Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Feb 24, 2009

Manny rated it:

First of all: if you haven't already read The Dispossessed, then do so. Somehow, probably because it comes with an SF sticker, it isn't yet officially labeled as one of the great novels of the 20th century. They're going to fix that eventually, so why not get in ahead of the crowd? It's not just a terrific story; it might change your life. Ursula Le Guin is saying some pretty important stuff here.

So, what is it she's saying that's so important? I've read the book several times since More...

56 comments like (66 people liked it)

Nov 29, 2007

Joe rated it:

Oh, Ursula. No longer will I love you in a vaguely ashamed manner, skulking through chesty-women-blow-shit-up-also-monster! book covers in the sci-fi/fantasy aisles with a moderate velocity as though I am actually trying to find Civil War biographies but am amusingly lost amongst all these shelves, that's so like me, need a GPS for Borders. Today, I will begin loving you publicly, proudly, for you are the Anti-Ayn Rand. You do not skullf**k Ayn Rand and make her your bitch, no, too easy. You tak More...

11 comments like (66 people liked it)

Sep 18, 2010

Tatiana rated it:

Although The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is classified as science fiction, it is hardly a novel about aliens and space travel. Rather, it is a speculative work of fiction that explores the possibility of existence and limitations of a completely anarchist society.

At the center of the novel is the planet Anarres. Annares is populated by a community of anarchists, whose ascendants have left Anarres's sister planet Urras almost 200 years prior to escape its oppressive regimes and More...

9 comments like (8 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2010

jo rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

11 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jun 18, 2009

Brad rated it:

As a semi-retired actor, there are many literary characters I'd love to play, and for all kinds of reasons. Cardinal Richelieu and D'Artagnan spring immediately to mind, but there are countless others: Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin (Perdido Street Station), Oedipus, Holmes or Watson (I'd take either), Captain Jack Aubrey (I'd rather Stephen, but I look like Jack), Heathcliff, Lady Macbeth (yep, I meant her), Manfred, Indiana Jones. But none of them are people who I would actually like to be.

More...

17 comments like (21 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2011

Cheryl in CC NV rated it:

I just couldn't appreciate this the way so many others do.

The way the story is told in the past, so we learn things as they're revealed rather than as the characters are experiencing them, provides a disconnect. Perhaps it is meant to serve to point out the universality of the themes - but I found that it made me feel distanced, as if none of the story mattered.

I suppose if I were younger and still interested in political ideas and revolutions, if I hadn't read, and live More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2011

Kevin rated it:

Wow, what a book. Two worlds, roughly the same distance as our moon is to Earth apart (and both see each other as moons in their respective night skies), one a mostly desert planet which has an Anarchist society as its ethos, the other, the blue-green one, has a Capitalist society as its modus operandi. Both do not like each others societies; the Anarchist world, known as Anarres, are a group of settlers coming from the Capitalist world, known as Urras, some one hundred and fifty years previousl More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 26, 2011

notgettingenough rated it:

Thoughts on The Dispossessed

Of the various layers of content in The Dispossessed, the most obvious is the socio-political: capitalism vs. anarchistic-communism. The claim often made is that, even though her heart is with the latter, she nonetheless treats the two structures impartially. The claim or presumption is to be found in the reviews of fantasy/science fiction devotees, those with a particular interest in anarchism and, I suspect, also those who simply read it with an uncritical More...

32 comments like (12 people liked it)

Oct 02, 2007

Brooke rated it:

Old book blogging...

Ursula K. LeGuin is a fantastic SciFi/Fantasy writer. I've read another one of her books several months ago, that I have forgotten the title of. She writes very sensitively, very strong in the human element. The Dispossessed was a very interesting look at what an anarchist society would be like in "reality". ie. if it were allowed to exist on a separate moon of a capitalist planet after a revolution and to evolve over the course of 150 years. What I like More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 17, 2007

Themba rated it:

Not just a goodread, positively an amazing read. o.k, i still have fifty pages to go but what the hell. talk about "sinewy grace" in prose, this is the definition of it, sparse and organic what more could you ask for. Also, the world-building, the logical clarity in composing and thinking through the cultural encounter of two utterly alien civilization is quite, well, otherworldly. in case you want to know what life in an anarchist society might look like, this is probably the best pla More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2007

Sven rated it:

Ok, first off: if you identify as an anarchist you should definitely read this goddamn book. As my friend, Big Tim, put it, "if you're an anarchist, parts of it will just make you be like 'yea!'." Seriously, that's what he said. And he was right. But also, if you're not, mainly if you've just never really thought about it, but also if you just don't really give a fuck, check it out. The bit about coming home being an integral part of exploring v. merely adventuring is right on and the More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 12, 2011

Leila rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 10, 2009

Jamie rated it:

I'm going to very guiltily give two stars to this award-winning science fiction classic. It's just not my cup of tea. I'm glad I read it, and it's certainly not a bad book, but it just didn't appeal to me, neither the prose nor the type of story.

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 19, 2010

Michael rated it:

It's really weird to me that, even though I'm totally drunk, I can still type just a s well as usual. I might not be able to make it down the hall without running into walls, but I can still compose a review without a problem. Anyway, I'm here today to talk about The Dispossessed. It is a book by Ursula K Le Guin, who is badass. If it hadn't taken me like four mouths to read this book, I would've probably given it five stars. Unfortunately, it took me almost a complete semester to read the More...

45 comments like (19 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2008

Karen rated it:

Shevek is more real and relatable than most of the Ursula K. LeGuin characters I'd encountered before. I anticipated meeting him back at the book in the same way I knew I would meet friends in the cafeteria when I was in college, a simple and satisfying kind of taking-for-granted of those who populate your life. I think the metaphor makes sense considering the particular set-up of the Annaresti society, with such emphasis on the commons. That said, I loved to re-discover with him the basic jo More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 11, 2008

Karina rated it:

This is my favorite book. I like all the books by Ursula LeGuin I've read so far (yes, even The Word For World is Forest), but this one is definitely the best.

Some readers think The Dispossessed is intended to promote anarchism, but that would be too simple. The book is a part of the Hainish Cycle series. Each book in the series is set in a different solar system and is basically a comparison of two cultures. But while it is set in space, the series is really a set of alternative hi More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 26, 2007

Scott rated it:

I came across this book working on an idea for a "History Seen Through Science-Fiction" class, and as an example of Social Science-Fiction it works remarkably well.

The utopia/dystopia setting, with anarchist-oriented Anarres founded by revolutionaries from capitalist and nationalist Urras provides a wonderful means of examining issues such as freedom and the meaning of the idea of the "state." Le Guin creates a fully realized "anarchist" society on Anarr More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 09, 2008

Jonathan rated it:

My ex had me read this, as it was her favorite book. It didn't really click with me at first, but I've been thinking of it ever since, and I think it has actually become one of my favorites.

In the afternoon, when he cautiously looked outside, he saw an armored car stationed across the street and two others slewed across the street at the crossing. That explained the shouts he had been hearing: it would be soldiers giving orders to each other.

Atro had once explained to hi More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 19, 2007

Seabury rated it:

I just gave an enthusiastic review to brave new world, and now, I want to give an even more enthusiastic review to this book. This may be the best book I have ever read in the utopia/distopia genre. It is about two societies and one misfit. There is a libertarian socialist society, and then there is a state capitalist society. The libertarian socialist society is a very intresting society, where there is no property, no government, no structure, absolute freedom. Wonderful how it sounds, as the More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 14, 2009

Matthew rated it:

Beautifully written and thoughtful science fiction. I still have my doubts about whether this Odonian anarchist society would really work as it is written. Still, I love that the protagonist is a man who feels sufficiently discontent with "utopia" to leave, and that you see both his society and the ultra-capitalist society that they separated from through the eyes of a profoundly alienated individual. I also love that the imagined physics of the far future has brilliant parallels to hu More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2009

Neil rated it:

There's a lot to think about in this tale of a physicist from an anarchist world who returns (the first to do so) to the world the anarchists came from 200 years after they left. The home planet is a mix of capitalist and communist societies.

I enjoyed the first three Earthsea tales, particularly the middle book, The Tombs of Atuan, but this is probably the Le Guin book that I've enjoyed the most so far. She does a fantastic job here of mixing the personal with the political in a stor More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 20, 2007

Anne rated it:

The Disposessed is Le Guin's classic book of political sci-fi. The protagonist, Shevek, is a brilliant physicist from an anarcho-socialist planet Annares, who is unable to convince others in his society to see the value in his theories. He travels to the neighboring planet, Urras which has an authoritarian government. On Urras, he is encouraged to do his work, but is horrified by the social inequities he finds. The thing that impressed me most about this book is that, while it is often descri More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Lauren rated it:

amazing book, really refreshing, visionary... a futuristic science fiction book that takes place between two planets - annares (an anarchist utopia living on a moon) and urras (a high tech capitalist society that has achieved some ecological balance). it deals with the tension between individualism and collectivism in the left/anarchist tradition... and i really connected with that, and see it in my own life as a contradiction between a sense of duty and my own sense of creativity and desire. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 18, 2008

Lisa rated it:

Why have I not been reading more Ursula K. LeGuin? She writes so well, and about such interesting topics. The Dispossessed's approach to the question of what an anarchic community might look like is fascinating and honest -- there are good and bad parts to this new world, just as there are with any. Only a couple parts of it feel dated (sexism is expressed differently today than 30 years ago, we've had instant communication that's not a radio for awhile now, etc.), but for the most part the book More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 22, 2011

Emily rated it:

On another world, that is not so very much unlike our own, there was a rebellion of anarchists. Those who denied the idea of law, of property, and of possession, who only saw brotherhood, acceptance and the joy of doing work for its own sake, not in order to earn money to live. That world was able to rid the anarchists by giving them the moon on which to live and grow their quasi-communist society. 160 years later, a theoretical scientist living on this moon comes up with an idea that could chan More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 19, 2009

Chris rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 12, 2009

Jabenami rated it:

Ursula K. Le Guin was next on my 'sf authors I really should read' list, so I looked for The Dispossessed or Left Hand of Darkness at my local library. I found the former first and read it in a day. Granted, a substantial portion of that day was spent in a doctor's office, but still. I found that Le Guin's prose is, as always, very readable and engaging and her characters, though they seem cold and reserved towards the reader at first, soon open up. I felt for Shevek as soon as we met him as More...

0 comments like

Jan 07, 2009

Edie rated it:

This was published in the 70s I believe, and is an exciting science fiction novel as well as an ideological treatise exploring two worlds - one much like our own; capitalistic, greedy, comfortable, technological, and war-torn, and the other the product of its exiled utopian anarchists; austere, communal, practical, poor, peaceful. One man tries to bridge the gap by offering to share (after all that's what anarchists do) his "general temporal theory" of physics so that interstellar trav More...

0 comments like

Jan 25, 2012

Katja rated it:

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, has grown up in a society of anarchists – no governments, no laws, no money, no status, no power, no property. But when he finds his controversial theories rejected on his home planet of Annares, he must go beyond the limits of his society and become an exile on Urras, a capitalist world of great wealth. On his journey, he learns astonishing and unexpected truths about both worlds, and the nature of the human spirit.

Le Guin, with her wonderful writing sty More...

0 comments like

Dec 16, 2011

Gina rated it:

Ce livre, que j'ai lu d'une traite, m'a fait un bien immense. Et pourtant, c'est trente ans apres son écriture que cette lectrice y est venue. Ce fut un voyage reposant, un endroit ou poser ses pieds avant de reprendre le vol...
J'aimé le monde sobre de ces anarchistes très civilisés. J'ai adoré le pratico-pratique, les vêtements qu'on recycle quand on en a fini, les "contribution qu'on apporte. La société est forcément écologique car les ressources sont limitées, et la vie est humble More...

0 comments like