/lit/ - Literature

>>17396589
Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. LeGuin (1971)
This reads like LeGuin wrote a Philip K. Dick story. I felt that way from beginning to end. It comes with all the fun and problems that being a PKD story entails. LeGuin and Dick went to school together but never met and later corresponded. She said in an interview that this book was heavily inspired by his 60s novels and it really shows, for better and worse.

Most everything about it went all over the place. Some parts I really enjoyed and others and I really wondered why I was reading. It was rather different from anything else I've read from her, which in this case meant it was worse than her average. As a story in of itself, it's fine. As a LeGuin work, it's a definite disappointment for me.

The premise is that the protagonist's dreams become reality. This causes a lot of problems for everyone, himself included. The practical purpose of this is to demonstrate comparative continuums of existence. In some ways it's a monkey's paw type of story. Everything is subordinate to the various short demonstrations of alternate retroactive presents.

Fortunately it's a relatively short read so it doesn't overstay its welcome. How much you'll get out of this will depend on willing you are you draw meaning from the assertions and statements throughout the book, but for me it mostly fell flat, even the parts I agreed with. This may well be her most Taoist work. It's certainly a work of political, ethical, and religious philosophy with definite and strongly held opinions about how we ought to be and even more so how we shouldn't be.

However, based on what the average person reveals in their review of it, it seems to be a very useful book for disillusioning people of certain noxious though ostensibly well-intentioned beliefs. I'm glad it's as relatively popular as it is.

Rating: 2.5/5