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stray_robot 's review for:
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia
by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Dispossessed is exactly the kind of SciFi I long for ever since I first started watching Star Trek way back when. It uses the lens of futurism to look at possibilities, at what could be, but also at what already is. In addition, The Dispossessed sports great world building, up to a point where I can wholly imagine myself moving around the sister planets of Urras and Anarres. Finally, the character of Shevek, an ideologue without a home, is a wonderful point of view character for a reader unfamiliar with these contrasting archic and anarchic worlds.
Following Shevek, we experience a lifetime on the anarchist planet of Anarres. Slowly the anarchist society is built up in front of your eyes, experiencing what one would consider normal and abnormal within their society. It doesn't paint a wholly utopian picture of such a society, doesn't shy away from showing harsh imperfections. Yet it never feels dystopian, idealism always finding its way. In that sense, it very accurately reflects anarchism as a process, a process of constant revolution, as mentioned in the book (which comes under tension, for sure).
Following Shevek meanwhile we also learn how strange life on a hierarchical planet can seem to someone whose whole life has known no money, markets, governments or suchlike. This starts out as merely feeling weird, but over the course of the book it becomes clear how insidiously hierarchical society permeates every aspect of life on Urras.
Combine this with some healthy philosophical treatises on other concepts, such as feminism and environmentalism, and you've got a science fiction novel that really made me think, smile, and hope, while providing me with a compelling narrative and a universe I'm anxious to read more about.
Following Shevek, we experience a lifetime on the anarchist planet of Anarres. Slowly the anarchist society is built up in front of your eyes, experiencing what one would consider normal and abnormal within their society. It doesn't paint a wholly utopian picture of such a society, doesn't shy away from showing harsh imperfections. Yet it never feels dystopian, idealism always finding its way. In that sense, it very accurately reflects anarchism as a process, a process of constant revolution, as mentioned in the book (which comes under tension, for sure).
Following Shevek meanwhile we also learn how strange life on a hierarchical planet can seem to someone whose whole life has known no money, markets, governments or suchlike. This starts out as merely feeling weird, but over the course of the book it becomes clear how insidiously hierarchical society permeates every aspect of life on Urras.
Combine this with some healthy philosophical treatises on other concepts, such as feminism and environmentalism, and you've got a science fiction novel that really made me think, smile, and hope, while providing me with a compelling narrative and a universe I'm anxious to read more about.