"I haven't any strength, I haven't any character, I'm a born tool. I haven't any destiny. All I have is dreams. And now other people run them."
Not having much experience with Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Lathe of Heaven" was a bit of a revelation based on a perception that her work may be genre-specific and inaccessible. Le Guin's prose boasts a beautiful rhythm, and the opening lines of this book are among the most striking I've read recently.
"Current-borne, wave-flung, tugged hugely by the whole might of ocean, the jellyfish drifts in the tidal abyss."
The author's extreme interest in science results in a startling level of specificity in certain areas, which can lend a density to parts of the tale. George Orr's ability to potentially literally change the world with his dreams does require some comprehensive descriptions of technology, however, so the work is worth it.
"We're in the world, not against it. It doesn't work to try to stand outside things and run them that way. It just doesn't work, it goes against life. There is a way but you have to follow it. The world is, no matter how we think it ought to be. You have to be with it. You have to let it be."
"The Lathe of Heaven" is a quick read with a few subplots that I would have liked to have seen explored more, like the intensity of connection between Rachel and George and the deterioration of George's mental state.
"No good. No way out. Orr was where he had been for months -- alone: knowing he was insane and knowing he was not insane, simultaneously and intensely. It was enough to drive him insane."
Yet there is no denying that the emotion sneaks up on you. Despite being written half a century ago, this science fiction is capable of striking all the right "feels chords," and Le Guin does so here again and again -- like a dream loop that you just can't escape.
"He thought, I am living a nightmare, from which from time to time I wake in sleep."
No comments:
Post a Comment