The Dispossessed (1974)

For me, this book had some very interesting parts and boring parts.
Boring was when Shevek was talking about his theories and discoveries in physics, mostly because I did not understand half of it and those topics do not interest me very much in real life too.
Interesting was comparing politics and societies on planets Urras and Anarres. Totally different social structures... It's intriguing to read how it is possible to organize an anarchist society. Although, they were too organised and had too much syndicates to be anarchists in my opinion. :) ( )

The way she handles communism in this book is very interesting. I didn't really feel as if I'd been told how to feel, one way or the other, about communism. It's interesting the way she plainly has her thoughts on things, but mostly just presents them -- or in my opinion, that's what she does. I found The Dispossessed a little slow, a bit hard to get into, and I didn't really care for the characters, but the ideas were interesting. ( )

I read this so quickly and concentratedly that I never even marked it as being 'currently-reading'... Loved it, very good indeed. I'd avoided it previously because of the back cover blurb, which makes it sound like it's about technological advances via the Principle of Simultaneity. Well it's not, and it's not even (really, much) about the changes that could happen to society if such a technological-scientific advance were made. It's about societies and how they work, and about radically different societies meeting each other. In the best tradition, it makes us look again at our own society, in a new light.

I wasn't sure initially whether it would count as a work of feminist sf - there was a vague feeling I had that others, or UKLG herself, had characterised many of her earlier works as not being concerned about gender in the way that was the case in her more recent works. It was indeed feminist, though, in a very interesting, understated way - not about it in the way that something like [b:Herland|531509|Herland|Charlotte Perkins Gilman|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175572211s/531509.jpg|83484] is, but clearly depicting how an egalitarian society might meet the absurdities of a patriarchal society. ( )

What did I just read? ( )

LeGuin is perhaps a writer's writer. in many ways, her worlds and her thoughts, and most especially the words she builds them with, take precedence over character and plot. though the setting is bleak and utilitarian, this is an utterly beautiful book.

physicist Shevek hails from an anarchist communist world that split off from the infighting class structure of the nearby sister planet a couple hundred years ago. alone among his comrades, he journeys back to the homeworld (the why of that journey moves most of the novel), and experiences just how different the other side lives. clearly a tale written during the cold war, the home planet is neatly recognized as a possible substitute for decadent western culture, but the anarchists aren't exactly familiar reds. LeGuin's other strong point is her ability to genuinely convey the sense of otherness that an alien civilization would be. "alien" here doesn't end at a green guy with a ray gun, but is indeed a truly different way of existing. communication is problematic not because you don't speak the language, but because you can't comprehend the thought. ( )