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Sunday, January 11, 2015

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971)



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:

  1. 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.

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  2. Mel, have you read any of her Catwings books? I think you would especially enjoy them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fred,,thanks for telling me of movies, I will look for them.

    Suko. I will see if I can find those books. Thanks

    ReplyDelete

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