The Dispossessed

An amazing book that makes you think more about time, society and revolution.

“We are the children of time”

One of the best books I've read in a while. Still cant believe this is the first book by Lê Guin that I read - a mixture of Clarke and Zamyatin.

Despite the sci-fi background, it has an incredibly human and acurate description of earth politics. Pragamatic, says it as it is. Ursula is regarded by many as a leftist, by I reckon she is simply a humanist.

6/10

My new fav fiction book.

It's a shame (but maybe not a surprise) that Huxley and Orwell get all the love in the world of utopian fiction because The Dispossessed really should be considered (as of now) the apotheosis of the genre. Le Guin doesn't give herself the easy way out, and every time you think you have her perspective figured out she introduces more subtly, and more complexity, but never too much for you to handle - it's artful.

It's hard to find faults in the book, it's dense with beautiful ideas and even more beautiful prose. The only fault one could find in the book is that it contains so many great sentences in a row that unless you're vigilant to remain appreciative, you're likely to stop noticing them. Any of Le Guin's sentences in any other novel would be a rare gem, the kind that makes you stop for a second to digest and appreciate. But here - they are like pebbles on a beach.

One of the things that's amazing about this book (There are too many to list) is how well Ursula manages to wind together the threads of the “Big Ideas”: Anarchism, Mysticism, Taoism, Science, Technology, with the threads of “Small Ideas”: Love, Work, Play, Relationships, etc.. Creating a beautiful tapestry that somehow seems to contain everything that you could ever care about (and more).

If you haven't read this book, read it now! (It might change your life)

As much sci-fi, this book says a lot about our true world, this more than most. It makes me think if one is purposeful enough in my daily life.

It is good to have a sci-fi that is lacking war as the main setting, putting humans in the center!

This was so great
I have never really read sci-fi before, and understood fiction = escapism, non-fiction = learning about the world.

I now see how shallow of an understanding of reading that is - I learnt so much about different ideologies and social systems of governance / self governance in this book in a really natural way, as opposed to a non-fiction facts-based-karl-marx-youtube-channel way.

Also, it was the first book i've read as part of a book club. Which opened my reading up to deeper themes which otherwise I would have skimmed over far too easily.

Yay for books and for learning that my belief system is flawed lol

So much food for thought. This one's going to be relevant for, what appears to be, a long time.

Really cool ideas in this book.
I loved the comparison with the Terran ambassador at the end...how one world can be a hell for one person and a paradise for another.

It's not often I finish a book and say immediately to myself, “I can't wait to read this again.” I regret not reading this sooner! A new favourite for sure. I am encouraged to read other stories by Le Guin and especially the Hainish series. ♥️

Entertaining but too heavy handed

“Le Guin has sometimes been severely taken to task for choosing a male protagonist. Her initial, rather flip defense was to say that as a science fiction writer she enjoyed trying to enter alien minds, so she was naturally drawn to portraying men. In fact, most of the protagonists of her early novels are male. But her critics overlooked the fact that The Dispossessed incorporates many feminist values, even if it is not a radical feminist utopia. In some ways, it is especially revealing to have these values reflected through a masculine consciousness.”

It's been a while since a book blew my mind the way this one has. It started out feeling a bit like A Stranger in a Strange Land, but its comparison of two economic/political systems went far beyond Heinlein's hippy-dippy philosophy.

J'avais lu quelque part qu'Ursula K. Le Guin avait démontré que la science-fiction ne pouvait pas seulement s'appuyer sur les sciences dites exactes mais aussi sur les sciences humaines. C'est exactement le cas dans ce superbe roman qui décrit une pseudo-utopie anarchiste où les valeurs de liberté, de collectivité, de partage et de bien commun sont mises en avant. Je parle de pseudo-utopie car comme le sous-titre du roman, An Ambiguous Utopia, l'indique, ce monde idéal ne l'est pas forcément tant que ça, et les excès du modèle prôné par les fondateurs de cette société ont aussi des effets pervers que le roman ne néglige pas.

Ce livre est à la fois un passionnant roman de science-fiction, la description d'une utopie imparfaite et de son exact contraire, et une brillante réflexion sociologique et politique. Tout ce que j'aime dans la science-fiction, tout ce qu'elle doit être à mes yeux.

I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope.

-- Ursula Le Guin, in her 2014 National Book Awards speech

A book of two civilizations and the structures and rule-systems they evolve into. One is a civilization of corruption and hierarchy and income-divide, living on a lush resource-rich planet, the other is a splintered-off planetary experiment of communism in a harsh and meagre environment. Both of them are born from revolutions and are the brink of further revolutions, despite their else many differences. The protagonist is a theoretical physicist who leaves the exile of his bleak home planet to find a richer intellectual environment for his thoughts on the mother planet. In alternating chapters we follow his immersion into a new and foreign culture, while also learning of his upbringing and his home planet. Le Guin's books always read more as books about politics and the human condition than as what one might expect of traditional “scifi” books, and that's what makes them so brilliant. But I wasn't as moved by this one as by [b:The Left Hand of Darkness 18423 The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle, #4) Ursula K. Le Guin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1488213612l/18423.SY75.jpg 817527], even though they felt similar, but somehow I missed a more emotional component.

Not hard sci-fi but more a speculation on societal structures.

I have come rather late to Ms Le Guin's main works, but definitely better late than never!

One of the best political SF books, filled with complex ideas and thoughts- certainly one of Le Guin's most accomplished works. I had forgotten the majority of this book (or perhaps never fully realized much of its content) and re-reading this was perhaps an even better experience than the first read.

A masterpiece.

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PRIOR REVIEW, NOVEMBER 25 2017:

I'm studying to be a morals/ethics teacher and I'm always dissapointed with the fact that so many scholars/professors dismiss fantasy or science fiction because they're nonsense books or pure escapism. Books like The Dispossessed show how things like philosophy aren't just present in SF/fantasy, but sometimes they're essentially what the book is about!

A must-read, despite (or maybe especially because) it being written from a very different perspective and a very different society than we have now.

Short Review: This is a classic sci-fi book (over 40 years old). It was written during the cold war and the political themes it explores are mostly those of communism and capitalism. It would be a different book written today. But I do like Le Guin as an author and I am looking forward to reading more of the books from the series.

That being said, this is a book primarily of political ideas not action. If you are looking for an action sci-fi book you are going to be disappointed by this one.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/dispossessed-novel-ursula-le-guin/

It took me a while to read through this book. But not because it is bad, oh no, it is because it is so densely packed with thought provoking ideas and topics which still feel fresh even after 40 years. And in doing so it doesn't feel preachy about anything. The topics of freedom, of choice, of your position in your personal life and society really felt at home in my heart while I was reading this. Capitalism and communism, the question of ownership, what things do to us, how language forms young minds, gender roles in our society, the role of the family and partnerships inside our society... it's all there. Every chapter, nah, every few pages, I just had to take a step back from the book and reflect on it.

The prose is so well done and the characters feel so real that I was totally absorbed. The subtle dealings with the Sapir Whorf hypothesis, the thesis that language can mold your thought patterns, felt so natural. Quite refreshing after reading Babel 17 or Embassytown, where it felt very forced (which I actually forgive seeing that it was actually a core plot element in both).

For whatever reason, for a long time in a science fiction book, I had a lot of empathy for all the characters and was actually able to understand their relationships and feel with them. Oh Shevek!

After Frankenstein and Hyperion, this is now one of my favorite (sci-fi) books.

(As a sidenote: I think this is the first time I think somebody was able to describe of what it means to be an actual scientist)

Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the biggest names in science fiction that I've never read anything by – until now. The Dispossessed exists in Le Guin's “Hainish Cycle” world, although there is no required order for the the series as each book is self contained. The world The Dispossessed includes a pair of worlds – a planet and moon. The planet is like Earth in the 70s, with major power in a communist and a capitalist power. The moon, however, is a communist utopia where there is no violence, need, or want and everyone pursues what they want. When a scientist from the moon is brought to the planet, the superpowers battle over scientific control while struggling to change.

Like many others I gave up reading, this is a book about nothing. The story describes the life of doctor Shevek, from infant to adulthood, revealing how he becomes a brilliant and famous physicist.

So he was a child, who had a few friend. They liked to talk. Then he graduated, went to college, had his first sexual experience. And so on. The sci-fi aspects are irrelevant so far as I read.


Read: 15%, 2:05/13:25 hours

Ideas alone do not make great novels. I see this truth most clearly illustrated in Orwell's 1984, but there have been many other novels that neglected the story for some random thought or theory. There are many people who love these stories—I, in my many attempts to figure out what is wrong with me, cannot figure out why. I tend to find them not only boring, but unrealistic (NO! Not the rats! Not the RATS!!!). So anytime I come across a novel that is the next great such-and-such or anti-such-and-such, I am wary. Even if it is promoting a philosophy I agree with, I'd rather read about it in a work of non-fiction. When I sit down to read a story, I want a story, and I want characters; I don't not want political theory.

So I had some apprehension about reading Le Guin's The Dispossessed. I'd heard of comparisons and they were not pleasant comparisons. Add to that my lack of comfort with many science-fiction stories (I love sci-fi, but most of what I've read is weak in one regard or another). But I'd also heard so many good things about Le Guin in general that I knew I couldn't drag my feet forever.

The Dispossessed is certainly guilty of pandering to theory-seekers. There are moments when Le Guin lets the story get away from her and become a discourse on government. Characters step out of character and discuss politics in a manner that doesn't seem organic. But these moments are few and far between. Overall, Le Guin keeps to the story and the story is a good one. Not only is Shevek's journey to Urras and his subsequent understandings interesting, but the worlds Le Guin has created here are wonderfully built; careful attention is given to ecology, topography, etc., and especially to society.

I thought the concluding chapters were a little shaky. They distracted from the novel's best moments. But that's the worst I can say about this novel. There are those distractions, moments when the theory takes center stage, but these distractions kindly step aside and let the story have its share of the spotlight. A refreshing variation in regards to the idea-based novel.

This book is well written and builds the world(s) vividly; however, for there wasn't enough payoff for all of that world building. It needed an exhilarating final act that unfortunately never happened.

This was for me the right book at the right time, on more than one level. By far my favorite of the Hainish Cycle books, this made an even bigger impression on me than the left hand of darkness, and displaces it as the best fiction I've read in years.