The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (1929, USA) has been on my want to read list for a long time. Two events pushed it to the front of the list. Francine Prose in her How to Read Like a Writer praised very highly her style and I received notice on a free service to which I subscribe that for one day only the price of a Kindle edition was reduced from $11.95 to $0.99.
The book deals with the nature of dreams, with consciousness, with the fluidity of so called "reality". It portrays a society that paid no attention to warnings over global warming and the terrible consequences of this.
There are lots of posts online about The Lathe of Heaven so I shall just say what I liked about it and I did not so much.
I liked a lot the vision of an alternative post apostolic America, seeing the early warnings of global warming. I liked the descriptions of Portland, Oregon, the setting for the novel. I enjoyed the idea that dreams can change actual reality. I was mixed on the various quotes that proceed each chapter. I did not find the characters that interesting. I think I understand the metaphysics behind The Lathe of Heaven and I am in sympathy with them and in 1971 would have been in total accord with the theory of consciousness constructing reality. The prose is lush and I can see people heavily stoned in 1971 saying "wow this is really deep".
I am glad I have now read this book and very glad I did not pay $11.00 for it.
Mel u
3 comments:
mel u,
There are two films based on the novel. I saw the one made in 1980 and thought it was quite good.
I just discovered the one made in 2002 and haven't had a chance to see it. It's in my Netflix queue though.
Mel, have you read any of her Catwings books? I think you would especially enjoy them.
Fred,,thanks for telling me of movies, I will look for them.
Suko. I will see if I can find those books. Thanks
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