Tildes Book Club Discussion - The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin
This is the third of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing the Dispossessed.
Our next book will be Project Hail Mary around the end of June.
I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.
Language
Separate from my overall review, I wanted to start a discussion about Language, and how Language shapes the way we view the world
I loved the notes on the Pravic language and how it differs from Iotic or natural languages. The language that we use affects the way that we view the world. The intentional decision to combine the word for Work and Play, changes how you view both work and play. For Odonians, the work that you do is supposed to bring joy, so it makes sense to call them the same thing, as every time you think about it, it reinforces that idea. Plus, they have the separate word "kleggich" for drudgery for the things that just need to get done. Children have words "mamme" and "tadde" which are like "mamma" and "pappa" but is just for any adult acting in some sort of parental manner, since most kids are raised communally, and being raising by your birth parents is considered Propertarian.
In Ian M Banks Player of games, it touches on very similar topics. Natural Language vs constructed language. And the fact that languages have a built-in ethical framework.
Compared to the other language in the book:
I want to find examples of how the English language shapes thought and how you view the world. I remember reading about how in Mathematics, using 0 as a number was something that had to be discovered that then allowed new mathematical thought. Colors in various languages are a big one as well, as the delineations you have words for change how you perceive it. I've heard about blue instead of green on traffic lights in Japan because the word "Ao" refers to both blue and green shades. The word Orange didn't exist in English for a long time, so we just used the word Red instead, which is how we get the term "red-head" as well as various orange birds that are called red instead.
Interesting article on the topic: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-language-shapes-thought/. Talks about an Aboriginal community where all directions are absolute rather than relative, and because of that, they constantly know where North is. "For example, suppose I want to tell you that I saw Uncle Vanya on 42nd Street. In Mian, a language spoken in Papua New Guinea, the verb I used would reveal whether the event happened just now, yesterday or in the distant past, whereas in Indonesian, the verb wouldn’t even give away whether it had already happened or was still coming up. In Russian, the verb would reveal my gender. In Mandarin, I would have to specify whether the titular uncle is maternal or paternal and whether he is related by blood or marriage... And in Pirahã, a language spoken in the Amazon, I couldn’t say '42nd,' because there are no words for exact numbers, just words for 'few' and 'many.'"
I have only a small observation about language, swearing in particular.
I recall scene in which Shevek comments on the difficulty of swearing in his language. I can't remember exactly, but I think the rationale was because there is no taboo on Anarres around sex (and a different topic, region perhaps?).
Yet, throughout the story, "profiteer" is used pretty often By Shevek and I think other Anarrans as a pejorative. Essentially, it's a swear word.
If I've remembered these details correctly enough, it's it's an interesting little play on language/identity. Shevek defines his language based on his (society's) ideal, that is the lack of taboos, but he's ignorant of what is taboo in his society: capitalism.
Edit - I'm not going to change my phrasing because it's a pretty fine point to make, but after reading sparkbet's comment, I think culture would have been a better word than society.
I also loved that aspect of it! I kind of want to add some of their swears to my own language, if it wouldn't make me look weird to do so. The "profiteer" and "propertarian" were good, but I also really liked when people would say "Stop Egoizing!" Even the act of being egocentric is taboo for them, just as owning property is.
Le Guin's parents, Alfred and Theodora Kroeber were anthropologists at University of California Berkeley. Studying cultural difference is something Le Guin would have grown up with.
@Sparksbet is linguistically trained
I haven't read the books we're discussing here, but yeah I can absolutely weigh in on the linguistics discussion side of things. @syllo hope you don't mind.
I find it interesting when books delve into language and culture in this way, but in general the idea that language shapes thought is overplayed. The idea that languages have a built-in ethical framework is so much further down that path that it veers into very worrying territory anthropologically. Language is hugely influenced by culture, which hugely influences one's ethical framework, but the idea that there is some inherent ethical framework to a language itself is dicey -- especially if it's a natural language. But I haven't read that Ian M. Banks book, so I can't really weigh in on more than what you've quoted here.
The idea that language shapes how we think is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. There are "strong" and "weak" versions of this hypothesis, and the strong version, that language determines how we think, has been entirely debunked. That you bring up color is very useful here -- studies have shown people can divide beads by shade even when their language doesn't make a distinction between the color words for two different shades. The weaker version of Sapir-Whorf is that language has some influence on thought. Here the evidence is still flimsy, but there's evidence of a very minor influence. Going back to color, studies have shown that speakers of a language that distinguishes light and dark blue (like Russian) are faster at sorting things by those color categories than languages that don't distinguish those using basic color terms (like English). But it's worth qualifying that "faster" here is on the order of milliseconds -- statistically significant iirc, but not something you'd actually notice much in practice. Color is fun to study like this because dividing up the color space is something that can be done a ton of different ways -- you'd be surprised how subjective and wobbly colors and color distinctions in particular can be.
As for the article in the Scientific American, it does what a lot of pop sci does in that it vastly overstates things at best and just straight up fudges at worst to tell a good story. And it's a fun story! But the vast majority of actual differences seen are due to cultural and other non-linguistic factors that in turn influence language, rather than language directly influencing thought. It's true that different languages will express information differently, and that in some circumstances it's easier to be vague in one language or specific in another. But the idea that language determines how we think because of these features at more than an extremely subtle level? It's just bunk, scientifically.
I'm about to go to bed so I'm not gonna delve into all the examples in that article individually though. Let me know if that's something you're interested in me doing later when I'm more awake. Or if you're more interested in talking about language and culture in general, 'cause that's super fun.
I appreciate the insights! I've always been interested in linguistic fun fact type stuff (glottal stops are my favorite), but my knowledge definitely veers towards the pop science.
The culture shaping the language makes a lot of sense, especially with how overblown the various things I found via google search were. I still think it's an interesting concept to look at, especially from the aspect of a conlang that was tailor built for an ethical framework. The language in The Dispossessed was created by a group of Anarcho-Communists (based on a specific in-universe person and their works) when they were resettled on the the moon, with the goal of being a functional society, which explains their goal of embedding specific ethics into the language.
The quoted bit from Player of Games captures most of the idea. The other aspect is how the main character changes his strategy in a board game that is complex enough to represent reality, to go from aggressive and destructive to more cooperative and assimilating, without really realizing what he's doing until afterwards.
Seems like the real benefit of natural languages is that you can just take loaner words whenever your language is missing something? Do you have any opinions on "untranslatable" phrases (personally not a fan of that phrase) from other languages? Are people more likely to just feel the same emotions, but not express them if they don't have a specific word for it? E.g. Schadenfreude from German, or Gezelligheid from Dutch.
"Untranslatable" phrases are definitely translatable, but sometimes they require a bit more description in one language than in another. I'm definitely of the understanding that we all feel the same things and just describe them differently. And yeah, the ultimate benefit is that if you struggle to describe something in a pithy way in a language, you can always borrow or coin a word for it.
For example, I definitely think English-speakers could feel and even express Schadenfreude before we borrowed the word, they'd just describe it differently using other English words. Borrowing the German word just gave an opportunity to have one pithy way to refer to that very specific thing.
Not who you asked but gezelligheid reminds me of convivial but that isn't a word we use for places in English. Thanks for teaching me this word. A couple more we don't have in English are saudade from portuguese and hieraeth in welsh.
I thought the use of a conlang in Pravic was interesting as well. Today, to my understanding, Sapir-Whorf/lingustic relativity is considered largely discredited (at least in the strong form) but it remains interesting. I do think that even within an existing language, choosing to use specific phrasing can influence how we approach a problem, to cool a heated argument, or to gently express a conflict without offending.
There's an interesting contrast between Pravic and Orwell's Newspeak, 25 years prior. Pravic is constructed and adopted communally from whole cloth, while (IIRC, it's been ages since I read it) Newspeak was something of a butchery of an existing language.
Pravic by design must be flexible enough to support the "permanent revolution" and shifting ideas, while Newspeak is all about limiting the ability to communicate/think complex ideas or dissent.
I loved the use of a single word for "work" and "play", it's a refreshing reminder of what our work can or should be like, the idea that the human spirit naturally desires to exert itself in a meaningful way.
This reminds me of the story that Arrival is based on (Ted Chiang) where as the Heptapod language is learned by the protagonist they start perceiving time in a non-ordinal way and this is reflected in how the story is written and presented. Pretty interesting stuff.
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Overall I think I liked it. I really liked the worldbuilding of Anarres and ho the book is kind of an exploration of how true Anarchy would work in a society. I feel like I didn't really get much out of Shevek being on Urras though. You get some glimpses of how Anarres is based on his reactions to stuff, but overall it just felt like generic consumerist society. The plot itself was meandering, but I actually didn't mind it much. Maybe because of how meandering it was, I didn't actually enjoy the "climax" of the book very much as it felt somewhat forced. The book for me is about how Shevek experienced the world and how it affects him; what part change and what parts remain resolute. So to have him randomly join the revolution on Urras and give a speech didn't feel like it added much for me. The only good tidbit we get out of this is how he realizes why the military is organized in such an inefficient heirarchy "was to enable men with machine guns to kill unarmed men and women."
I felt frustrated when there were de facto government via the rule of majority and everyone caring about what their neighbors think. But I think that was the purpose. We are in the most ideal form of an Anarchic society, and but it really is true that even when there are no rules, you still have to follow customs, otherwise nothing will work. At the same time, it does still work, but the right mindset needs to be maintained. I think Shevek had the right idea of reinforcing the "permanent revolution" where the people can't become complacent, otherwise they'll get stuck in their ways. It clearly has been working for 170 years, but they talk about how during the early years, everyone was on constant guard for any hierarchies that might appear. Even though the Odonians hate the Syndicate of Initiative, it is still allowed to exist and have a right to open discussions, and they are still provided with all the necessities everyone else receives.
I liked the little tidbits about other Humans in the Universe, but we really only see the Terrans a little bit at the end. Cool how no one knows who is the "original" humans. And a bit of a flip where the Hainish are the originals instead of Terrans. It was also funny how hard they had to hit me over the head with the Terran physicist Ainsetain and his theory of relativity before I realized that they're talking about Einstein but with an alien accent.
Physics stuff was also weirdly religious/philosohical? It's a decent way to have a workaround of having ultra complex physics without actually explaining anything. But at the same time, I feel like they just throw out a few tidbits of "past, present, and future are the same" and leave it at that.
I really liked it when physical things represent the societies. We get a very "in your face" example at the beginning where they just incinerate Shevek's pajamas instead of bothering to clean them because they have so many resources, while on Anarres people have like two sets of clothes total. Clothes with lots of pockets on Urras and later Shevek keeps secret notes in the pockets; lots of pockets are a thing of propertarians. On Anarres, the color orange: "It's definitely an excremental color.. As a functions analyst I must point out that there is no need for orange. Orange servers no vital function in the social organism at either the cellular or the organic level; in which case tolderance is a less good choice than excretion. Dye it dirty green, brother!"
This books was published in 1974. What themes that were important in the 60s and 70s do you see emphasized? What themes are more universal and hit today?
For me Thu clearly represents the Soviet Union and other central authoritarian communist governments. The question of women's role was important in the 70s. Married women in the US were just beginning to get the right to have independent credit cards for example.
I thought the analogies were a little on the nose sometimes, specifically Thu and A-Io have a straight up proxy war using Benbilli.
I didn't realize when it was published, and make me even more surprised at how competently it portrayed the Odonians and how corrupt (but not excessively so) the Ionians are. I would have thought with the Cold War would have encouraged a more Pro-America take, but I think that just makes it more interesting that they didn't.
A theme in The Dispossessed seems to be that everything bad in the world is the fault of terrible, sexist men. To me, the overt sexism exhibited by the Urrasti seems over the top today, but I'm less convinced that it was at the time of publishing. I wasn't there, but I would not be surprised if the kinds of outwardly, casually dismissive attitudes that the Urrasti display towards women were probably representative of Le Guin's lived experience.
If I remember correctly, you said you didn't finish the book. In the second half there are women actively blocking Shevek's welfare, but they are on Urras in a flashback to his earlier life. On Urras, both men and women can be narrow minded tradition enforcers
Thanks for the good word. I can appreciate a book that rewards persistence. If keep at it, I can get there and revise my view.
Also wasn't alive at the time the book was written, but I felt similarly. One tidbit I came across that helped me contextualize this a little was that the US Equal Credit Opportunity Act (allowing women to apply for credit cards in their own right) was passed in the same year this novel was written, 1974.
On the original cover, the Dispossessed was labeled an ambiguous utopia. Do you see it as a utopian book?
For the majority of the book, I do feel like it was a utopia. And when my opinion of that changed, was not when people were starving, but when Shevek realized they're being ruled by public opinion. I think it's easy to draw comparisons between the famine on Anarres and the Soviet Union or China and how it was a failure of the system. But for me, it showed how resilient it was, and how everyone put the society first. The only accounts of of "rebellion" there are when people, who are literally about to die of starvation, mobbing a food train. The only real failure is the lack of resources they have on Anarres.
The Rule of the Majority, and the implicit power structures of the Institute with Sabul. They mention at the beginning, everyone was keeping constant watch for hierarchies forming, and it seems we are the point 170 years in that people have gotten lax, and it is happening again. Especially with the young PDC member talkin about how they would beat up anyone who travelled to Urras and back. That being said, they still allow the Syndicate of Initiative to exist and participate in debates, even if they are shunned by everyone for it in their day to day lives. Because that is how to prevent "bad behavior" in this type of society, it's just that it gets easy to get stuck in their ways. I think the book ends on a very hopeful note here, with Shevek having a better grasp on the "Permanent Revolution" that Odo envisioned.
A utopia? No, I don’t think so.
Ambiguous? Certainly.
Even early in the story, cracks in the social order are apparent. Shevek being, essentially, outcast from his class when he was a child due to his different way of thinking stands out in my mind. This social power becomes more blatant later in terms of his treatment by his supervisor/colleague Oiie. Flip side, during the famine, Shevek taking on a supervisory job receives full rations while others starve and die. Does a supervisor (as assigned in what felt like an incredibly offhand manner) really perform work that much more deserving of more food than others?
Ultimately, to me, the point of the novel isn’t about portraying Anarres as a utopia but rather exploring what some might consider an ideal, and attempting to inject a sense of reality. To this end, sure, the inhabitants of Anarres hold their society as their ideal. The revolutionaries on Urras also seem to consider Anarres as an ideal, perhaps a utopia (from a distance). But it’s only really relative, comparing their ideas of ideal against the boogie-man of “profiteers”/capitalism on Urras/A-Io. I wonder, in absence of Urras, how would Anarrans feel about the state of their world?
I agree with you that Le Guin is trying to ground the ideals of an anarchist society. In my experience, many utopian/dystopian stories rely on a class of people that have an almost hedonistic level of pleasure and leisure that is at the cost of our fellow person; an underclass lower on the totem pole that makes the upper class' way of life possible. Put simply: the status quo of our world writ large.
However, I feel the main thrust of her argument is that while no society is perfect, hierarchies will inevitably result in unjust suffering due to their very nature, and so they cannot by any means approach an utopia. She explores how a society rooted in anarchist principles could lay the framework for a free and equal society, and most importantly, be subject to change. As far as we know, A-Io had not changed in the hundred and some odd years since the Odonians had migrated to Anarres, at least in terms of social progress. I mean hell, the Ionian women are literally sex objects - shaved heads and tits out, with rape being a common occurrence, no big deal.
I want to delve a bit deeper with your final question. The impetus of the story is because of Urras; the formation of the anarchist society was a direct result of the hierarchy of the Ionian upper class refusing to restructure their social order. However, I think the anarchist society was solidified by the harsh condition of Anarres - cooperation was key to surviving on this arid moon.
I am curious on the opposite side of things: given a different setting, would the Odonian philosophy survive if the resources were abundant and the struggle to survive was less drastic at the individual level? Shevek reflects on the abundancy of resources on Urras, and how ground-breaking it may be for their society that struggles to get by. Would they still form this society and succeed for as long as they did if they weren't struggling to survive and instead had a surplus?
There are a number of thought provoking quotes in this book. Did any of them inspire you to save it for later reflection?
This is a wallpaper with my favorite Dispossessed quote that I made about six years ago. Haven't changed it since.
Yes, I took a picture of a monitor. Fax me your insults post-haste.
I feel like that one is self-explanatory. Otherwise, in some activism-type circles I run in it can be easy to lose sight of what's important sometimes. That quote never fails to help keep things in perspective for me.
As an anarchist living in a capitalist society, and just as a human trying to be a better human, I think about that last sentence almost every day. Btw I do not hold any illusions that The Dispossessed is anarchist literature or an endorsement of anarchism at all. I do however, think that the internalized notion of deserving is an incredibly difficult thing to overcome for someone born and raised in a capitalist society. It rears its head in unexpected ways all the time.
I've been thinking about this quote a fair bit recently. I've been doing a lot psychotherapy work focused on closing this (seemingly) giant chasm between how I see myself or who I want to be, and who I actually am via my behaviors and actions. "I'm going to unbuild walls," has been something of a mantra for me lately. For one, in the sense that I believe so many walls out there (and in here) are in need of being unbuilt, but primarily in the sense that I am making a concerted effort to allow myself the courage and self-worth to do the things I know I need to.
If I could figure out how to make a wall of text visually appealing I'd get this as a tattoo. Again, I think about this quote often as it helps keep things that I believe are important in perspective. Obviously there's the anti-materialism aspect: You are not your job. You are not your bank account. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fucking Khakis. All that jazz. And again, all of the above about deserving and earning applies here as well. But on a more personal level, I all too frequently refuse to reach out my hand, in either direction, particularly if it is empty. I ask myself, even when offering a helping hand, "my hand is empty, I have nothing to give [except myself]. What nerve, to think you're enough. As if you're anything. Who the fuck are you to think you are enough?" But we are all we have. At the end of the day we have nothing else to give. Of course that is enough. Of course I am enough. Of course you are enough.
I just wanted to say that this was a great selection of quotes. I found many of the same ones impactful while reading, enough so to go back and re-read them, or to consider their meaning for a time. It's been helpful to review them again now that I've finished the book.
I really liked this quote:
I like this concept of a sliding scale of two types of freedom. On Anarres, they are free to do whatever they want with his life, as long as they also do their civic duty. While on Urras, as long as you have a high paying job, all your other obligations are taken care of for you.
I tend not to take notes, but did jot down*:
It's not that this quote felt revolutionary to me, it wasn't a bit a-ha moment in my own life. I don't think it's a whole lot different than than saying "work with the tools you have".
Rather, I enjoyed its simplicity and honesty. It takes honesty to know where you stand versus what you're up against, and work within your limitations.
Do you think Shevek made the right choice to leave Anarres? Why or why not?
I think without Shevek's effort to tear down the wall between Anarres and the rest of the world, it would have been a story about how this "ambiguous utopia" becomes more ambiguous and less utopia, contracting inward and becoming calcified by it's growing implicit bureaucracy (Sabul, the PDC) and hostility to revolutionary ideas (Shevek's playwright friend who went/was pressured into the asylum).
Instead, his choice to leave and then return drives home the theme of "permanent revolution" by demonstrating the importance of continuing to exchange ideas, continuing to test your foundations and convictions, to trust their strength as enough to withstand the world outside the utopian cloister.
There is much emphasis in the book about how a true voyage is return. Most discussions of the story I've seen or been a part of overlook that (or at least don't discuss it). I think your last paragraph really dialed in on what Le Guin was getting at with all that. Well said.
That's a great point, and a beautifully written one.
On the theme of returning, this quote from earlier in the novel stuck out to me:
Anarres has been in exile for a long time. It's a prison by any other name.
Prisons, and the walls that construct them, were present all throughout the book. From the physical wall that divides the landing pad at Anarres, to the intellectual wall that Shevek needed to conquer to realize his theories, to the the ideological wall that separates the Anarresti and Urrasti people.
The Anarresti built this wall when they exiled themselves to the moon; when they changed their language so that communication became impossible; when they indoctrinated their children against the propitarians and egoizers of Urras. It became a social crime to even wonder about the unknown, and groupthink was trained to quickly shut down any such ideas. This happened in children as shown in Shev's teenage years, and it happened in adults as shown at the PDC meetings.
By building a wall to keep others out, they also kept themselves in.
What do you think about the way public opinion serves as social control on Anarres. Is it realistic?
I think it's relatively realistic. Since it takes place in a relatively small (still in the millions though, but for a whole planet each town seems pretty small), and at this point, everyone living there grew up there in the same culture. I think you see elements of it in various cultures around the world where public opinions enacts unwritten rules, for better or worse. In the US, even when companies have "unlimited" vacation, there is the social pressure from your coworkers to not abuse it, even if the whole point of it is to use it. I've also heard stories of PhD students that mimic some of what Shevek went through, where if your advisor doesn't like your paper, it's impossible to graduate/publish without caving to their whims.
Which characters did you relate to personally?
Definitely Takver.
What do you think about gender relations and families within this book? Does Annares' social setup match how you would implement equal rights for women?
Since nobody else answered this, but it was actually another aspect of the story I found rather intriguing, I'll take a crack at it. As a queer person who isn't strictly opposed to monogamy, if I ever found the right person and that's what they wanted, but also isn't exactly seeking it out right now either, I found the Annares' views and portrayal of relationships rather refreshing. And it was especially nice to read something from the 70s that treated both gay and non-monogamous sexual relationships as casually as it did.
I don't feel qualified to comment on the equal rights for women aspect, since I am not a woman, so have no real idea how fair their system would actually be. However, I can't help but feel like their system is still a lot more favorable to men than it is to women. Sure, either partner can walk away from a relationship at any point, but the burden of childbirth is still entirely on women, so the responsibility and risk is not entirely equal. I suppose the fact that parents were also pretty much expected to eventually hand their children over to the community for raising does make it a bit more fair, but something about it still doesn't sit entirely right with me. It still feels a bit unfair, even though I can't pinpoint why I feel that way about it.
And I also don't know if I agree with their view that living with and raising your children yourself for an extended time is "propertarian" either. But perhaps that's just the old-fashioned, propertarian parent in me speaking... even though I am not a parent and never intend to be. ;)
What do you think about the plot/story as a whole, or about Ursula le Guin's writing style?
The plot itself was meandering, but I feel like it added to the philosophy of the anarchism of the book. Maybe because of how meandering it was, I didn't actually enjoy the "climax" of the book very much as it felt somewhat forced. The book for me is about how Shevek experienced the world and how it affects him; what part change and what parts remain resolute. So to have him randomly join the revolution on Urras and give a speech didn't feel like it added much for me.
I thought the climax was when he returned and broke tradition by bringing the Hainish character, but the book has several conflicts, peaks and valleys as well as being structured with flashbacks. I am tempted to reread it and appreciate the thought process le Guin lays out.
Interesting, I classified that as the denouement, I think specifically cause that's just where the book ends. We have Shevek's belief's challenged and we see the flaws throughout the book, and then we end with this hopeful look to the future where the Odonians maybe start cooperating with the rest of humanity. It is definitely more interesting as a climax though, since we never truly get a giant conflict revolving around his actual thoughts, rather than what the revolutionaries on Urras are doing.
But it's a risk. Will he get beaten up or lynched? How does Annares respond? It's a hopeful but uncertain ending. The choice to invite the stranger is foreshadowed but not certain
I finally had some time to finish the book today, and I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. I liked the characters, and the story it told. I even enjoyed reading about the underlying philosophy of Odo, how Annares' actually functions as an anarcho-syndicalist society, and the imaginative, utopic, idealism of everything being presented. I also found it hopeful overall, despite all the conflicts, and with the ending left ambiguous.
But, ultimately, I'm not an anarchist and I don't know if I ever could truly be one... Probably because I'm far more of a pessimist when it comes to basic human nature. So the underlying idea of a functioning anarchic society strikes me as being incredibly unrealistic. Post-scarcity, I could potentially see such a system actually working. But not while there are still limited resources, limited space to live, and competition between people and nations over those material needs and wants.
About the only thing I found realistic about it was the tyranny of the majority aspect to Annares society, which Shevek experienced first-hand as someone whose theoretical work wasn't easily understood, or viewed as being of practical value. That, and people like Sabul existing who still managed to remain "egoists" and "propertarians", just of a different sort than before; Essentially owning people by gatekeeping their ideas and dictating where they could put their efforts, which was accomplished by politicking, bureaucratic mechanisms, social pressure to conform and acquiesce, fear of ostracism, and abusing their positions and connections within the institutions and syndicates.
And I also really really disliked the physics portions of the book, which ended up reading like word salad to me. If it was genuine physics being discussed, I probably could have appreciated those sections more. But knowing that it was pure fabulation (unless Le Guin knows something we don't) sucked all my enjoyment out of the many passages where Shevek's physics theories and revelations were the focus.
So, yeah... mixed feelings. Especially since it also kind of felt like an Ayn Rand novel, but for Anarchism instead of Objectivism. But despite my complaints, I'm still glad I read it though, since I did enjoy a significant portion of it. And I will very likely be reading more of the Hainish Cycle afterwards to see where the story goes from here, since I'm curious to see what comes of Shevek's efforts.
To me it seemed like a debunking of anarchist society as a flawless system combined with riffs on hunter gatherer cooperative cultures and the known flaws of authoritarian communism. Le Guins parents were professors of anthropology.
I can't speak to the physics but don't know what was known in the early seventies.
I'm glad you finished it.
It was certainly critical of some aspects of Annares society, but it was way more critical of the other forms of governance and societies, repeatedly referring to them as "prisons" and "Hell". And especially towards the end I feel like Shevek was still 100% advocating for anarchism, he just thought Annares had started to inadvertently slide towards stagnation and de-facto authoritarianism via the PDC, and so wanted to restore it to what was originally envisioned by Odo.
For sure. I just don't read Shevek as a self insert for le Guin
I don't necessarily do either, at least not in the 1:1 sense. However, when a main character and a story seemingly advocates for the virtues of a particular political philosophy as strongly as The Dispossessed did, I can't help but feel there must be a solid core of true belief in that philosophy coming from the author. Maybe that's just because I don't think I could write a book playing devil's advocate that hard for something I don't personally believe in myself though. I haven't read any of the other books from the Hainish Cycle yet though, so I don't know if positive portrayals of anarchism is a common thread throughout all of them. Or if they're all explorations and critiques of different forms of governance, and if so maybe I'm wrong about Le Guin. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is a thought provoking book, set up to explore ideas and philosophies. What did the book cause you to think about or question?
(Caveat: couldn't finish the book) I found it difficult to engage with the... sociological elements of the book. I'm not opposed to odonian principles, but so many of the passages are so uncritical as to read like propaganda. For me, it just made for dull storytelling. It was difficult to find the kind of tension or drama that makes a good yarn engaging.
What was the tension in the story? The war of ideas? What were the stakes? Unfortunately, I couldn't stick around long enough to find out.
Boring utopia aside, I find it interesting to look at The Dispossessed now in the light of the present. The largest bastions of collectivism have either wholly or partially embraced the Market and become "proprietarians". In the first quarter of the 21st century, it's difficult to imagine what a successful large-scale collectivist society would look like. The closest I can think of, off the top of my head, is Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.
Now that I think of it the stories are more similar than I thought: two worlds orbiting a common star, Terra forming, the more collectivist group fighting for survival on the dusty barren planet, thwarting the efforts of the off-world proprietarian Trans-Nats, the mystical and absent spiritual leader, Hirodo, the aloof briliant scientist. Was KSR reading the Dispossessed a little too closely?
I think the beginning of the book is intentionally very non-critical of Anarresti society and Odonianism. The characters wake up to hypocrisies and injustice as the book progresses, and it's through that original framing that their development is allowed to take place.
After all, the subtitle of the book is "An Ambiguous Utopia". I don't think that's because Le Guin felt anarchism is a perfect system.
What do you think about the Urrasti, the Terrans, or the Hainish and their role in the story?
It made me wonder more about her other books in this series! Certainly The Dispossessed reads well as a standalone novel, but considering it's listed as "Hainish Cycle #6" on Goodreads, that tells me that there's more to learn about these peoples in her other works. These Terrans sound pretty interesting, if I do say so myself!
In scifi it's very common to use alien species as a way of showing ideas from a new perspective. In Star Trek we often see the Vulkans used to show a cold, calculating take on a situation. The Klingons will give a fiery passionate response, focused on war and honour. Both species are different aspects of ourselves, but taken to an extreme we rarely see. They are used not just to provide motivations and storylines, but to hold up a mirror to our own society, and to expand the rigidity of our own thinking.
The Dispossessed does a very clever thing by making us the aliens. It allows these societies to exist in a way that wouldn't be very believable if situated on Earth and our moon, but it also allows for direct commentary from the Terrans on this society. Instead of being the mirror to us, we are the mirror to them. I found that idea very novel.
Of course, Urras is in many ways a direct analogy to Earth. Though capitalism, and certain imbalances such as the treatment of women has been dialed up, it is certainly a familiar place. The ambassador makes such a comment in the closing pages, and boy does it feel relevant today. It is hard not to read her words of Terrans turning Earth into a desert as a direct condemnation of our handling of global warming, despite being from 50 years ago.
I was also intrigued by the terrans and the hainish