Book review: "The Dispossessed"

[rocky41_7]

Title: The Dispossessed
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Fantasy, speculative fiction

"There  was a wall. It did not look important. It was built of uncut rocks  roughly mortared. An adult could look right over it, and even a child  could climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate  it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, the idea of a boundary. But  the idea was real. It was important. For seven generations there had  been nothing more important than that wall."

I knew this book was going to hit hard from the opening paragraph above, and it did not disappoint. I've enjoyed Ursula Le Guin's work before--The Left Hand of Darkness is one of my favorite books—and I absolutely see why The Dispossessed is considered one of her crowning pieces. The setting for this book is a planet and its moon—Urras, the planet, is a lush world not dissimilar from Earth, which is home to several capitalist countries and at least one socialist country; and Anarres, the moon, which is a dusty, resource-scanty place home to a society of anarchists who fled from Urras just under two hundred years ago. The core of the novel concerns Shevek, a theoretical physicist from Anarres who chooses to relocate to Urras.

Le Guin captures truly great sci-fi because this work is so imbued with curiosity. Le Guin is asking questions at the heart of any great sci-fi work: What defines humanity? What can we achieve, and how is it done, and what does that mean for society? What is society? What does it mean to be alone? What does it mean to be part of a whole? To me, sci-fi can't be truly sci-fi without a measure of philosophy, and The Dispossessed has this in droves.  

Not that Le Guin is necessarily positing answers. Even if you haven't read her quote about the specious inevitability of capitalism, you can tell she has opinions on it, but she doesn't fall into the trap of making her anarchist world a utopian solution to all problems of capitalism. There are problems on Anarres too—resources are scarce and life can be very uncomfortable; Shevek often feels stifled because, as his work is understood by so few people, there is broad disinterest in supporting him as his fellows cannot see why what he's doing matters; many of the same petty rivalries and jealousies that exist among us exist also among the Anarresti; and even in this extraordinarily decentralized society, there are still individuals seeking to accumulate whatever power they can.

Yet this is also true: the Anarresti conceive of themselves as a whole, succeeding or failing together. There is no money. There is always a roof or a meal for someone who needs it. There is little in the way of possessiveness, as ownership is universally scorned as egoistic. There is great willingness to do whatever work is presently most needed, regardless of personal desire or interest.

It might have also been easy for this book to become nothing but a parade of Shevek being shocked at various failings of Urresti society, but Le Guin avoids this clumsy narrative. Rather, we get a nuanced and touchingly real exploration of Shevek trying to adjust to a society he has so little context for (he was born and raised on Anarres); trying to weigh what he's been told about it (the Anarresti do not think very highly of the Urresti, nor vis-versa) against what he experiences himself; struggling with who, if anyone, should have access to his work and what responsibility he has as the theorist who may enable others to put his theories into practice.

Additionally, The Dispossessed is an effort at a practical look at a functioning anarchist society. Again, Le Guin is asking questions: What might this society look like? How does it work? What are its strengths, its weaknesses? How do people fit, or not fit, into this society? What philosophies or attitudes underpin their commitment to anarchism?

There are so many quotes I was underlining as I went through this book. I can tell it, like The Left Hand of Darkness, is one I will have to re-read: it's a book that will give something new each time. The whole work is naturally a reflection on our own world, inviting us to ask these same questions which Le Guin poses about Anarres and Urras about Earth. She has a deft hand with simply showing or explaining core elements of these questions, such as in the paragraph quoted above. This small paragraph is all she needs to remind us of the power and depth of the instinct to tribalism and the weight which fear and hatred of outsiders can carry in any society.


All of her characters come off so very realistic, which helps sell the entire meditation. Shevek, his partner Takver (marriage does not exist on Anarres, though long-term monogamous partnerships are not uncommon), his friends and rivals on Anarres, as well as those who surround him on Urras, all come across with their own motivations and philosophies. There is no one who exists as a cartoonish strawman for any one view, positive or negative; they all have flaws and virtues.


Also, honestly, have to shout-out to Le Guin for writing in 1974 her "most likely heterosexual" male protagonist having gay sex with his pal just to reaffirm their friendship. Queen move.

The pace of this book is quite measured, but I enjoyed every minute I was engaged with it and I look forward to picking it up again in a few years to see what it will share with me then. Sometimes, you read a book that's gotten heavy praise and accolades and find it out that it does actually warrant the attention, and The Dispossessed absolutely warrants it.

Crossposted to books 

Comments

[minoanmiss]

what a beautiful review of an awesometastic book!

[rocky41_7]

Thanks! :D

[ebaths]

I really enjoyed this review :) I am just over halfway through The Dispossessed and it’s taken me a really long time to get that far (I think I started it two years ago). I keep picking it up and putting it back down, despite how invested I am with it. This post is inspiring me to open it back up though! (Possible final stretch?)

I loved reading your comments about how The Dispossessed poses these questions about society and humanity. Le Guin is so good at sculpting these societies with subtlety and care, never resorting to black and white thinking but also without undue softness.

I enjoyed how Le Guin explores the anarchist society of Anarres. I’m not very knowledgeable about alternate forms of government, so we could chalk this up to that, but I was always kind of baffled by the idea of an anarchist system and how it would theoretically operate. I really enjoy The Dispossessed from this angle of exploring an alternate way of living and organizing ourselves, as well as a group of people breaking away and creating a new society in general. I’ve read narratives of what leads up to new societies, but I can’t think of another example of a narrative exploring that new society a few generations after the break.

Also, honestly, have to shout-out to Le Guin for writing in 1974 her "most likely heterosexual" male protagonist having gay sex with his pal just to reaffirm their friendship. Queen move.

I loved this too! I imagine myself nodding along sagely with the book during their cohabitation.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts :)) Do you have another favorite Le Guin besides The Left Hand of Darkness? Mine is the story collection Four Ways to Forgiveness. (I have so much Le Guin to catch up on.)

[rocky41_7]

Oh, if you do finish, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the whole thing!

The very phrase "anarchist system" is a bit oxymoronic, which is part of the problem, and I assume part of why Le Guin decided to tackle the idea--it's a real challenge to write a functioning and truly anarchist society! But she's amazing at posing these sorts of thought experiments I think. She could have been a great writer for "The Twilight Zone."

I also enjoyed "A Wizard of Earthsea." I haven't finished the whole series yet (I finished "Tehanu" late last year, iirc) but that first one was such a delight. I really wish I'd read it when I was younger, I was missing out! I do also want to read "Four Ways to Forgiveness." She was such a prolific writer, I'm always impressed with the sheer number of things she produced.

[spiralsheep]

I'm very glad to find somebody else who thinks so highly of Four Ways to Forgiveness, as I do. My favourites of Le Guin's novels are The Dispossessed and The Lathe of Heaven but I think her writing was at its best in short stories and her world-building is very well suited to linked short stories. Apart from Four Ways her linked short stories are a bit scattered, but I can highly recommend the general collections A Fisherman of the Inland Sea and The Birthday of the World and Other Stories.

[rocky41_7]

Oh yes, I need to read "The Lathe of Heaven," I haven't gotten to that one yet. She definitely wrote some powerful and interesting short stories; we read "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" in high school and I think that stuck with all of us. I came across "Mountain Ways" of hers in a sci-fi short story collection and that one was sweet <3

[spiralsheep]

Lathe is rather different to Le Guin's later novels but that variety is one of the aspects of her work I love. Most of her novels are "social science fiction" focused on how societies work (or don't) but Lathe is about how one person works (or doesn't) and so much closer to the mainstream sf trends of that time. I hope you enjoy it.

[spiralsheep]

Excellent review of an excellent novel.

[rocky41_7]

Thank you!

[spiralsheep]

I have no skill in communicating what I love about books so I appreciate yours all the more.

[rocky41_7]

I started doing these reviews as a way to push myself to articulate what I did or didn't like about something I'd read, and I think it has helped me learn to puts words to my feelings about a book. It can definitely be a challenge sometimes to decide what is or isn't relevant to someone who may be considering reading the book, but it's a fun project!