The Dispossessed

[Eyehatehippies]

Okay, so I've been an Ursula K LeGuin fan for some time.  My favourite books have always been the old classics, Jude The Obscure, Dostoevsky and that sort of thing, but I've got to say that I'm not even done with this novel and it's become my favourite book.

I started reading LeGuin with The Left Hand Of Darkness, which was just an incredibly powerful novel that explored gender and gender roles in a way that has never been done before, and has not been done since.  It lacked the hippie/Utopian element that turned me off and seemed dated in books like Stranger From A Strange land, and seemed so humanistic and real, despite that it was describing an alien race on an imaginary planet.

I read the Earthsea cycle next, and that literally brought magic back into my life.  The books just got better and better, Tehanu is so subtle and full of everyday magic that it was difficult to read and not break down into emotional outbursts once every hour.

The Dispossessed though?  This is just next level.  This is beyond good, and is completely defying my expectations.  I can't read more than ten pages of it at a time, because it is so subtle, dense, thematically complex, and full of wisdom.

If you haven't read it, seriously, do yourself a favour, even if her other novels aren't exactly your cup of tea.  I don't even know where to begin describing it, it's definitely Ursula, and it's definitely one of the greatest novels ever written, I put it above Jude The Obscure and The Brothers Karamazov, my numbers one and two up to this point.

[The Shocker]

My dad is a big Ursula K LeGuin fan.  I'll have to see if he has/has read this book.

[cusar5]

I loved The Dispossessed when I read it for a class. I'll have to dig it out again once I reduce my current pile a little. I somehow missed Earthsea when I was a kid reading Tolkien and D&D novels, but I've picked the books up recently and enjoyed them immensely. I just finished The Farthest Shore, actually, but I'm going to take a break before I move on to Tehanu.

[Eyehatehippies]

That may be wise.  I did the same.  Tehanu describes a different kind of magic, a more subtle and mature one.  Ursula also took a break from the series before writing that book.  It is profoundly beautiful and moving, you should enjoy it.

[berrugal]

I was in a big Ursula K leguin kick, after reading about her in sr.com, it was possibly dinger007  or Stickman.
I remember that I really really liked the dispossessed at that time I read it, but to tell the truth, not much has stayed with me, and I think I'm confusing two of her books..

There was this one that reminded me of a communist land, where people could not possess, even children or lovers, nor jobs, and there were two worlds, and main man was  scientist that only scientist from the other world could understand, or not even...

and then other book, where a representant from a far away galactic community arrives to an underdeveloped planetary system, very cold?

What I remember the most, though, was that in one of that worlds they didn't have prisons, but some children hear or read about them, and play prison, and leave a "volunteer" locked in a small place. It was good that.



But in any case, yea, really good readings... thumbs up


What do you think of Octavia Butler?, I would say she's more of an action sci fi writer, but has nice ideas too, and this feeling that women give to stories...

[cusar5]

The scientist and the prison play are both from The Dispossessed. The cold planet is from The Left Hand of Darkness.

[MadJohnShaft]

I just read this a while ago, very good. Must have been something in the era it was released.