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jules_duh_'s review against another edition
2.0
Don’t cancel me but I hated this book. The world building felt tedious and came at the expense of interesting characters that I cared about. Potentially sci-fi is just not for me. Felt like a chore to read
jack1011's review against another edition
inspiring
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
5.0
vogelbeere's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
miriamnietd's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
johea22's review against another edition
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
4.25
queensurprise's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
dokushoman's review against another edition
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
zephonsacriel's review against another edition
3.0
The twin planets of Urras and Anarres orbit one another. One--Urras--is a predominately capitalist society with cities of splendor nestled among lush environments. The other--Anarres--is an anarchist society, founded by former Urrastis following the philosophy of the revolutionary Laia Odo among an arid environment. Because of their past and politics, the two dislike each other greater. Enter Shevek, a gifted Anarresti, physicist who is developing an important theory that will be of benefit to not only both planets, but the entire Council of Worlds. Switching back and forth between Anarres and Urras, past and present, The Dispossessed follows Shevek's journey as he both grows up and studied in Anarres and travels to Urras to share his theory and proliferate his work. Shevek becomes skeptical and frustrated of the anarchist society that raised and molded him, and although he is initially enchanted with Urras, he comes to learn that it may even be lesser than Anarres.
It's a shame that this is a three-star rating for me. My criticisms towards [b:The Left Hand of Darkness|118028|The Left Hand of Darkness|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553024007l/118028._SY75_.jpg|817527] are well-noted by this point among my GoodReads friends, but while I had a lot of criticism towards the philosophy and arguments in that book, I actually mostly agreed--surprisingly--with Ursula K. Le Guin's philosophy here. The Dispossessed's biggest problems are its languorous pacing, flat side characters, and its later Anarres chapters. I'll get to all that in a bit though.
Now, obviously being an anarchist herself, Le Guin never had any real love for capitalism and Urras is certainly the target of most of Shevek's criticisms in the book. However, Anarres is certainly no flawless gem either. Le Guin does bring some nuance to the criticisms and the comparing and the contrasting of societies; albeit some of the Urrastis' antagonism comes off as cartoonish. Anarres is a world without centralization of government, no technical forms of any ownership, no mandates for nuclear families, and even permits women to join in and even lead in various fields of labor. Meanwhile, Urras is a patriarchal world where women don't have any say in labor and are often dolled-up possessions of their husbands, and every form of labor or political movement or scientific production is done for the sake of the State. This is the central conflict at the heart The Dispossessed, Le Guin once again returning to the theme of dualistic opposites in her work.
But things are not so cut and dry here.
We see from the beginning that although Anarresti only have a father and mother, only one or neither of them may be involved in their lives. Sometimes caretakers raise them as they study for their intended fields until they are old enough to work. Shevek's father is involved in his childhood, but his mother had no interest in raising him. Nonetheless, we start to see how early Anarres drills into its civilians that they all own no property and work together with Shevek's childhood. As a baby, Shevek struggles against another baby for a spot on the floor where the warm sunlight touches. The caretaker chastises him, saying he doesn't own it, and as he grows up and starts going on with his questions and theories about the universe a teacher chastises his abundance of talking as "egoising." Egoising is something that pops frequently throughout the Anarres sections as everyone in Anarres does everything for the sake of each other and the society. Egoising equals selfishness. But these scenes also show the cracks in Anarres society. Every child grows up questioning their parents or what social order or ideals they're born into--Yes, even the children of you anarchists and socialists will raise questions too. It's natural. But Shevek's teacher is so harsh with him. Why be harsh with a child who is naturally curious and only knows so much.
Shevek himself is regularly accused by his fellow Anarresti of egoising, even when his questions are innocent. And this begs the question: Just how much would an actual anarchist society have to harshly remind its citizens of its ideals? Well, we do see what happens with one of Shevek's childhood friends--or rather told, this is Le Guin after all--but I'll come back to that.
As Shevek grows up he begins to study his physics more and develops his grand theory that will change the universe. He studies under Sabul, who is jealous of his work and controls publication on Anarres. Throughout his encounters with Sabul, Shevek is pushed back and encounters more frustration in Anarres. Gvarab, a woman he also studies under, has her theories constantly disregarded by Sabul and others. And this is strange...Gvarab is not at all well-respected in her field on Anarres, Truly, on Shevek looks up to her. Why is this woman looked down upon, but not Sabul despite his notorious behavior.
This was answered when Shevek, a teenager, I think, at this point, had a conversation with his friends in chapter 2:
"Women think they own you. No woman can really be an Odonian...But most women, their only relationship to a man is having...All women are propertarians."
Although Shevek is unsettled by such thoughts, no one chastises these boys for thinking this way, not even the few girls present. Women may be allowed in the same fields and workforces as men on Anarres, not judged by the quality of their physical strength like on Urras, but misogyny is still present. It's quiet, no woman is owned by an Anarresti man, but it is still present. I think, perhaps, this is why Gvarab is devalued by Sabul and others. Just because you live in an anarchist society, doesn't mean sexism isn't present. Anarchist men are still men.
However, while this observation is a very prudent and necessary one, I have to say that this is a weak point of the book. Why? Because it's through Shevek's, a man's, point-of-view. Why are we not seeing this supposedly gender-equal society through the eyes of a woman who can still be a target of misogyny? Additionally, some of Shevek's friends who generate and push these thoughts are only here for this moment. They push the plot forward for Shevek, but then only a few are ever seen again, before they disappear again. Some of these side characters aren't even characters, they're ciphers. Much like what Genly Ai was to sexism itself in The Left Hand of Darkness, Shevek's friends, co-workers, and tutors are to certainly other ideals and stumbling blocks in an pristine anarchist society. I know nothing else about them other than they are there to irk Shevek. Heck, Shevek's own estranged mother shows up at one point to basically say she had no interest in raising him which causes Shevek to no associate with her and then she just leaves. That's it.
However, as Shevek gets older, the Anarres sections start to lose their luster. And, they get slower and slower. Important things are still being discussed, by the time Le Guin takes to discuss them and get their points is so long that I lapsed into apathy. The biggest example of this is when Shevek finally falls in love with the woman who will become his wife, Takver. I say "wife" loosely, because although they do partner together (Anarresti term) and have two daughters together, Anarres doesn't really believe in a concept of husband and wife. Takver is a very uninteresting character and by the book's end, all I can identify her as is Shevek's wife. Le Guin TELLS us she's into marine biology, but never SHOWS us her studying marine biology. She likes fish. Okay, great. What else? The romance between her and Shevek, if you can call it that, is incredibly dry. To quote our youth, Takver is a nothing burger.
To be honest, the Anarres sections show another issues I have with The Dispossessed: it's only one point-of-view, when it should have been multiple, or at least, included some excerpts from other characters, akin to what Le Guin did with the folklore and studies portions of The Left Hand of Darkness. Another example: At one point, Shevek meets up with his old schoolmate Bedap in chapter 6. Bedap unapologetically voices his criticisms of Anarres, saying that its usage of "customary" is just a dressed-up version of "government." He reveals to Shevek that another one of their childhood friends was confined to an asylum for producing a play that upset Anarresti sensibilities. This is very revealing and shows an even larger crack in this anarchist society. It shows how Le Guin herself was not blind to problems that could arise in a society based around the social-political ideology that she upheld. Repression and hierarchy can still happen in these kinds of place.
But here is where Le Guin fumbles again. Bedap is a gay man, a gay men living under an anarchist society who is dissenting, and we only get this small portion from him relayed to Shevek. The book could've been so much stronger if we saw things through his eyes too.
I will confess that I skipped over the last Anarres chapters, because I was so bored by them and just did not care anymore. They were much slower compared to the Urras chapters and I just did not care about anyone else around Shevek.
The Urras chapters were much stronger though!
When Shevek arrives on Urras, he's immediately impressed by the grandeur of their cities and the intellect of everyone around him. But his mindset of not owning anything clashes with the capitalistic, propertarian Urrasti mindset and he has difficulty understanding them. They are impressed by his physics, yes, but they don't understand the way he thinks. Remember that Anarres is an arid planet, they don't have much in wats of natural resources. Urras, in spite of its capitalism, has so much verdure that Shevek thinks it's mythical at first. Shevek is also concerned that there are no women in the Urrasti physic studies or in the positions of power. As I stated above, the Urrasti women are just wives and mothers--though Shevek does meet one woman, Vea, who has her own power. She wraps Shevek around her finger and he, as gullible and naïve as he is, does Vea's every will. Of course, one could ask if she really does have any power because, although she makes Shevek pay for everything, she has no money herself.
Whereas the Anarres chapters were about seeing the cracks in an anarchist society, the Urras chapters are about being seduced by the glitter of a capitalistic society that is not gold. Truly, despite his reservations, Shevek is enamored at first by somethings on Urras. One of his reasons for leaving Anarres, is that no one would consider his studies worthy so he hit Urras up instead. As a child, Anarres fed Shevek propaganda about Urras, detailing it as a brutal, savage society. While it definitely has its problems, the Urras detailed in that propaganda is not the same--not quite the same as the last chapters reveal. And to be honest? I don't blame Shevek for being caught in the opulent illusion of Urras, given how he was treated and dismissed back on Anarres. For a more realistic example, [b:The Book of Lost Saints: A Cuban American Family Saga of Love, Betrayal, and Revolution|42642035|The Book of Lost Saints A Cuban American Family Saga of Love, Betrayal, and Revolution|Daniel José Older|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548185738l/42642035._SY75_.jpg|66378940] by Daniel José Older is a story about my father's home country of Cuba. It shows the last years of Fulgencio Batista's fascist reign and the "promise" of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara's revolution. The sister of one of the main characters in that book initially joins Castro's forces, but then she realizes, like many of Castro's former allies, that she is a target of suspicion from the very man she once idealized. Subsequently, her family members eventually immigrated to America where right-winged politician seduce them with assimilation.
Obviously, The Book of Lost Saints and The Dispossessed are two different books with two different messages, but there is crossover. So, yeah! I kind of get why Shevek was swept up in it all. It's is only later that when Shevek realizes how exorbitantly Urras prices are on certain things, sees the status of the lower classes, learns about the political unrest on other parts of the planet, and realizes the political machinations that his physics theory is going to be used for, does he realize that Urras is not the haven he imagines. Here, everything has a price tag, all in service to the State. The State is god, king, banker, and country. Urras wants Shevek's physics theory so they can use it as a weapon. Shevek is mortified. Urras is trying to buy, to own, his theory for something malicious when that's never what he wanted to begin with.
After a rather rushed climax, eventually the Terrans (Earthlings) and the Hainish come in to intervene. Shevek pleads with them to help him. The Terran ambassador recognizes the problems of both Urras and Anarres, but also what they both have. Urras is governmentally corrupt, but it is a beautiful planet especially compared to the devastated Earth. Anarres is an arid wasteland with little natural resources, but its spirit of brotherhood and freedom keep it going.
"Is there no alternative to selling? Is there not such a thing as the gift?"
Shevek wants nothing to do with Urras and he merely wants his theory to be used for the common good. He asks why the ambassador is still enamored with Urras and what she thinks of Anarres. Despite the corruption, she says there's still good on Urras. And she hits him with this: Anarres, despite what she praises of it, is not much to her. For the Anarresti have closed themselves off. Yes, Anarres are hostile to outsiders; can you blame a former collection of refugees who escaped from a capitalistic society? Yes, they trade with Urras, but Urrasti are not welcome. No one is.
Urras may be a controlling society, looking for the next big profit for the sake of the State, but Anarres has closed it's sense of freedom and brotherhood off.
And here we wind back to what Le Guin was dancing around the whole time, beneath all the comparing and contrasting and multitude of themes. No one is speaking to each other. No is connecting with each other. Obviously, Le Guin is not suggesting an alliance between capitalists and anarchist nor that we'll all be kum ba yah with each other, but perhaps that is at the root of all social-political turmoil in some way. No one is connecting or reaching out to each other. No one is attempting to understand each other.
Le Guin is a bit more optimistic than me. I don't think anyone is born evil or cruel; perhaps born into circumstances and settings that could make them that way, sure, but there's no evil gene. However, I am skeptical that humanity intends to look out for each other, an ethos present in Anarres, despite all its cracks.
All that being said, the philosophy present here is much stronger than The Left Hand of Darkness.
"Nick, stop talking about The Left Hand of--" *GUNSHOT*
However, [b:The Word for World Is Forest|24933757|The Word for World Is Forest (Hainish Cycle, #5)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1423929448l/24933757._SY75_.jpg|3256815], I feel, is still the best sci-fi Le Guin has written. The Dispossessed doesn't quite make the mark because of its more "technical" issues.
I have decided that I won't read anymore sci-fi from Le Guin for the time being; I'm just not having the best time with her in that department. My next read of hers will eventually be [b:A Wizard of Earthsea|16029682|A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453835082l/16029682._SY75_.jpg|113603], but given my struggles with her writing, I don't know what will happen after that.
It's a shame that this is a three-star rating for me. My criticisms towards [b:The Left Hand of Darkness|118028|The Left Hand of Darkness|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553024007l/118028._SY75_.jpg|817527] are well-noted by this point among my GoodReads friends, but while I had a lot of criticism towards the philosophy and arguments in that book, I actually mostly agreed--surprisingly--with Ursula K. Le Guin's philosophy here. The Dispossessed's biggest problems are its languorous pacing, flat side characters, and its later Anarres chapters. I'll get to all that in a bit though.
Now, obviously being an anarchist herself, Le Guin never had any real love for capitalism and Urras is certainly the target of most of Shevek's criticisms in the book. However, Anarres is certainly no flawless gem either. Le Guin does bring some nuance to the criticisms and the comparing and the contrasting of societies; albeit some of the Urrastis' antagonism comes off as cartoonish. Anarres is a world without centralization of government, no technical forms of any ownership, no mandates for nuclear families, and even permits women to join in and even lead in various fields of labor. Meanwhile, Urras is a patriarchal world where women don't have any say in labor and are often dolled-up possessions of their husbands, and every form of labor or political movement or scientific production is done for the sake of the State. This is the central conflict at the heart The Dispossessed, Le Guin once again returning to the theme of dualistic opposites in her work.
But things are not so cut and dry here.
We see from the beginning that although Anarresti only have a father and mother, only one or neither of them may be involved in their lives. Sometimes caretakers raise them as they study for their intended fields until they are old enough to work. Shevek's father is involved in his childhood, but his mother had no interest in raising him. Nonetheless, we start to see how early Anarres drills into its civilians that they all own no property and work together with Shevek's childhood. As a baby, Shevek struggles against another baby for a spot on the floor where the warm sunlight touches. The caretaker chastises him, saying he doesn't own it, and as he grows up and starts going on with his questions and theories about the universe a teacher chastises his abundance of talking as "egoising." Egoising is something that pops frequently throughout the Anarres sections as everyone in Anarres does everything for the sake of each other and the society. Egoising equals selfishness. But these scenes also show the cracks in Anarres society. Every child grows up questioning their parents or what social order or ideals they're born into--Yes, even the children of you anarchists and socialists will raise questions too. It's natural. But Shevek's teacher is so harsh with him. Why be harsh with a child who is naturally curious and only knows so much.
Shevek himself is regularly accused by his fellow Anarresti of egoising, even when his questions are innocent. And this begs the question: Just how much would an actual anarchist society have to harshly remind its citizens of its ideals? Well, we do see what happens with one of Shevek's childhood friends--or rather told, this is Le Guin after all--but I'll come back to that.
As Shevek grows up he begins to study his physics more and develops his grand theory that will change the universe. He studies under Sabul, who is jealous of his work and controls publication on Anarres. Throughout his encounters with Sabul, Shevek is pushed back and encounters more frustration in Anarres. Gvarab, a woman he also studies under, has her theories constantly disregarded by Sabul and others. And this is strange...Gvarab is not at all well-respected in her field on Anarres, Truly, on Shevek looks up to her. Why is this woman looked down upon, but not Sabul despite his notorious behavior.
This was answered when Shevek, a teenager, I think, at this point, had a conversation with his friends in chapter 2:
"Women think they own you. No woman can really be an Odonian...But most women, their only relationship to a man is having...All women are propertarians."
Although Shevek is unsettled by such thoughts, no one chastises these boys for thinking this way, not even the few girls present. Women may be allowed in the same fields and workforces as men on Anarres, not judged by the quality of their physical strength like on Urras, but misogyny is still present. It's quiet, no woman is owned by an Anarresti man, but it is still present. I think, perhaps, this is why Gvarab is devalued by Sabul and others. Just because you live in an anarchist society, doesn't mean sexism isn't present. Anarchist men are still men.
However, while this observation is a very prudent and necessary one, I have to say that this is a weak point of the book. Why? Because it's through Shevek's, a man's, point-of-view. Why are we not seeing this supposedly gender-equal society through the eyes of a woman who can still be a target of misogyny? Additionally, some of Shevek's friends who generate and push these thoughts are only here for this moment. They push the plot forward for Shevek, but then only a few are ever seen again, before they disappear again. Some of these side characters aren't even characters, they're ciphers. Much like what Genly Ai was to sexism itself in The Left Hand of Darkness, Shevek's friends, co-workers, and tutors are to certainly other ideals and stumbling blocks in an pristine anarchist society. I know nothing else about them other than they are there to irk Shevek. Heck, Shevek's own estranged mother shows up at one point to basically say she had no interest in raising him which causes Shevek to no associate with her and then she just leaves. That's it.
However, as Shevek gets older, the Anarres sections start to lose their luster. And, they get slower and slower. Important things are still being discussed, by the time Le Guin takes to discuss them and get their points is so long that I lapsed into apathy. The biggest example of this is when Shevek finally falls in love with the woman who will become his wife, Takver. I say "wife" loosely, because although they do partner together (Anarresti term) and have two daughters together, Anarres doesn't really believe in a concept of husband and wife. Takver is a very uninteresting character and by the book's end, all I can identify her as is Shevek's wife. Le Guin TELLS us she's into marine biology, but never SHOWS us her studying marine biology. She likes fish. Okay, great. What else? The romance between her and Shevek, if you can call it that, is incredibly dry. To quote our youth, Takver is a nothing burger.
To be honest, the Anarres sections show another issues I have with The Dispossessed: it's only one point-of-view, when it should have been multiple, or at least, included some excerpts from other characters, akin to what Le Guin did with the folklore and studies portions of The Left Hand of Darkness. Another example: At one point, Shevek meets up with his old schoolmate Bedap in chapter 6. Bedap unapologetically voices his criticisms of Anarres, saying that its usage of "customary" is just a dressed-up version of "government." He reveals to Shevek that another one of their childhood friends was confined to an asylum for producing a play that upset Anarresti sensibilities. This is very revealing and shows an even larger crack in this anarchist society. It shows how Le Guin herself was not blind to problems that could arise in a society based around the social-political ideology that she upheld. Repression and hierarchy can still happen in these kinds of place.
But here is where Le Guin fumbles again. Bedap is a gay man, a gay men living under an anarchist society who is dissenting, and we only get this small portion from him relayed to Shevek. The book could've been so much stronger if we saw things through his eyes too.
I will confess that I skipped over the last Anarres chapters, because I was so bored by them and just did not care anymore. They were much slower compared to the Urras chapters and I just did not care about anyone else around Shevek.
The Urras chapters were much stronger though!
When Shevek arrives on Urras, he's immediately impressed by the grandeur of their cities and the intellect of everyone around him. But his mindset of not owning anything clashes with the capitalistic, propertarian Urrasti mindset and he has difficulty understanding them. They are impressed by his physics, yes, but they don't understand the way he thinks. Remember that Anarres is an arid planet, they don't have much in wats of natural resources. Urras, in spite of its capitalism, has so much verdure that Shevek thinks it's mythical at first. Shevek is also concerned that there are no women in the Urrasti physic studies or in the positions of power. As I stated above, the Urrasti women are just wives and mothers--though Shevek does meet one woman, Vea, who has her own power. She wraps Shevek around her finger and he, as gullible and naïve as he is, does Vea's every will. Of course, one could ask if she really does have any power because, although she makes Shevek pay for everything, she has no money herself.
Whereas the Anarres chapters were about seeing the cracks in an anarchist society, the Urras chapters are about being seduced by the glitter of a capitalistic society that is not gold. Truly, despite his reservations, Shevek is enamored at first by somethings on Urras. One of his reasons for leaving Anarres, is that no one would consider his studies worthy so he hit Urras up instead. As a child, Anarres fed Shevek propaganda about Urras, detailing it as a brutal, savage society. While it definitely has its problems, the Urras detailed in that propaganda is not the same--not quite the same as the last chapters reveal. And to be honest? I don't blame Shevek for being caught in the opulent illusion of Urras, given how he was treated and dismissed back on Anarres. For a more realistic example, [b:The Book of Lost Saints: A Cuban American Family Saga of Love, Betrayal, and Revolution|42642035|The Book of Lost Saints A Cuban American Family Saga of Love, Betrayal, and Revolution|Daniel José Older|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548185738l/42642035._SY75_.jpg|66378940] by Daniel José Older is a story about my father's home country of Cuba. It shows the last years of Fulgencio Batista's fascist reign and the "promise" of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara's revolution. The sister of one of the main characters in that book initially joins Castro's forces, but then she realizes, like many of Castro's former allies, that she is a target of suspicion from the very man she once idealized. Subsequently, her family members eventually immigrated to America where right-winged politician seduce them with assimilation.
Obviously, The Book of Lost Saints and The Dispossessed are two different books with two different messages, but there is crossover. So, yeah! I kind of get why Shevek was swept up in it all. It's is only later that when Shevek realizes how exorbitantly Urras prices are on certain things, sees the status of the lower classes, learns about the political unrest on other parts of the planet, and realizes the political machinations that his physics theory is going to be used for, does he realize that Urras is not the haven he imagines. Here, everything has a price tag, all in service to the State. The State is god, king, banker, and country. Urras wants Shevek's physics theory so they can use it as a weapon. Shevek is mortified. Urras is trying to buy, to own, his theory for something malicious when that's never what he wanted to begin with.
After a rather rushed climax, eventually the Terrans (Earthlings) and the Hainish come in to intervene. Shevek pleads with them to help him. The Terran ambassador recognizes the problems of both Urras and Anarres, but also what they both have. Urras is governmentally corrupt, but it is a beautiful planet especially compared to the devastated Earth. Anarres is an arid wasteland with little natural resources, but its spirit of brotherhood and freedom keep it going.
"Is there no alternative to selling? Is there not such a thing as the gift?"
Shevek wants nothing to do with Urras and he merely wants his theory to be used for the common good. He asks why the ambassador is still enamored with Urras and what she thinks of Anarres. Despite the corruption, she says there's still good on Urras. And she hits him with this: Anarres, despite what she praises of it, is not much to her. For the Anarresti have closed themselves off. Yes, Anarres are hostile to outsiders; can you blame a former collection of refugees who escaped from a capitalistic society? Yes, they trade with Urras, but Urrasti are not welcome. No one is.
Urras may be a controlling society, looking for the next big profit for the sake of the State, but Anarres has closed it's sense of freedom and brotherhood off.
And here we wind back to what Le Guin was dancing around the whole time, beneath all the comparing and contrasting and multitude of themes. No one is speaking to each other. No is connecting with each other. Obviously, Le Guin is not suggesting an alliance between capitalists and anarchist nor that we'll all be kum ba yah with each other, but perhaps that is at the root of all social-political turmoil in some way. No one is connecting or reaching out to each other. No one is attempting to understand each other.
Le Guin is a bit more optimistic than me. I don't think anyone is born evil or cruel; perhaps born into circumstances and settings that could make them that way, sure, but there's no evil gene. However, I am skeptical that humanity intends to look out for each other, an ethos present in Anarres, despite all its cracks.
All that being said, the philosophy present here is much stronger than The Left Hand of Darkness.
"Nick, stop talking about The Left Hand of--" *GUNSHOT*
However, [b:The Word for World Is Forest|24933757|The Word for World Is Forest (Hainish Cycle, #5)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1423929448l/24933757._SY75_.jpg|3256815], I feel, is still the best sci-fi Le Guin has written. The Dispossessed doesn't quite make the mark because of its more "technical" issues.
I have decided that I won't read anymore sci-fi from Le Guin for the time being; I'm just not having the best time with her in that department. My next read of hers will eventually be [b:A Wizard of Earthsea|16029682|A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1453835082l/16029682._SY75_.jpg|113603], but given my struggles with her writing, I don't know what will happen after that.
jane_farstrider's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
dbl__exposure's review against another edition
5.0
Beautiful writing, unbelievably rich details. And the audiobook narration by Don Leslie was deeply comforting. Will return to this book someday.