June '12 / Hugo Award Winners Reading: The Dispossessed

[Scheherazade]

In June, we will be reading The Dispossessed by Ursula Leguin.

Please post your comments and comments in this thread.

[OrphanPip]

I need to dig this out of some hole somewhere in my bedroom.

[OrphanPip]

Is anyone reading this? I'm not sure I want to start the discussion off.

[Calidore]

I've been looking for it used but haven't had any luck yet.

[OrphanPip]

I can email you a pdf copy if you don't mind reading it as an ebook. (hypothetically )

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'd actually be quite interested, Pip. I was going to buy it for my Kindle, but apparently the item is "under review." I'm reading War and Peace right now, so I don't know if I'd be able to get to it by the end of the month, but I'll read it next nonetheless.

[Little Sister]

Im reading it now, not finished yet. I find it interesting and inspiring. As Im a new commer on this forum, I dont know how to exactly start the discussion, but maybe I can share that I have thoughts about the time when the book was writen and the jactaposation between the two worlds that reminds of capitalism versus communism, perhaps Im a bit reducting the imaginative story. The book also arouses in me resentment towards the system especially the academic one. I admire the writers sensitivity to sociological and anthroplogical differences between the two cultures. As an anthropologist by training I aspire to write such imaginative and insightful work too.

[OrphanPip]

Im reading it now, not finished yet. I find it interesting and inspiring. As Im a new commer on this forum, I dont know how to exactly start the discussion, but maybe I can share that I have thoughts about the time when the book was writen and the jactaposation between the two worlds that reminds of capitalism versus communism, perhaps Im a bit reducting the imaginative story. The book also arouses in me resentment towards the system especially the academic one. I admire the writers sensitivity to sociological and anthroplogical differences between the two cultures. As an anthropologist by training I aspire to write such imaginative and insightful work too.

It's definitely meant to be allegorical of the Cold War (I'm pretty sure LeGuin has said as much). That anthropological attention is an interesting feature of LeGuin, which I think she gets from her father who was an anthropologist. Many of her stories begin with these sort of kernels like "what would a society without gender binaries be like" and she develops these intricate societies which are meant to illustrate how circumstances shape society but also operate as a sort of celebration of humanity's capacity to imagine and aspire to difference.

[Little Sister]

Thanks Orphan for relating. I found her depiction of an anarchistic society inspiring. Its interesting how I was brought up to think anarchy was the most terrible thing that can happen to a society only to realize as i grew up that it is a term describing a society that has no governance, a society that is based on the good will and cooperation of individuals. What can be more beautiful than that.

There was a section I marked in the book, concerning the difference between the fate of an artist and a scientist in society: "a scientist can pretend that his work isnt himself, its merely the impersonal truth. An artist cant hide behind the truth. He cant hide anywhere." I find it touching on the vulnerability and barness of being an artist, something I identify and struggle with, especially in the culture I live in.

I also loved the conversation between shevek and the truck driver as they passed through the desert - how the driver does not experience a dull moment in his life although he goes back to the same wife every time and drives the same road for years. Something to learn from.