Ursula K. Le Guin
1974
Awards: Nebula, Hugo, Locus
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ –
SPOILER ALERT
So far, this is my favorite of Le Guin’s novels.
I have criticized some of her other books
for having too obvious a message. This one is obvious about its real
subject matter – different governmental philosophies – but it is subtle
about delivering any simple message or judgment about them.
I
also liked the main character very much. He is a smart guy going
through a difficult time, learning hard truths about the way he was
brought up.
And her writing, as always, is clear and flowing - if maybe a little dreamy.
This
book is about two worlds: the planet Urras and its moon Anarres. Urras
is a densely-populated analogue for Earth; its main superpower nation is
a prosperous capitalist country with a comfortable upper class and
struggling lower classes. Anarres is a dusty, barren, barely hospitable
mining colony.
Several centuries ago, a small group of
Urrasti anarchists were banished to the moon Anarres. After the
freighters brought the last group of them up, the exiles built a wall
around the spaceport. They kept the port operating for a handful of
cargo shipments each year, but resolved that no one else from Urras
would ever be allowed up. Then they set about building a
non-authoritarian communist utopia based on the teachings of their
philosopher Odo.
As a result, today, on Anarres, there
are no governments, no bosses, and no wages. Clothes and other necessary
goods are available free to anyone at communal depositories. Food is
served for free at communal refectories.
Jobs are
dispensed by a central computer. You feed in your skills and your
requests for location and the computer comes back with a suggested
placement. You do not have to accept the placement, although pretty much
everyone does.
You have no obligation to do anything
in particular. You have the freedom to learn or work at whatever you
want at any time. You are owned and governed by no one.
The
catch, of course, is that no individual can own or govern anything. No
one can become rich or powerful. If you are found to be “egoizing” –
keeping goods for yourself or doing things solely for your own
aggrandizement, you are isolated and ostracized.
Anarresti
children are brought up to see themselves as part of a whole; as a
single cell in the body of society. Their role is to find their own best
individual cellular function and do that – the idea being that if they
do what they do best, that is the greatest contribution they can make to
society.
The plot centers around an Anarresti
physicist named Shevek. Shevek is happy; he has a loving partner,
children, and friends. He is always willing to do his part. He grows up
trusting his countrymen and assuming unquestioningly that everyone is
working together. He grows up distrusting and fearing the profit-driven
people of Urras.
But as Shevek gets closer to
developing a General Temporal Theory, which will enable
faster-than-light space travel, he discovers that instead of being
freely exchanged, his ideas are being stifled.
For one
thing, his work is threatening to his advising professor, Sabul. Sabul
has been discouraging the publication of those ideas of Shevek’s that he
doesn’t understand and, contrary to Odonian teaching, has been
publishing the ideas that he does understand under his own name.
Shevek’s
work is also a threat to his society; it threatens to break down the
walls that protect Anarres from Urras. His university will only permit
him to teach basic courses, claiming that not enough students are
interested in the more complex ones. The job-posting computer starts to
send him to godforsaken places to do mining or agricultural jobs that
have nothing to do with physics and separate him from his family for
long periods.
An Odonian society is supposed to be in a
state of permanent revolution, encouraging of initiative and freedom of
thought. But Shevek starts to realize that, little by little, in spite
of itself, Anarres is developing a bureaucracy that functions very much
like a government and serves to limit radical thinking.
So
Shevek reaches out to physicists on Urras, sending them letters via
cargo shipments. His correspondence often gets “lost” in transit but the
few responses that come back show him that the Urrasti physicists are
intensely interested. Thinking that this could be a way to reunify the
two worlds, he smuggles himself off to Urras.
The
Urrasti receive him with open arms. At first, he is astonished by how
luxurious everything is and how happy the people are. But he gradually
realizes (mainly through clandestine little notes slipped into his
pockets by servants) that he is being coddled by the elite, who hope
that they will profit from his General Temporal Theory. They have
carefully prevented him from seeing any slums or poverty or other
downsides of Urrasti capitalism.
Shevek eventually goes
on the lam, gets caught up in a street protest, and is almost shot by
the police, before coming up with a solution that serves his needs – and
almost everyone else’s, whether they realize it right away or not.
But
here I’ve gone on and on about the plot and I’ve hardly talked at all
about the real reason to read the book, which is the subtlety and
thoughtfulness with which Le Guin, through Shevek’s eyes, compares the
Anarresti and Urrasti systems. Any review of The Dispossessed should
really include an insightful, complex discourse on capitalism versus
socialism, on anarchy versus government, and on how it is impossible to
be an ideological purist about any one system.
I feel
that this is, alas, beyond my analytical abilities but, to at least show
my appreciation for what Le Guin has done, I will try to address it in a
small way in my next post, here.
This review originally appeared on Cheeze Blog.
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