The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia in Overdue Podcast

Feb 07, 2018 Jillian Getting rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: borrowed, ebook

The moon Anarres was settled by anarchists who left the planet Urras to create a new world. The settlers seek a utopian society in which everyone serves the greater good and everyone has what they need. You may have a job preference but you also volunteer for a rotation of duties that need to be completed to keep a society running. Children go to school but also go on some work assignments and interact with adults often. Relationships can be as fluid or as monogamous as the parties involved want The moon Anarres was settled by anarchists who left the planet Urras to create a new world. The settlers seek a utopian society in which everyone serves the greater good and everyone has what they need. You may have a job preference but you also volunteer for a rotation of duties that need to be completed to keep a society running. Children go to school but also go on some work assignments and interact with adults often. Relationships can be as fluid or as monogamous as the parties involved want. Maybe you pair off and raise your child; maybe your child lives primarily in the nursery. There are any numbers of ways to live your life on Anarres so long as you go along with the ideas ingrained in your being.

There are threats to this type of society. What if someone’s art is deemed to be counter to the health of society? What if one’s preferred job has no perceived relevance? What if your ideas run counter to the status quo?

This is my humble and extremely basic summation of all of the questions raised in Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel. So many ideas and arguments are rooted in physics and math that a second or third reading would be necessary to really dig in. She clearly did her research on utopian philosophy as well as enough science and math to support some of the major ideas raised. However, the tale is ultimately about one man who has a question he wants to answer – are they truly free?

Shevek is a physicist whose work gains attention on the planet Urras. He eventually decides to travel to the planet in order to meet with other physicists and scientists to complete his work (which I think will allow for faster travel through space, if I read that correctly). He is seen by many Anarres residents as a traitor for being willing to speak to people on Urras, let alone visit them and work with them.

The containment of Shevek and his ideas, the isolation from Urras – these are seen as necessary acts by many moon dwellers in order to maintain the society they created. They ran from Urras. They don’t want to be contaminated by the planet.

The story begins with Shevek leaving Anarres and experiencing the culture shock of being on Urras. Then the book splits with chapters going back and forth between Shevek’s life leading up to his departure and his time on planet Urras. There is no obvious delineation of this format so it took me a couple of chapters to get into the flow of the story.

This book may take some time to get into. It can be slow-moving at times, especially during science and philosophy discussions, but the questions are important. Case in point, the subtitle of The Dispossessed is the theme in three words. ...more

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