341 pages
English language
Published Aug. 16, 1974 by Harper & Row.
The Dispossessed (in later printings titled The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia) is a 1974 utopian science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, set in the fictional universe of the seven novels of the Hainish Cycle (e.g., The Left Hand of Darkness). It won the Hugo, Locus and Nebula Awards for Best Novel in 1975. It achieved a degree of literary recognition unusual for science fiction due to its exploration of themes such as anarchism (on a satellite planet called Anarres) and revolutionary societies, capitalism, and individualism and collectivism. It features the development of the mathematical theory underlying a fictional ansible, an instantaneous communications device that plays a critical role in Le Guin's novels in the Hainish Cycle. The invention of an ansible places the novel first in the internal chronology of the Hainish Cycle, although it was the fifth published.
Pairs well with the tail-end (covering the 60s-70s counter-culture) of "A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present." On the more philosophical-end of SFF I typically read, but glad I read it!
Ursula K. Le Guin trata con maestría conceptos tan profundos y filosóficos como qué es la libertad en una sociedad organizada. Se acerca a cómo se organizan las sociedades mediante sus leyes y sistemas económicos. Y, además, te va descubriendo todo esto con una alternancia de capítulos entre una ubicación y otra bastante bien manejada.
Me costó que me enganchase al principio, pero luego me ha encantado. Para mí, a la altura de clásicos como Un Mundo Feliz, me ha hecho reflexionar mucho y me ha marcado.
Gran llibre! És un clàssic que m'havien recomanat molt i que ha complert les expectatives.
Un libro bellissimo, che parla di anarchia più di quanto i testi anarchici criptici e volutamente astrusi alla comprensione abbiano mai fatto. La descrizione perfetta di una società capitalistica, patriarcale, guerrafondaia, classista in contrapposizione a chi ha effettuato la scelta di non volere più nulla di questo, di voler scientemente non possedere nulla di materiale o immateriale per poi in realtà condividere tutto. Certo nulla è perfetto e ci sarà sempre chi cercherà di esercitare il potere anche se in modo lieve, qualcosa scricchiola. Questo libro è entrato a far parte dei miei "libri fondamentali", quelli da dover leggere almeno una volta nella vita.
Bisogna leggere Ursula K. Le Guin
This was a slow starter, but I quite liked it when it got going, it's a really fun exploration of an anarchist communist and a plutocratic capitalist society meeting.
There is only one bad thing, a rape scene a bit before the half way point that felt gratuitous and not needed, and it served very little purpose in the story, apart from that I really liked the book :)
Un libro di fantascienza geniale, avvincente e al tempo stesso ricco di significato. Negli ultimi anni ho tratto grande piacere dallo studio del pensiero anarchico e delle sue differenze con il comunismo autoritario (e chiaramente con il capitalismo). Penso che il pensiero anarchico sia criminalmente escluso dagli studi scolastici e che moltissime persone, per questo motivo, non sappiano realmente cosa sia. I reietti dell'altro pianeta immagina un'utopia anarchica, dandole però sostanza: è bellissimo vedere come funzionerebbe una società anarchica secondo Ursula Le Guin, anche perché ne presenta anche le possibili criticità. La critica feroce alla concezione del lavoro e dello sfruttamento nel capitalismo sono da pelle d'oca. Ho imparato più sull'anarchia leggendo lei che leggendo Kropotkin!
Content warning Spoliers
I love Ursula but this has been my least liked book of hers so I'm giving 4 stars instead of 5. I enjoyed the heavy intellectual ideas. I enjoyed the romance. I was utterly destroyed that she made this main character who I had thoroughly liked, out of nowhere sexually assault a woman because he experiences alcohol for the first time in his life. The way it's written is really fucking blaming the woman victim character while our main character dude just gets to brush it off and go on with his life as the hero and doesn't even think about this incident for even one goddamn second for the rest of the book. I know Ursula took some serious thoughts about feminism later in life and made some apologies and changes in her writing with the Earthsea series which I thought was wonderful. I really wish she had taken the time to go back and edit or at least write an apology about this. It fucking sucks. The rest of the story is great. This one scene should be deleted. It's fucking horrible. And no it's totally not believable that creating an anarchist communist society would suddenly erase rape and that rape is just an invention of capitalism and greed. Yea no. I can't bite down on that idea at all. The other heavy ideas make sense but only up to a point and then it's just like trying to say capitalism causes humans to rape. Like no fuck you. Rapists are psychopaths. They are the same as murderers. They are born with it in their brain. They cannot feel empathy. They are predators. Society can't make them do it or not do it. They exist in every society through all time. They can't be fixed either. And a man who is absolutely loving to his true love, his little daughters will not just suddenly sexually assault a woman because he got exposed to capitalism and alcohol and "went crazy." Fucking bullshit rape apology sexist bullshit. And then feel absolutely no remorse about it? Cmon!!
This book blew. My. Mind. I'm serious, for this alone Ursula K Le Guin became my fav sci-fi author, leaps and bounds above anybody else. She showed me what you can do with science fiction, how you can break the limits of the imagination. It is the first time I actually managed to picture a non-hierarchical society and it is so real, so visceral, that things clicked and I realized that "wait, this is possible!?" And she does that with a completely made up story set in two completely made up societies, both fleshed out with their greatness and infamy, their ideologies and contradictions.
It is NOT an easy read: Le Guin happily forces your brain to do some mental gymnastic, where things don't make any sense until a few pages later when they suddenly, perfectly do, things click in place and your mind is blown.
It is the book …
This book blew. My. Mind. I'm serious, for this alone Ursula K Le Guin became my fav sci-fi author, leaps and bounds above anybody else. She showed me what you can do with science fiction, how you can break the limits of the imagination. It is the first time I actually managed to picture a non-hierarchical society and it is so real, so visceral, that things clicked and I realized that "wait, this is possible!?" And she does that with a completely made up story set in two completely made up societies, both fleshed out with their greatness and infamy, their ideologies and contradictions.
It is NOT an easy read: Le Guin happily forces your brain to do some mental gymnastic, where things don't make any sense until a few pages later when they suddenly, perfectly do, things click in place and your mind is blown.
It is the book that made me understand how the limits of our current society are, first and foremost, limits of our imagination, and I don't say this lightly. This book blows our minds, because we have been robbed of the ability to imagine a better, if imperfect, world.
Brilliant, complex and fearless imagination of an anarchist society. Probably one of the best books I've ever read.
Le Guin was put the light on the despicable society whom is ours by describing through the eyes of an anarchist.
L'autrice met la lumière sur la méprisable société qui est la notre en décrivant à travers les yeux d'un anarchiste.
Good:
Speculative fiction at its finest.
Great society & world building, shown through a lens of a single life.
Two timelines nicely intertwine & support each other.
The scenes of hardship & revolution resonate deeply.
* Evokes the feeling of classic Sci-Fi without any problematic elements often associated with it.
Bad: ∅
For a depiction of a similar theme check out John Kessel's [b:The Moon and the Other|30753686|The Moon and the Other|John Kessel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1491126501l/30753686.SY75.jpg|51302140].
Una obra que vuelve a usar la ciencia ficción como entrada pero que es un análisis y una reflexión sobre la sociedad, desde la luna Anarres, donde la sociedad se organiza en un modo anarquista/socialissta al planeta Urras, donde tras un conflicto estos últimos fueron expulsados y donde el planeta se organiza en base a oligopolios y un capitalismo salvaje. Como nexo entre ambos mundos el protagonista intenta establecer un diálogo, intentando propiciar el desarrollo de ambas sociedades con la colaboración científica. Un libro que no deja de ser una reflexión y un golpe sobre la mesa sobre la política, la sociedad y el papel de la ciencia y los científicos.
I first read this book 20 years ago in a German translation and liked it a lot, but I didn't get a lot of it. Now, reading the English original and having had more of a political education, at first I was: "Is this book as good as I remember it?", but then, I enjoyed it even more.
I love that it's not an unbroken utopia and the ending leaves some things open. I also liked how it shows how power-laden relationships and positions can inadvertently creep back into a society that's not supposed to have them.
very deep personal relationship with this book
