clearly not my version). ( I refer to the LDS (Mormon) church here. )
