The Dispossessed [50th Anniversary Edition]: A Special Edition of the Nebula Award–Winning Classic

Like Shevek himself, this book has a quiet, intelligent stoicism about it, and yet burns with the hot, subversive passion of revolution at its core. This is a book of ideas, and the "action" of this novel revolves around the creation and development of these ideas, rather than around specific "events" per se. Indeed, moments of "action", such as the military firing into a massive, unarmed insurrectionary crowd, barely seems to raise Shevek's (and by extension, as the lens through which we see this world, our) pulse rate. Instead, it is the subtler moments of dispossession, possession, being outcast, returning home where the emotion and the passion swell. The narrative structure is quite fascinating and effective, as chapters in Shevek's "real time" alternate with Shevek's past; however, true to the ideas of time in the book, these distinct pieces combine to form an inseparable whole. More broadly, they serve to show the seductive promise of the worlds of Urras and Anarres, and then the deep flaws of each, ending on a ambiguous note that is ultimately satisfying, for this is a book that asks more questions than it answers. What makes these two worlds, and indeed this whole story, timeless is the fact that although this book was written during the Cold War, it would be more fair to say that Urras and Anarres represent stylized manifestations of capitalism and communism, respectively rather than more straight-forward metaphors for the U.S. and Soviet Union (which would've made this story feel somewhat dated). Indeed, despite the end of the Cold War, reading this book at a time when the frailty of both capitalism and democracy in the developed world are on display makes for an interesting and contemplative experience. It is important to note, however, that this story is much more complex than a simple ideological battle between two worldviews. For, while Le Guin seems to favor the Odonian vision of Anarres over the nations of Urras, both societies are critically flawed. Urras is seen as a hell by Shevek, who abhors the greed, exploitation, dishonesty, and selfish ambition he sees there. Yet, Anarres in many ways, is just as or more flawed; pressures to conform to societal norms and expectations, informal bureaucracies just as autocratic as authoritarian states, and a xenophobic fear and rejection of Other create a repression of the mind and of creativity almost as stifling as the more overtly oppressive states on Urras. Some see the introduction of Terran and Hainish actors toward the end as a bit of a deus ex machina, and it is to some degree from the perspective of the *action* in the plot; but from the all-important perspective of the *ideas* of the novel, they provide an interesting and important counterbalance to Shevek's perspective on the two worlds, and importantly provide the possibility at the end of a way forward, and a new, more wide-spread revolution and evolution of ideas. This is a complicated, subtle novel; but the beauty of it is that its essence is captured entirely in the first two paragraphs. This is a novel about a wall and all it implies. Insider versus outcast. Belonging versus exclusion. Laughably trivial and yet the most important thing in the universe. Humanly-devised, given meaning only through the social constructions of the collective. Viewed, in our case, from the dispossessed traveler who journeys forth but always returns. A joy to read, and even more so to contemplate; a timeless classic of science fiction as powerful today as when it was first written.

‘Little children might say “my mother,” but very soon they learned to say “the mother.” Instead of “my hand hurts,” it was “the hand hurts me,” and so on; to say “this one is mine and that’s yours” in Pravic, one said, “I use this one and you use that.”’ (p54) What should society look like – norms, structures, goals, relationships, obligations, expectations? What can it look like? What does it look like? What does all this mean for each of us as individuals? Karen Joy Fowler’s forward to this fiftieth anniversary edition talks about science fiction (and Le Guin’s style) as “thought experiment”. What kind of thought experiment do we get here? This book reminds me of an ancient Greek play. It’s “Brave New Worlds” (deliberately plural here) and a little “Nineteen Eighty-Four” written as a thoughtful debate that includes choral commentary. The plot is a wrapper around a philosophical discussion – fiction as scaffolding for an essay. The novel’s narrative chronology is interesting. The book opens with the protagonist departing one planet for another under awkward and somewhat mysterious circumstances. This event anchors the story: the chapters alternate between a timeline on the first planet that leads to the protagonist’s departure, and another timeline on the second planet that follows the departure. The parallel threads eventually come together in a fascinating climax that brings the story full circle. In “The Left Hand of Darkness”, Le Guin’s story (the wrapper, the scaffolding) is compelling – it captivates readers and complements well the deep commentary. Here, the plot’s sometimes a little artificial and clunky. Both books are powerful and well worth your time. But “Left Hand” is more fun because the tale itself is richer.

The book was great! We read it in my Book Club and it was so interesting to discuss!!

I read a couple of Le Guin’s book in my mid teens, liked them but shortly after my focus then shifted to nonfiction philosophy, theology, and mysticism. Forty years later I decided to revisit the “science fiction” books from the 1950s to mid 1970s. I’m now reading her works, starting with The Dispossessed. I’m glad I did. There are no spoilers in my review that one wouldn’t find from the promotional summary. Just my reactions. I really enjoyed this and I plan to reread it over time. I find this a challenging read, on several levels across multiple fields. The informal subtitle is “An Ambiguous Utopia”. I agree it is ambiguous but I find no utopia. It comes across to me as dystopic. It’s a society founded on anarchic communal ideals, in a backdrop much like the Israeli kibbutzim from the very late 1800s to 1960s. This reflects the hopes of USA counter culture from the mid 1960s to mid 1970s. The founder intends no hierarchy. This ignores human nature as even within a generation informal cliques become hierarchy. We start over 150 years into its evolution. Our protagonist is decidedly one of the best developing characters I’ve come across in contemporary literature. Like any good hero journey it’s a series of peaks and lows that push him to a crushing break point that becomes break through. He’s a survivor who endures precisely because this society is dystopian. It has devolved, all too much like the USSR had thoroughly become by the 1970s. The other issues explored besides government and sociology include gender as both identity and role, varying forms of child rearing, relationship dynamics, economy and ownership of the means of production. Those are compelling also. This is probably going to be a hard read for today’s young Progressives and their values regarding feminism. Modern feminism has a thin overlap with the feminism of the 1950s to mid-1970s. The economic sharing aspect would appeal but not the non-property / non-personal ownership. Many will see the ideas Le Guin experiments with as dated, and an appreciable number (if fringe) will be intolerant that historical norms are applicable to their world. Of course I’m speaking broadly. Personally I find this book a good match to our current times. In terms of values and behavior this time is remarkably similar to the late 1960s through mid-1970s. Anyway, to recap, I highly recommend this book. It’s thought provoking, challenging to our implicit assumptions. Please be aware my perspective reflects my personal history as a USA citizen, my cultural exposure as a child of a beatnik and a flower child but who were also profoundly conservative so of course I rebelled by being a moderate liberal. 😉 ✌🏻

Many interesting ideas. to draw them out, she creates two planets - Urras, the original home world. Capitalist, property owning, haves and have nots. The settlement on Anarres (the moon to Urras) is meant to be egalitarian. All for the community. I like the ideas she raises, and the back and forth style following one physicist as he travels between the planets and is subject to the influences of each place. However, I found her writing kind of young-adult style - maybe she's trying to appeal to a youngish audience? I've never read LeGuin before, and have to say I'm not a fan, so probably won't read more. Some ideas: * Can you have centrally planned anarchism? * When the revolution becomes the status quo, the new bureaucracy * Often-used word: "wall". Not sure it resonates * Does nationalism yield to war? * What is the right way to escape oppression: ends vs. means * What is the bargain between the individual and society? As a backdrop we follow Shevek, a physicist who hits a wall on Anarres in trying to prove new theories about time travel. So he treks to Urras to engage in scientific study with the physicists there, in the idealistic pursuit of universal brotherhood. He is one voice and there are entrenched ways on both planets. What kind of environment does it take to foster new scientific discoveries?

Not exactly fast paced, but thoroughly enjoyable throughout the story. Highly thought-provoking, and pretty well balanced. What if a society could start from scratch, keep out the capitalists, and truly live without money or government? This book isn't only about that society, but it looks at it in a realistic way. While this isn't exactly a criticism of our own society, it certainly shows the ills associated with capitalism and bureaucracy. I enjoyed this edition with the study guide at the end. I didn't notice it until I'd finished reading the story, so maybe if I ever read it again, I'll try to go through the study guide as I read each chapter. Teacher's note: Not for high school. Not even one really mature student. I personally believe this would be for a college course, for students who have had time to study history and economics from all over the world (at least scratching the surface), AND I don't want to ever have to have enough conversation with a teenager to determine if they could possibly understand ethical non monogamy or the kind of society where sex between consenting teenagers is not considered immoral but, in fact, biologically normal (ignoring the implied birth control). Too many ways for these conversations to become grounds for termination or worse, arrest. Honestly, I don't think I could teach this book with fidelity at the moment. I would need to educate myself on revolutionary movements, economic reforms, and other such historical events before I would feel like a leader teaching the novel. This would make for an interesting book club with people who do know more about the events alluded herein.

Recently, I've read a number of books written by Ursula LeGuin. This after having somehow avoided her for the last forty years, largely as a result of her Earthsea cycle. I've come to enjoy her science fiction with an anthropological slant, best represetned by The Left Hand of Darkness and her Hainish tales. This novel takes it a liitle further, adding a very philosophical political commentary to the sociological layer of the story. Our backdrop is the Tau Ceti system, and more particularly the inhabited planets of Anvarres and Urras. Urras is the cradle of Cetian civilization and is composed of several different nation states, the two most prominent being A-Io and Thu; the former, a free market capitalist state (think United States) and the latter an authoritarian Communist state (think U.S.S.R.). It would seem that 200 years in the past, the underclass of A-Io revolted under the leadership of an anarchist/libertarian by the name of Odo. The Odoists were gathered up and settled on the stark, barely survivable moon, Anvarres. There, they built their ideal anarchist society, with no concept of ownership or personal entitlement. Pronouns such as "my" and "mine" were not even part of their language. The worst insult from an Anvarren would be to term someone an "egoist" or "profiteer". Their motto: "No one starves while others eat." Though plenty starved. The two planets are almost completely isolated from one another. Our protagonist is an Anvarren physisist, Shevek. Shevek cannot fully explore his ground breaking theories (involving instantaeous space travel, Simulaneity) on Anvarres and is invited to study and publish in A-Io, an unprecedented turn of events. It is Shevek's journey to A-Io, his observations and the interactions between the several competing political systems that make up this novel. There is a second thread which describes the lead up to Shevek's journey, in which we learn more of the Anvarren, anarcho-socialist civilization, and its far from ideal operation. This novel becomes somewhat weighted with political discourse and even theoretical physics, sometimes to the detriment of the underlying story. However, by and large, it is a fair treatment of the various political systems, their strengths and weaknesses. We see two alien races interacting with the Cetians, the Terrans and the Hainish. For those familiar with the Hainish tales of LeGuin, we discover the source of the ansible, a communications device allowing instantaneous communication throughout space. The story is similar in style to Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in its socio-political overtones, but not as dense as some of Philip Dick's or Frank Herbert's work. Bottom line: A worthwhile and enjoyable read.

Just a great story and a great message. Really an underrated classic.

This novel is quite unlike anything else. Inspiring. It really challenged my ideas of what a story could be, and yet, much of it is as classic and easy to grasp as anything. I have a feeling I'll be re-reading it to deepen my understanding but for now I'm happy I picked it up.

“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” The anarchist collective on the planet Anarres migrated from the propertarian, capitalist planet of Urras when a previous revolution occurred. Rather than continue to contend with them, they have gifted this planet. Then, using the teachings of Odo, the center point of this revolution and who ostensibly is also responsible for structuring this anarcho-syndicalist society experiment, they establish this new way of living; retreating into themselves for generations. “For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.” When Shavek, considered a brilliant and unparalleled physicist on both planets, decides to make the journey to Urras in order to finish his work, he must first figure out his place in a new society at odds with his way of life and way of thinking. “You can’t crush ideas by suppressing them. You can only crush them by ignoring them. By refusing to think, refusing to change.” The narrative is very clever, alternating between him negotiating this new space and how this society works and is perceived by an outsider, while also flashing back to his life back in Anarres, slowly exposing the ways in which life oppress and alter the citizens on both planets. There are many astute ways in which the author uses Shavek's own life events to communicate complex ideas and offers the merits of each society while presenting a condemnation of each. The book is extremely well written and filled with a unique form of prose. The book was a pleasure to read and consume. But part of why I chose this book was to examine it in order to see if this was a proto solarpunk book. There are clear throughlines to cyberpunk, there has, in some ways, never been more of a punk protagonist. An actual anarchist! It's also subversive of typical cyberpunk protagonists generally in it for themselves but punk in that they are against establishment, authoritarianism, and capitalism. In this novel, Shavek is deeply wounded by society. It gets its hooks in him. Twisting his way of thinking and seducing him, attempting to commodify his work and ideas. One definition of Solarpunk is: a movement focused on a positive, ecological vision for a future where technology is used for human-centric and ecocentric purposes. So the punk part is pretty clearly covered. Where the solar part comes in is somewhat more questionable for me, initially. Sure the anarcho-syndicalist society is kind of covering that aspect. We could take a lot of those principles and integrate it into an extrapolated version of our own society and get results for a much more sustainable future. However... it's not really technology that's doing this, right? There is little talk of technology at all throughout most of it, in either planets' culture and infrastructure even, beyond trains anyways. Written in 1974, it makes perfect sense that the book certainly wouldn't place any particular significance on these things beyond the physics that Shavek dedicates his life to. But what they are after from Shavek is faster-than-light travel; specifically in their ships, which was given to them by an alien race. Where this gets somewhat more clear is when another species or aliens are revealed: Terrans. They are Earth decedents which specifically state their planet is all but destroyed. An ambassador situated on Urras is the vehicle for the qualities of most solarpunk stories. A dystopic planet that seeks to get new technologies and cooperations from other forms of life to make their planet better. “My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and fought and gobbled until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We destroyed ourselves. But we destroyed the world first.” It is certainly atypical of the emerging genre. But when a lot of the sort-of meta-narrative of all these groups of people and species of humans, and their subsequent societies, are driving at getting this new technology for their own respective reasons. Some to conquer and establish superiority; others to forge a better life, and still, others to never allow for it to exist at all. There ends up being much more of a focus on technology than previously thought. “Change is freedom, change is life. It's always easier not to think for oneself. Find a nice safe hierarchy and settle in. Don't make changes, don't risk disapproval, don't upset your syndics. It's always easiest to let yourself be governed. There's a point, around age twenty, when you have to choose whether to be like everybody else the rest of your life, or to make a virtue of your peculiarities. Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.” Furthermore, as such a seminal work of fiction, it seems to claim that solarpunk having roots here is highly plausible. It won many awards and was a major contribution to the genre. Before cyberpunk even existed. After it was established, to have a different sub-genre emerge which used this as a foundation instead of other seminal works credited to cyberpunk seems only natural. It could not be more punk. And it shows optimism in the face of the fear of technology, doing a very good job at exploring the issue more thoroughly than some other cyberpunk works by having whole societies project their uses and desires onto an emerging, game-changing technology only one man, Shavek, can provide; a punk no less, wanting to start a revolution within an anarchist state built from the ground up from it's own revolution. “It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.”

Libro con una profundidad increíble. La escritora crea mundos complejos y cercanos con una habilidad envidiable. Lo he disfrutado muchísimo.

Brilliantly written, complex and nuanced characters immersed in a transforming world that will grab you by the throat at times. Politics and philosophy is masterfully woven into the plot and doesn't feel dry or pretentious. Rightfully called a masterpiece in Sci-Fi literature and perhaps literature in general.

“The Dispossessed” is a 1974 science fiction novel by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018). The paperback available on Amazon India is a 2002 reprint by the British book publisher Orion, under their well-known sci-fi imprint, Gollancz. This paper is part of a series of sci-fi books that Orion has been publishing since 1999 as part of their “SF Masterworks” series, in which almost 200 books have been published by now. I agree with some other reviewers that the cover of the book is a bit garish. But the inside is classic—reasonably good paper and time-honoured typesetting—so it’s not hard to ignore the outwardly ugliness. With those petty details out of the way, one can turn to the book itself. It is hard not to recommend “The Dispossessed” strongly. This is top-class, well-crafted literature. The story takes place on the twin planets of Anarres and Urras that are locked in each other’s orbit. Anarres is poor, Urras is rich. Anarres has fewer people, Urras has lots of people. Anarres is just a couple centuries old, Urras is much older. Anarres has a single nation, Urras has several. Anarres is anarchist, Urras is “archist”, with several nations with various kinds of governments. Anarres and Urras avoid all people-to-people contact with each other. Well, one day, a perceptive physicist from Anarres, Shevek, makes an epoch-making discovery in physics that has far-reaching consequences. It so happens that the process of this discovery also reveals to Shevek the deep problems of anarchism. In a bold move then, he flees to Urras. The novel is about what happens afterwards. There are several passages in the book that make you pause and marvel at the quality of Le Guin’s language. And the depth to which Le Guin takes the discussion of the limits of politics is mind-boggling. This is the real power of sci-fi: its capacity to allow a writer to imagine scenarios that enable such discussions.