A review by seeceeread
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

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.