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erikinthedistrict's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Very much in the mid-century vein of ESP/psychic powers being a major theme. The worst LeGuin book I’ve read but still largely readable. Just not a super interesting premise.
kimpositions's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
anyajulchen's review against another edition
3.0
¡Es un gran inicio en la aventura de Úrsula! La verdad es que me gustó mucho la escritura, la dinámica de los personajes, la historia.
emilylacey330's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
pepper_d's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.75
nanometers's review against another edition
adventurous
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
Fun, short book providing a view into the dangers of correcting human follies with technology, even in the wake of hindsight.
kassiani's review against another edition
4.5
Changing reality through your dreams - and trying to keep a moral compass through it all. Creating alternative realities by fondamentally altering the current reality. The potential horrors of the subconscious! how different is our rational mind from it? Fascinating debate on the limitations of your mind: comprehending multiple potential universes at once, or in denial, compartmentalisation...
Horror genre: is there truly anything more terrifying than a man with a massive ego, dubious morals and the capacity to play God?
Hypnosis terrifies me! Therapist turning your own mind against you - nightmare scenario.
Loved Heather's Black Widow routine and her "French diseases of the soul" : pique, umbrage and ennui.
Subconscious incapable of imagining a world without any kind of war, or violence (killing games, eugenics, ableism and euthanasia if not allowed to kill through war and racial conflicts) - really interesting debate about 'progress' and for whose sake.
"you're a moral jellyfish" is now my favorite insult.
audiobook and ebook versions (see highlighted parts)
QUOTES:
"But the big man was like an onion, slip off layer after layer of personality, belief, response, infinite layers, no end to them, no center to him. Nowhere that he ever stopped, had to stop, had to say “Here I stay!” No being, only layers"
"Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass"
"The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means."
"He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in"
"The infinite possibility, the unlimited and unqualified wholeness of being of the uncommitted, the nonacting, the uncarved: the being who, being nothing but himself, is everything. Briefly she saw him thus, and what struck her most, of that insight, was his strength. He was the strongest person she had ever known, because he could not be moved away from the center."
"He never spoke with any bitterness at all, no matter how awful the things he said. Are there really people without resentment, without hate? she wondered. People who never go cross-grained to the universe? Who recognize evil, and resist evil, and yet are utterly unaffected by it? Of course there are. Countless, the living and the dead. Those who have returned in pure compassion to the wheel, those who follow the way that cannot be followed without knowing they follow it"
Heather: "A person who believes, as she did, that things fit: that there is a whole of which one is a part, and that in being a part one is whole; such a person has no desire whatever, at any time, to play God. Only those who have denied their being yearn to play at it."
Change vs entropy debate: "We’re in the world, not against it. It doesn’t work to try to stand outside things and run them that way. It just doesn’t work, it goes against life. There is a way but you have to follow it. The world is, no matter how we think it ought to be. You have to be with it. You have to let it be"
"Of course (his thoughts proceeded, also at a walking pace), if that’s true, then the whole world as it now is should be on my side, because I dreamed a lot of it up, too. Well, after all, it is on my side. That is, I’m a part of it. Not separate from it. I walk on the ground and the ground’s walked on by me, I breathe the air and change it, I am entirely interconnected with the world"
"You have to help another person. But it’s not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you’re doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you’re right and your motives are good isn’t enough. You have to … be in touch. He isn’t in touch. No one else, no thing even, has an existence of its own for him; he sees the world only as a means to his end. It doesn’t make any difference if his end is good; means are all we’ve got"
"They had been married seven months. They said nothing of any importance. They washed up the dishes and went to bed. In bed, they made love. Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new. When it was made, they lay in each other’s arms, holding love, asleep"
"Everything dreams. The play of form, of being, is the dreaming of substance. Rocks have their dreams, and the earth changes … But when the mind becomes conscious, when the rate of evolution speeds up, then you have to be careful. Careful of the world. You must learn the way. You must learn the skills, the art, the limits. A conscious mind must be part of the whole, intentionally and carefully—as the rock is part of the whole unconsciously"
"There is a bird in a poem by T. S. Eliot who says that mankind cannot bear very much reality; but the bird is mistaken. A man can endure the entire weight of the universe for eighty years. It is unreality that he cannot bear."
Horror genre: is there truly anything more terrifying than a man with a massive ego, dubious morals and the capacity to play God?
Hypnosis terrifies me! Therapist turning your own mind against you - nightmare scenario.
Loved Heather's Black Widow routine and her "French diseases of the soul" : pique, umbrage and ennui.
Subconscious incapable of imagining a world without any kind of war, or violence (killing games, eugenics, ableism and euthanasia if not allowed to kill through war and racial conflicts) - really interesting debate about 'progress' and for whose sake.
"you're a moral jellyfish" is now my favorite insult.
audiobook and ebook versions (see highlighted parts)
QUOTES:
"But the big man was like an onion, slip off layer after layer of personality, belief, response, infinite layers, no end to them, no center to him. Nowhere that he ever stopped, had to stop, had to say “Here I stay!” No being, only layers"
"Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass"
"The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means."
"He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in"
"The infinite possibility, the unlimited and unqualified wholeness of being of the uncommitted, the nonacting, the uncarved: the being who, being nothing but himself, is everything. Briefly she saw him thus, and what struck her most, of that insight, was his strength. He was the strongest person she had ever known, because he could not be moved away from the center."
"He never spoke with any bitterness at all, no matter how awful the things he said. Are there really people without resentment, without hate? she wondered. People who never go cross-grained to the universe? Who recognize evil, and resist evil, and yet are utterly unaffected by it? Of course there are. Countless, the living and the dead. Those who have returned in pure compassion to the wheel, those who follow the way that cannot be followed without knowing they follow it"
Heather: "A person who believes, as she did, that things fit: that there is a whole of which one is a part, and that in being a part one is whole; such a person has no desire whatever, at any time, to play God. Only those who have denied their being yearn to play at it."
Change vs entropy debate: "We’re in the world, not against it. It doesn’t work to try to stand outside things and run them that way. It just doesn’t work, it goes against life. There is a way but you have to follow it. The world is, no matter how we think it ought to be. You have to be with it. You have to let it be"
"Of course (his thoughts proceeded, also at a walking pace), if that’s true, then the whole world as it now is should be on my side, because I dreamed a lot of it up, too. Well, after all, it is on my side. That is, I’m a part of it. Not separate from it. I walk on the ground and the ground’s walked on by me, I breathe the air and change it, I am entirely interconnected with the world"
"You have to help another person. But it’s not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you’re doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you’re right and your motives are good isn’t enough. You have to … be in touch. He isn’t in touch. No one else, no thing even, has an existence of its own for him; he sees the world only as a means to his end. It doesn’t make any difference if his end is good; means are all we’ve got"
"They had been married seven months. They said nothing of any importance. They washed up the dishes and went to bed. In bed, they made love. Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new. When it was made, they lay in each other’s arms, holding love, asleep"
"Everything dreams. The play of form, of being, is the dreaming of substance. Rocks have their dreams, and the earth changes … But when the mind becomes conscious, when the rate of evolution speeds up, then you have to be careful. Careful of the world. You must learn the way. You must learn the skills, the art, the limits. A conscious mind must be part of the whole, intentionally and carefully—as the rock is part of the whole unconsciously"
"There is a bird in a poem by T. S. Eliot who says that mankind cannot bear very much reality; but the bird is mistaken. A man can endure the entire weight of the universe for eighty years. It is unreality that he cannot bear."
rubylewis97's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
4.5
bim10's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I feel like I still need to process this book, but it’s VERY good. Le Guin really took this simple concept and analyzed it from every angle. I love George Orr as a protagonist, and Dr. Haber is a great villain.
There’s a lot going on in this book, but the theme that stuck out to me the most was that of Taoism. I think there’s a lot of discussion to be had about the implications of the events in this novel, and the question “What is your rightful place in the world?” Are you deserving of power just because you intend to use it for good? Is it possible to use such great power for good at all? What do you do with this kind of power of you don’t want it?
I’ll definitely reread this at some point. I feel like I only sorta have a grasp on it.
There’s a lot going on in this book, but the theme that stuck out to me the most was that of Taoism. I think there’s a lot of discussion to be had about the implications of the events in this novel, and the question “What is your rightful place in the world?” Are you deserving of power just because you intend to use it for good? Is it possible to use such great power for good at all? What do you do with this kind of power of you don’t want it?
I’ll definitely reread this at some point. I feel like I only sorta have a grasp on it.
seeceeread's review against another edition
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? [...] He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in.
George Orr, Jor Jor, Either Or, a man trapped in nightmares of his own making. When George dreams, sometimes they're 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦, they make themselves real as he slumbers. He cannot control them, and loathes the way they force him to remember myriad timelines. He's always tripping into new details that rationalize the last tectonic continuum shift. Seeking respite, he takes advantage of others' pharmaceutical rations to tamp dreams. But the meds aren't strong enough to beat his mind's need to creatively wander (and using others' pills is a crime). So he's coerced into treatment with a dream specialist. Dr. Haber is thrilled to find a subject whose mind he can manipulate, which in turn means he can tweak the universe. As he inches closer to godlike status, Haber melts under the pressure. While George finds jetties from which he can better navigate the stream.
Le Guin carefully builds plot and character in service of substantive philosophical inquiry: How much can (should) humans control? Are there ethical frameworks consequential enough to guide the scale at which our species can unwind [pick a noun]? Each chapter opens with a quote, many from the Tao Te Ching, by which the author seems to offer an answer.
As I get more familiar with her style, I like Le Guin's literary approach more and more. Her work breezes past formulaic and demands careful attention to layers. For the same reason, her work invites revisiting, dipping a toe into her stream when I will have been changed, to be swayed anew.