Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - The Dispossessed

A stunning book that frankly I’d love everyone in my personal life to read. Easily one of my favorites, and possunly the book that has most influenced my perspective and philosophy of the world.

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pastelkerstin's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.5

Essential reading if you're a leftist who likes sci-fi! I thought The Left Hand of Darkness was good, but I wouldn't say it's one of my favourite books. But The Dispossessed now is.

One of the most interesting things about The Left Hand of Darkness for me was the mention of another planet in the federation without war or law enforcement. Now, this book apparently takes place before the federation was formed, but it's exactly about that. It's about an anarchist society, the capitalist society it clashes with, and a scientist caught between the two who wants to follow his passion. And it doesn't beat around the bush at all with its politics. No fantasy names for real-life political concepts. Instead you get moving criticisms of capitalism, authoritarianism, police brutality and patriarchy. Although Anarres isn't portrayed as flawless or as totally immune to what they were trying to escape (e.g. social capital creates a kind of hierarchy after all), you know that despite its flaws and hardships, it portrays a world more just than Urras on such a deep level.

I borrowed this from the university library, but I liked it so much, I might actually buy my own copy. My only real gripe with it is how [vague spoilers ahead] Shevek's accidental drunk night ends. He narrowly avoided becoming a character I couldn't root for anymore. Very narrowly. I think him getting drunk accidentally and not knowing what's happening/how to deal with it at all because Anarrestri don't drink makes perfect sense. I just don't like where that went...
Otherwise really fucking good!!

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zombiezami's review against another edition

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Not sure if this is for me. I might re-evaluate after looking at more of the series.

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soscarlettm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book explores the internal contradictions of anarchism as a form of social organization. It uses physics as a metaphor for a dialectical approach to the passage of time relative to revolutionary moments in history.

LeGuin explores how "revolution" is something which can happen at a specific point centered around specific people and political questions, and how a character (or people in general) can exist simultaneously in a post-revolutionary and pre-revolutionary period if they are not at its epicenter. For Shevek, his society was born out of revolution against capitalism, but rather than overthrowing that economic system, the revolutionaries chose a separatist path and colonized their planet's moon. They developed an anarchist culture with mutual aid as the central relationship of production. Thus, Shevek exists as a post-revolutionary character on the moon (Anarres), but as a pre-revolutionary character on the main planet (Urras) where the working class is still struggling to liberate themselves from class exploitation and oppression. LeGuin metaphorically connects this linear idea of revolutionary organizing or consciousness-building with the fictional physics theory of "Sequency."

At the same time, the narrative follows the development of Shevek's awakening to stagnant elements of the social organization on Anarres which are preventing the anarchist society from fulfilling its political potential. He comes to realize that revolution must be ongoing, constant, and inconvenient to the status quo. For LeGuin, revolution is an individual before a collective phenomena - it occurs in each individual's mind in the form of their developing political consciousness. It grows imperfectly, in fits and spurts, but at all times across the whole society. As it does, it breaks out in collective action in a multitude of forms. At the same time that Shevek and Bedap are organizing to challenge unhealthy power dynamics in Anarres's bureaucracy, there is an uprising against a military dictatorship in Benbili and a one-day mass strike in A-Io. Revolution against oppression is happening all at once, and will always happen. Shevek is a revolutionary character because he exists, has ideas that can change, and has the potential to act. This notion of permanent revolution is linked to LeGuin's other fictional physics theory, "Simulteneity."

Sequency, in the book, receives more institutional scientific support, and could be analogous to Marxist historical materialism while simulteneity could be analogous to anarchism or anarcho-syndicalism, a generally less developed theory of social change. As a physicist, Shevek works to unite both sequency and simulteneity into a general theory of time which has the potential to benefit all people on all the known worlds of Urras, Anarres, Hain, and Terra. As such, the book may be considered a political case for uniting multiple theories of social change and human interaction in a constant process of enacting human liberation.

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