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I just love Le Guin. Reading The Dispossessed right now & am enjoying it so far
Feb 20, 2024
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I imagine youâre gonna have a lot of Le Guin on this ask! This is her sci-fi classic. It is a truly brilliant book, and I absolutely adored it, even as someone who tends to prefer grounded sci-fi. It manages to contain such lush writing alongside astute political and anthropological understanding. Some sentences in it literally took my breath away. The world building is astounding, and the use of gender was entirely groundbreaking.
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đursula le guin just generally eats but the way she constructed Gethenian mores,,, so interesting to see how the environment shaped norms / how she interprets the formation of cultures. myths and legends of Gethen are interspersed to deepen the worldbuilding while also providing context to specific character beats chapters later; it's really satisfying to piece together.
since it's le guin, you've gotta expect some really artful political commentary, and this book just nails it. the development of nationalism, despotism, and (fascistic) bureaucracy in this world,, goddamn. god damn. one beautiful passage about the complete illogic of the nation-state and i'm crying.
le guin struggles a bit with her own premise (for a book about a genderfluid society it follows remarkably conventional gender and sexual norms) but regardless i found it thought-provoking to see what i liked, where i immediately found issues, and where i had to work a bit harder to figure out what the fuck i thought.
also!! reading this in a particularly snowy winter made the oppressive cold of the planet hit so much harder. def recommend for a winter read
since it's le guin, you've gotta expect some really artful political commentary, and this book just nails it. the development of nationalism, despotism, and (fascistic) bureaucracy in this world,, goddamn. god damn. one beautiful passage about the complete illogic of the nation-state and i'm crying.
le guin struggles a bit with her own premise (for a book about a genderfluid society it follows remarkably conventional gender and sexual norms) but regardless i found it thought-provoking to see what i liked, where i immediately found issues, and where i had to work a bit harder to figure out what the fuck i thought.
also!! reading this in a particularly snowy winter made the oppressive cold of the planet hit so much harder. def recommend for a winter read
Feb 21, 2025
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đ"Then you could read The Word for World is Forest, The Left Hand of Darkness, [and] The Dispossessed, in any order. In Dispossessed, the ansible gets invented; but theyâre using it in Left Hand, which was written fifteen years earlier. Please do not try to explain this to me. I will not understand...The story suite Four Ways to Forgiveness is part of that universe, and so is the novel The Telling. But I have to warn you that the planet Werel in Four Ways is not the planet Werel in Planet of Exile. In between novels, I forget planets. Sorry...The Eye of the Heron may or may not be set in the Hainish universe; it really doesnât matter."
She has so much swag.
She has so much swag.
