Join us for a discussion of Ursula K. LeGuin's genre classic, The Dispossessed. Why this science fiction novel from 1974? LeGuin's novel is considered a classic of science fiction, awarded and acclaimed at publication, and widely read today. The novel tells the story of a planet and its moon, tied to each other by gravity and the common humanity of its peoples, but separated by empty space, and walled off from each other by ideology. The narrative follows Shevek, a scientist from the anarchist society on the moon Anarres, his upbringing and disillusionment, his journey to Urras, a planet riven by nationalism and inequality, and his return home. LeGuin is too good a writer to succumb to the propagandistic potential of the premise and instead she produces an insightful character study, and an honest appraisal of human nature and of the chains of thought humans create to bind ourselves, even when we are ostensibly free. Here's the first page.
"There was a wall. It did not look important. It was
built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult
could look right over it, and even a child could
climb it. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of
having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a
line, an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It
was important. For seven generations there had been
nothing in the world more important than that wall.
Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What
was inside it and what was outside it depended upon
which side of it you were on.
Looked at from one side, the wall enclosed a barren
sixty-acre field called the Port of Anarres. On the
field there were a couple of large gantry cranes, a
rocket pad, three warehouses, a truck garage, and a
dormitory. The dormitory looked durable, grimy, and
mournful; it had no gardens, no children; plainly
nobody lived there or was even meant to stay there
long. It was in fact a quarantine. The wall shut in not
only the landing field but also the ships that came
down out of space, and the men that came on the
ships, and the worlds they came from, and the rest of
the universe. It enclosed the universe, leaving
Anarres outside, free.
Looked at from the other side, the wall enclosed Anarres: the whole
planet was inside it, a great prison camp, cut off from other worlds and
other men, in quarantine."
We'll meet again at the Mission Valley Library this time in Seminar Room B.
The library sets a limit of 12 persons for the room so please be sure to RSVP. Please change your RSVP to not attending if you can no longer make it.
Feel free to bring your own refreshments
-dave rankin
