Reviews for The Dispossessed (Hainish Series)

The average rating for The Dispossessed (Hainish Series) based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-11-20 00:00:00 Sylvie Laflamme First of all: if you haven't already read The Dispossessed, then do so. Somehow, probably because it comes with an SF sticker, it isn't yet officially labeled as one of the great novels of the 20th century. They're going to fix that eventually, so why not get in ahead of the crowd? It's not just a terrific story; it might change your life. Ursula Le Guin is saying some pretty important stuff here. So, what is it she's saying that's so important? I've read the book several times since I first came across it as a teenager, and my perception of it has changed over time. There's more than one layer, and I, at least, didn't immediately realize that. On the surface, the first thing you notice is the setting. She is presenting a genuinely credible anarchist utopia. Most utopias are irritating or just plain silly. You read them, and at best you shake your head and wish that people actually were like that; or, more likely, you wonder how the author can be quite so deluded. This one's different. Le Guin has thought about it a lot, and taken into account the obvious fact that people are often selfish and stupid. You feel that her anarchist society actually could work; it doesn't work all the time, and there are things about it that you see are going to cause problems. But, like the US Constitution (one of my favorite utopian documents) it seems to have the necessary flexibility and groundedness that allow it to adapt to changing circumstances and survive. She's done a good job, and you can't help admiring the brave and kind Annaresti. Another thing you're immediately impressed by is the central character, Shevek. Looking at the other reviews, everyone loves Shevek. I love him too. He's one of the most convincing fictional scientists I know; I'm a scientist myself, so I'm very sensitive to the nuances. Like his society, he's not in any way perfect, and his life is a long struggle to try and understand the secrets of temporal physics, which he often feels are completely beyond him. I was impressed by the alien science; she gives you just the right amount of background that it feels credible, but not so much that you're tempted to nit-pick the details. You're swept up in his quest to unify Sequency and Simultaneity, without ever needing to know exactly what they are. And his relationship with Takver is a great love story, with some wonderfully moving scenes. There's one line in particular which, despite being utterly simple and understated, never fails to bring tears to my eyes. As you also see in The Lathe of Heaven, Le Guin knows about love. What I've said so far would already be enough to qualify this as a good book that was absolutely worth reading. What I think makes it a great book is her analysis of the concept of freedom. There are so many other interesting things to look at that at first you don't quite notice it, but to me it's the core of the novel. What does it mean to be truly free? At first, you think that the Annaresti have already achieved that; it's just a question of having the right social structures. But after a while you see that it's not nearly as straightforward as you first imagined. Real freedom means that you have to be able to challenge the beliefs of the people around you when they conflict with what you, yourself, truly believe, and that can be painful for everyone. But it's essential, and it's particularly essential if you want to be a scientist; I know this from personal experience. Another theme that suffuses the book is the concept of the Promise. If you can't make and keep promises, then you have no influence on the future; you are locked in the present. But promising something also binds your future self. There are some deep paradoxes here. The book folds the arguments unobtrusively into the narrative, and never shoves them in your face, but after a while you see that they are what tie all the strands together: the anarchist society, the science, the love story, the politics. It's a much deeper book than you first realize. As I said, it might change your life. It's changed mine.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-11-29 00:00:00 Jonathan Rich Oh, Ursula. No longer will I love you in a vaguely ashamed manner, skulking through chesty-women-blow-shit-up-also-monster! book covers in the sci-fi/fantasy aisles with a moderate velocity as though I am actually trying to find Civil War biographies but am amusingly lost amongst all these shelves, that's so like me, need a GPS for Borders. Today, I will begin loving you publicly, proudly, for you are the Anti-Ayn Rand. You do not skullf**k Ayn Rand and make her your bitch, no, too easy. You take her gently by the hand, lay down beside her pruned, mummified body and have entirely consensual, non-hierarchical, process-centered sexual intercourse like a paragon of second-wave lesbian feminism. Ursula, you make me want to be a straighter man.