townesvanfaulkner

Writing Style-6.5
Originality-6.1
Plot-7.4
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-5.9
Overall-6.8

This is quality sci-fi right here. A very imaginative, well written, insightful, and riveting utopian novel.

This is really very similar to a plot that I recently dreamed up and would have written if I were a capable writer. I was wondering what sort of geopolitical climate it would take to have another major revolution in the way governments are run as big as the American Revolution or the Bolshevik Revolution. And I thought, what if one day when Mars or the moon were sufficiently colonized they break away from outdated Terran governments and formed a totally now form of government. In my book, the government established would have been socialistic and the title of the book would have been Marsism.

Well, The Dispossessed is very similar to this. There is a world with a well colonized moon. The moon has broken all ties with the rest of the world except for very limited, highly regulated trade between the two. There has also been a relatively peaceful revolution that leads the citizens on the moon to develop a non-authoritarian form of socialism (to the extent that such a thing is possible).

So after nearly two centuries of cultural separation between the two worlds, one scientist, gets approval to make a trip from the moon, Annaras, to the planet, Urras. This scientist is working on a fictional sort of string theory of physics, which would be a major breakthrough in the field and technically important to any society possessing it. He wants to interface with scientists on Urras that are in many ways more scientifically advanced than scientists from Annaras, or at least their culture values science more.

So the book flip-flops between chapters taking place in the present as the main character, Shevek, goes about his journey to Annaras to chapters that are flashbacks to Shevek’s upbringing on his home world of Urras. This of course allows the reader to contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the two cultures as Shevek discovers how Annaras works and recalls his own life on Urras.

There can be little doubt that Le Guin is much fonder of the government that she has dreamed up for Urras. It’s really a strange mix of anarchism, libertarianism, communism, and socialism. The country that Shevek visits on Urras, named A-Io is for all practical purposes America. It’s shiny, superficial, and capitalistic with a dirty, sad underbelly that they try to keep hidden and ignore.

There is not simply the contrast between Annarras and Urras though. On Annarras there are many countries, some very different than A-Io. There are still pockets of communism, much like here on Earth. Also there are two alien civilizations that have made contact with the people of Annarras and Urras. Interestingly, though Annarras and Urras seem like polar opposites between themselves, these alien civilization view them as the same people from one binary planetary system.

So, Shevek finds himself torn in multiple power struggles not just between Annarras and Urras, but between countries on Annarras and between his Annarasti/Urrasti culture and the two alien cultures. Obviously, he is extremely important not only for his scientific theory but also for what he symbolizes about the people of Annaras and Urras and the fact that he is a communistic symbol for the struggling communist countries on Annaras.

While most of the novel is really about these ideas about theories of government, pros and cons of capitalism and socialism, breaking social barriers, how societies use and view science, etc with relatively little sci-fi action. It does build to a climax where these forces work to tear Shevek apart and use him for their own gains and it becomes very dangerous for him.

I strongly recommend this book for fans of smart sci-fi. I really think that this is what good sci-fi was intended to do, which is take an imagined future to have a clean slate on which to explore our current world and where it is headed. And Le Guin is a very accomplished and capable writer, not just relative to crappy sci-fi writers. The Left Hand of Darkness is another book by her that was groundbreaking in the genre. I like The Dispossessed better because the themes interest me more, but Amy really loved The Left Hand of Darkness (she hasn’t read The Dispossessed yet though).