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4.28 AVERAGE
4.28 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
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:
No
This was a fascinating look at a universe in which anarchists former a colony on another planet. Deals with the ideals of capitalism, anarchism, and socialism and what it means to live within each system. Though it seems most optimistic on anarchism it doesn’t fail to point out the negative points in each system.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is perhaps one of the most honest sci-fi stories about how broken our perspectives of justice and belonging are. While it is an anarchist novel, it doesn't shy away from critiquing the ways that even anarchism fails its political vision. Anarres, the anarchistic planet, cannot help but replicate systems of oppression it escaped from on Urras. Urras' progressives idolize Anarres not realizing this. And Urras' bureaucracies and rampant patriarchal classism are aptly portrayed in a way that also shows how easy it is for someone progressive to fall into step with the more well-meaning yet deluded liberals.
There's a speech in a late chapter of this book that I think everyone should read just once. It cuts to the core of what's wrong with worship of free-markets and meritocracy and much more. I was stunned at how relevant this speech remains today.
There are some outdated views of sex and gender in here, hence why I have detracted a star from my rating (but starred ratings are so subjective and changeable). Apparently in later years Le Guin has admitted she would've written some of her past novels from The Hainish Cycle (which Dispossessed is part of) differently now.
There's a speech in a late chapter of this book that I think everyone should read just once. It cuts to the core of what's wrong with worship of free-markets and meritocracy and much more. I was stunned at how relevant this speech remains today.
There are some outdated views of sex and gender in here, hence why I have detracted a star from my rating (but starred ratings are so subjective and changeable). Apparently in later years Le Guin has admitted she would've written some of her past novels from The Hainish Cycle (which Dispossessed is part of) differently now.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Child death, Confinement, Genocide, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Grief, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, Classism
challenging
dark
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Discursive anarchist theory and discourse 'disguised' as an excellent science fiction novel. I kept trying to get the various leftist sociopolitical groups I was involved with during my teenage years and twenties to read this novel instead of yet another theory work but was never successful.
I love Le Guin as an extremely talented author, but this book is more important to me for what it describes. It asks us to consider how an anarchist utopia (one primarily based on Murray Bookchin's seminal anarchist work 'Post-Scarcity Anarchism' as well as the then-emerging current of postmodern feminism and race, gender and sexual identity politics) would continue to function after decades of consensus-based direct democracy. Unsurprisingly, it is starting to resemble the society it sought to rebel against over two hundred years prior, and the protagonist Shevek finds themselves caught between various currents of political thought.
What makes this one of my favorite works of fiction is the fact that Le Guin discusses the various issues that anarchists (and truthfully any significant political movement) should constantly be asking themselves, which is whether or not an idealized form of socity is possible and whether that form can be dynamic and robust enough to deal with new ideas and the ability to implement them.
I first read this back in '01 but I have reread it a couple times since then.
I love Le Guin as an extremely talented author, but this book is more important to me for what it describes. It asks us to consider how an anarchist utopia (one primarily based on Murray Bookchin's seminal anarchist work 'Post-Scarcity Anarchism' as well as the then-emerging current of postmodern feminism and race, gender and sexual identity politics) would continue to function after decades of consensus-based direct democracy. Unsurprisingly, it is starting to resemble the society it sought to rebel against over two hundred years prior, and the protagonist Shevek finds themselves caught between various currents of political thought.
What makes this one of my favorite works of fiction is the fact that Le Guin discusses the various issues that anarchists (and truthfully any significant political movement) should constantly be asking themselves, which is whether or not an idealized form of socity is possible and whether that form can be dynamic and robust enough to deal with new ideas and the ability to implement them.
I first read this back in '01 but I have reread it a couple times since then.
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Highly recommend. A challenging but extremely relevant book. Must read for those puzzling over political situation of 2022.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
My recollection, from reading this book years ago, was that it was one of the best books I had ever read. Having just reread it, I still feel the same. This is a beautiful, thoughtful, difficult, honest and hopeful book. I don’t know that I have ever encountered a better examination of freedom, and of responsibility.
Incredibly engaging and well written, the world building done by Le Guin is unmatched
4! maybe even 4.5. i really really really liked this, and im glad i read this as my first le guin book since im in my sci fi phase, instead of forcing myself to read earthsea.
i dont know what to say to really do this book justice. it was my first “utopic” sci fi. reading about anarres was so fascinating. the flaws present in that society make it all the more realistic which as someone with far left leanings-though not quite anarchist-it really did reignite something inside me. so many wonderful and heartbreaking insights in this book.
“They say there is nothing new under the sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born?”
“Loyalty, which asserts the continuity of
past and future, binding time into a whole, is the root of human strength; there is no good to be done without it…The thing about working with time, instead of against it, he thought, is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.”
“If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.”
“He had always feared that this would happen,
more than he had ever feared death. To die is to lose the self and rejoin the rest. He had kept himself, and lost the rest.”
Etc.
The whole thing is just a thoughtful study of humanity and freedom and sacrifice and the effects of the society one grows up in and I really recommend.
i dont know what to say to really do this book justice. it was my first “utopic” sci fi. reading about anarres was so fascinating. the flaws present in that society make it all the more realistic which as someone with far left leanings-though not quite anarchist-it really did reignite something inside me. so many wonderful and heartbreaking insights in this book.
“They say there is nothing new under the sun. But if each life is not new, each single life, then why are we born?”
“Loyalty, which asserts the continuity of
past and future, binding time into a whole, is the root of human strength; there is no good to be done without it…The thing about working with time, instead of against it, he thought, is that it is not wasted. Even pain counts.”
“If you evade suffering you also evade the chance of joy. Pleasure you may get, or pleasures, but you will not be fulfilled. You will not know what it is to come home.”
“He had always feared that this would happen,
more than he had ever feared death. To die is to lose the self and rejoin the rest. He had kept himself, and lost the rest.”
Etc.
The whole thing is just a thoughtful study of humanity and freedom and sacrifice and the effects of the society one grows up in and I really recommend.
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated