The Dispossessed: A Novel

Written by Szilard Borbely

Narrated by James Langton

A literary sensation on its original publication in Hungary, this hypnotic, hauntingly beautiful first novel from the acclaimed, award-winning poet and author Szilárd Borbély depicts the poverty and cruelty experienced by a partly-Jewish family in a rural village in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

“No one has ever written so beautifully and at the same time so without pity about the suffering in the isolated provincial villages of Hungary…His sentences have a surgical precision, and their sustained rhythm only reinforces the power of what they evoke.”—Nicole Henneberg, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

In a tiny village in northeast Hungary, close to the Romanian border, a young, unnamed boy warily observes day-to-day life and chronicles his family’s struggles to survive. Like most of the villagers, his family is desperately poor, but their situation is worse than most—they are ostracized because of his father’s Jewish heritage and his mother’s connections to the Kulaks, who once owned land and supported the fascist Horthy regime before it was toppled by Communists.

With unflinching candor, the little boy’s observations are related through a variety of narrative voices—crude diatribes from his alcoholic father, evocative and lyrical tales of the past from his grandparents, and his own simple yet potent prose. Together, these accounts reveal not only the history of his family but that of Hungary itself, through the physical and psychic traumas of two World Wars to the country’s treatment of Jews, both past and present.

Drawing heavily on Borbély’s memories of his own childhood, The Dispossessed is an extraordinarily realistic novel. Raw and often brutal, yet glimmering with hope, it is the crowning achievement of an uncompromising talent.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Nov 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9780062645623

Szilard Borbely

Szilárd Borbély (1963-2014) is widely acknowledged as one of the most important poets to emerge in post-1989 Hungary. He worked in a wide variety of genres, including essay, drama, and short fiction, usually dealing with issues of trauma, memory, and loss. His poems have appeared in English translation in The American Reader, Asymptote, and Poetry. Forthcoming as well is his verse collection Berlin-Hamlet from NYRB Classics. Borbély received many awards for his work, including the Attila József Prize.

Reviews for The Dispossessed

[apatt_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An aunt gave me this when I was fifteen, seeing how I was getting into SF. That was kind of her but I don’t know what she was thinking, I couldn't possibly get into this book at that age. In fact I gave up after about 50 pages. However, this is one of those books that won’t go away. I keep getting recommendations to read it from web sites, forums and “all time best sf books” listings. So I eventually got around to it.Skipping the synopsis completely as I don’t like to write them, this is a difficult book for me to read as it is very intelligent and require considerable intelligence from the reader, possibly a bit more than I possess! Some paragraphs where Le Guin is exploring political or philosophical ideas are barely readable because they go right over my head. Also, though the book is not that long it is not a quick read. I tried to read it fast to be done with it had to put the brakes on and rewind, otherwise there would be no point in reading it at all. The book demands patience and concentration.At the end of the day this is a worthwhile read because it gave me something to think about, anarchism, our society, the way we live, tolerance, complacency, self righteousness etc. However, IMO this is not a book to read for enjoyment. Le Guin's "Left Hand of Darkness" is much more enjoyable as sf, while being equally serious. If you want to read Le Guin for entertainment her Earthsea Trilogy would work best. If you want cool tech and aliens this novel is also not for you. However, if you want something that makes you feel all contemplative this fits the bill very well.

[brucecoulson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Geniuses does not fit into any society; and every society is dependent on them.

[renbedell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really like how Ursula Le Guin incorporates philosophy into her SF stories. The characters and the story were great, but as an added bonus it made you really think about our attitudes about possession and how it would look if everything was shared and nothing was truly "mine". It is written really well and you can see why it won so many awards.

[leslie398 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Le Guin has explored the meaning of communism and anarchy and what being free really means in this novel. The people of Antarres, "Odonians", left their home planet of Urras about 200 years previously, and settled on the moon/sister planet to leave behind the evils of capitalism ("propertianism") and government oppression. Their society has no government, no ownership (even saying "my nose" is frowned upon -- "the nose" is preferred), no person or group in charge. However, the truth of those claims are tested when one Antarrian, Shevek, wishes to leave Antarres to go to Urras and pursue his physics research (which was not supported and even actively discouraged). Very thought-provoking.

[dogrover · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of the few Utopian visions that I can believe. The gradually expanding horizons of Shevek's experience lead him by stages outward from home, all the while pushing him back to his roots. A beautifully constructed and intensely personal story of the price of a truly free society.

[aethercowboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Dispossessed is a utopian science fiction novel.The premise deals with a conflict between two groups: those of A-Io, and those of Thu, mirroring cold war-era USA and USSR, respectively.The plot centers around Shevek, who is trying to work on his Grand Temporal Theory while the twin planets of Anares and Urras morph and crumble.Part of the larger Hainish Cycle, Le Guin gives us a glimpse of these lesser known worlds.Recommended for fans of Le Guin's other works.

[mbmackay · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The 1975 sci fi classic. Great SciFi, but slightly dated political philosophy.Read in Samoa Mar 2003

[altheaann · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Re-reading for book club! (August 2015)

I first read this book in middle school, and was blown away by it. It introduced so many new (to me) ideas - brilliant ideas! - but then, rather than just presenting those ideas as a utopia, did everything it could to explore them further, and to explore their flaws and weaknesses.

I was very proud that I got my teacher that year to include this book on our summer reading list, so that everyone else would have to read it too. :-)

Of course, re-reading after so long, I wasn't sure how it would hold up. You can see I still have 5 stars up there, though...

When I was a pre-teen, I remember thinking that the book felt very 'adult.' This time, I was more impressed at how LeGuin actually manages to deeply explore profound and complex ideas through simple, elegant language that just about anyone, of any age, can understand.

And - this is a book of ideas. That's the one aspect of the novel that I could see being used as a valid complaint about the book. However, I didn't feel that the characters fell by the wayside. Although they might be there, at times, to illustrate certain points, they still feel like fully realized people, who think, act, and feel in believable ways.

This is, of course, the story of Shevek, a remarkably brilliant physicist (and an excellent example of a character who is much smarter than average, and who behaves and thinks in such a way as to demonstrate that, rather than the much-more-common occurrence where we're supposed to believe that someone is talented or smart because the author tells us so.) Shevek was born on Anarres, a colony world started as a social experiment, following the philosophy of the radical communo-anarchist Odo. 170 years later, after hardly any contact with the home world of Urras, rumors persist about the oppressive decadence of the 'propertarians' of the home world, Urras.
However, Shevek, a bit of a misfit in his own society, is invited to visit Urras. Through the book, we see their capitalist society and contrast its pros and cons with those of Annares.

As a kicker, we also get to glimpse a hint of what things are like not only on Urras and Anarres, but here on Earth, as well as among the Hainish: there are not only two social possibilities.

An admission: when I first read this, I identified more strongly with Shevek and Takver. This time, I had far more sympathy and understanding for Vea - as, perhaps, most people in the West would.

Essays and books could be written (and have been) about the ideas contained in 'The Dispossessed' - I've not going to do an analysis here.

But I will say; I still think this is a book that everyone should read.

[salimbol · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Deeply humane, thought-provoking and intelligent, this is one of LeGuin's undoubted masterpieces. She deals with a lot of potentially very abstract and dry stuff (politics, philosophy, science, sexuality, etc), and makes it almost painfully raw, vivid and meaningful through her characters. This one will stay with me for a while.

[reading_fox · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Drags. Far too much social commentry and political theorising with little if any in the way of actual plot. Also the interleaved time displaced storyline is just annoying.Shevek is a physicist in an ideal fully socialist - though completely decentralised - world. Life is hard, but fair, with everyone pulling their weight doing community chores and specialised tasks to their ability. The neighbouring world from whom they Setlled 150 years ago, is a fully capitalist world 'normal' as we would think of it, and the book opens with Shavek travelling their through the disapporbrium of his people, and enduring the strangeness of a life of luxury. The part of physics that Shevk studies is time/space dimensions trying to develop a theory of relativity. there are two schools a Sequentialist school and a Simultaineous school. One rather hopes that the 'flashabcks' to shavek's youth - interleaved alternate chapters - are somehow related to this. But I doubt it, as no justification is ever given for them, and it reads as if Le Guin though this would be a neat idea. But they are exceptionally annoying, continually breaking up the narrative flow.Shavek's thoughts lead him to a revolutionary idea, which is rejected as the people currently in charge (without in anyway being in power and especially not governing) the Institute of physics feel they belong to an outmoded school of thought. Shavek realises his ideal socialist world is in danger of relapsing into centralist dogma and determines to give them to this other world - if only he can prevent them from being bought.The physics ideas are too rather obviously only a vehicle for the political discussions. Le Guin does make many very valid points - both for and against socialism and capitalism - but it doesn't really work as a story, and would be better off as a non-fiction piece. Given that our world has changed considerably since this was written it's also pretty clear that socialism will and does fail in just the ways she's highlighted. However it is worth noting that this doesn't make capiltalism 'better' only more sucessful. The problem is possibly just that there is far to much 'tell' and not enough 'show' particularly of the way the worlds are set up. Perhaps the highlight of the work is in the inital assumptions required to make a stable socialist world operate for any length of time.................................................................................................

[tadad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I know it won the Hugo and the Nebula, and it was certainly enjoyable. However, it doesn't rank as one of my favorite science fiction books of all time.

[rebeccaann_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

MILD SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW!!!To start off, this book can be very confusing if you don't understand a few key facts. First, the story takes place on sister planets (each one serves as the other's moon): Urras, which is the original planet, and Anarres, a planet populated by anarchists who rebelled against the Urrasti government. Second, the chapters bounce back and forth between the present and Shevek's (the Anarresti main character) life growing up, before he undertook the task of going back to Urras in an attempt to develop his Theory of Simultaneity and share it with all of the known intelligent life in the universe.There is a lot going on with politics. Urras is made of two major nations, A-Io and Thu, obvious allusions to the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union respectably. Then there is Anarres, which is a socialist planet where everyone is dependent upon each other because the conditions of the planet are so harsh. There are only a few species of life on Anarres and if humans don't work together, the species as a whole will perish.The story begins with Shevek boarding the Mindful, a ship which will take him back to Urras. While there, he is bombarded with wants and desires he has never experienced, having come from a planet in which no one really owns anything because there is so little to be had (a common phrase amongst the Anarresti is "no one starves while another eats"). For the first time, Shevek has money and is able to have actual possessions. He gets sucked into the capitalist world and for almost a year, he does no work. His change of heart comes from seeing the other side of capitalism, the poorer side. The government, having kept Shevek boarded amongst the richer part of society, did not want an anarchist inspiring the poor to rebel. When Shevek sees the poor, he must come to terms with the fact that he has become what he most despises: a profiteer.The Dispossessed is much more of a mental journey than a physical one. In fact, looking back at the book, there's not much action in it at all. However, I still found myself intrigued by the story. I could see this book because the source of heavy debate in the way it portrays socialism, capitalism, anarchy, and government as a whole (anarchy is greatly favored while government is scorned at) and while I can't agree with the idea of a total lack of government, I can see the pros and cons of both systems.This is a good book if you really want to think, but not so much if you want a real page turner. It's a very confusing read, and I'll definitely be reading it again. There is no way I caught all the little details. The book has too much scope to take it all in the first reading through.

[bacillicide · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's a good book. I love books that take you to different planets--in this case, it takes you to two, since the Cetians are not from Earth. Urras is a world similar to ours in both class systems and economy. Anarres is socialism in action, with no monetary system. It was really, really neat to read it and see a different way of doing things. It might be science fiction, but it's mostly an exploration of society

[wealhtheowwylfing · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Shevek is a brilliant physicist living on Anarres. His world is actually a moon populated with the anarchist rebels of Urras. Anarres is utopic in many ways, but stifling to free thought, so Shevek flees to Urras. There, he finds himself too swaddled in privileges.

My inarticulate summary doesn't give the slightest hint of how incredible this book is. Le Guin turns her thoughtful, earthy eye on each form of government and lifestyle in the 9 Known Worlds, from the utilitarian anarchists to the overly-controlled socialists to the authoritarian capitalists. Shevek is the physicist who travels between worlds and revolutionizes conceptions of time, yet Le Guin spends time on his family and friends, too, as though a fish geneticist's trouble with pregnancy is important to her story as well. This book is a study in revolution, hierarchies, war, the master's tools, clean thinking. I recommend it as highly as I am able.

[whaddney · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this a thought-provoking exploration of an anarchist society eking out a marginal existence on a desert moon. Shevek, a theoretical physicist, is researching a theory of time counter to the prevailing orthodoxy. Le Guin uses his struggle to explore some of the ways in which anarchism can lead to conformity and a suppression of individual freedom. That said, I was left with the distinct feeling that there were levels to this book that I didn't comprehend or simply missed entirely. That's the sign of a good book to me!

[seldombites · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an excellent example of extreme culture shock. How well could a man raised in an anarchist society (even one considered a rebel and a traitor) function in a capitalist society? This is the catalyst that Le Guin uses to highlight the faults and follies of our society. The story begins on the world of Annarres, where we see the much hated and maligned Shevek boarding a shuttle to Urras. Subsequently, the chapters alternate between Shevek’s past on Annarres and his present on Urras, highlighting his struggle to align the two.I don’t think I am reading too deeply when I say that world of Urras could represent our present – decadent, corrupt and with strict hierarchies based on wealth. Annarres and Earth (home to the Terrans), meanwhile, present us with two possible futures – one desolate and totalitarian, ruled rigidly in an effort to ensure the survival of the human race; the other just as concerned with survival, but offering more freedom and individual choice. To the Terrans, who have devastated their world, Urras is a paradise of flora, fauna, wealth and plenty. To the people of Annarres, who have been raised believing in the rights, freedoms and worth of every individual, Urras represents a hell of poverty, profiteering, inequities and the rule of the many by the few.This book is very well written. The world’s are believable and the characters peopling them seem more real than even those we see on the news. Reactions and emotions are as logical as reactions and emotions can be, and by the end of the story the reader is emotionally attached to the main character, Shevek. While the ending occurs in a perfectly logical place, I found myself disappointed, as I really wanted to know what happens next.The Dispossessed is an excellent and entertaining read. I highly recommend it to anyone from young adult to old age pensioner. I guarantee this book will leave you thoughtful, and will present you with a definite message. Whether that message is one of hope or despair, I will let you decide.

[dbsovereign · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Le Guin's father was an anthropologist, and in this book we see that influence. Together with her _Left Hand of Darkness_, this is one of science fiction's great novels of ideas. If you prefer space opera, read something else. Presenting a challenge to the reader is the non-linear plot development, but this can be said to also add to its charm. Furthers the belief that what we can do is more valuable than what we possess, and that language shapes thinking.

[fireweaver_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

LeGuin is perhaps a writer's writer. in many ways, her worlds and her thoughts, and most especially the words she builds them with, take precedence over character and plot. though the setting is bleak and utilitarian, this is an utterly beautiful book.

physicist Shevek hails from an anarchist communist world that split off from the infighting class structure of the nearby sister planet a couple hundred years ago. alone among his comrades, he journeys back to the homeworld (the why of that journey moves most of the novel), and experiences just how different the other side lives. clearly a tale written during the cold war, the home planet is neatly recognized as a possible substitute for decadent western culture, but the anarchists aren't exactly familiar reds. LeGuin's other strong point is her ability to genuinely convey the sense of otherness that an alien civilization would be. "alien" here doesn't end at a green guy with a ray gun, but is indeed a truly different way of existing. communication is problematic not because you don't speak the language, but because you can't comprehend the thought.

[vvilliam_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great novel about a scientist, Shevek, from a desolate, anarchist world who must visit the neighboring prosperous, capitalistic planet to continue his work. Filled with Le Guin's standard themes of environmentalism, social equality, and anthropology, it has many deep ideas to ponder. The style of the book is also quite nice as it simultaneously develops Shevek's present and past giving the novel nice mystery. It does slow down a bit in parts, but overall an excellent read.

[evet_24 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well-told tale which build suspense through a flash back technique. But I love ULG the children's fantasy writer far better than ULG the sci fi writer. The magic wasn't there for me.

[andreablythe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shevek grew up in a society of anarchists, a near utopian society on the moon of Urras in which everyone is equal, there is no monetary system, and all goods are shared equally and fairly. However, it is also a society that has begun to reject new principles and ideas, making life difficult for Shevek, who wishes to explore the new boundaries of physics. In order to follow the path of physics, Shevek has to turn away from his home to Urras, the planet the anarchist society abandoned hundreds of years before so that they could have their freedom. Urras is a world upon divided by cultures and countries, many at war with each other. Capitalism is king there, where there are drastic differences between the classes and just about anything is for sale. One might think the focus of this novel is politics, from sexual politics to economic politics, -- and that would be true. Politics, philosophy, and and physics all play large roles here and are the subject of much discussion between the characters, each who have very strong points of view. Nothing is simple, however, and Sevek learns that his anarchist society is not as perfect as he believed, nor is the capitalistic society of Urras nearly as wicked as he imagined. There is good and evil in everything. But even more story, this is a novel about a man who is lost, who is looking for a place to belong. His deep, deep loneliness and feelings of being disconnected from either world are very true and moving. Without this connection to Shevek, the story would be too tangled in philosophy and politics. Shevek's journey -- physical, intellectual, and emotion -- is really what makes this story come alive.

[elmyra_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A long time ago I read a quote (which I now can't find again for the life of me) which went along the following lines: The books that truly touch us, move us and influence us are the books which are one or two steps further down the same road that we're on. This was one such book for me.26 is quite late in life to discover Ursula K. Le Guin. My excuse is that where I grew it, it was mostly her fantasy that was translated, rather than her SciFi work, and during my teenage years I'd pretty much sworn off fantasy. Having now discovered her, I want to get my hands on every piece of SF she's ever written, and I might well give some of the fantasy a go too.I took a good two weeks to get through the 319 pages of "The Dispossessed". Partly, I was doing other stuff, and partly I found it a really dense book to read. Le Guin touches on so many topics and issues I care about, and does it in such a skillful way, that often I found myself stopping and thinking something through for a good few minutes before I could continue to read. Here are some, in no particular order, with no claim to coherence, of my own thoughts.The main message of the book is around class and ideology. In some ways it is very much a Cold War novel, with Urras modelled directly on Cold-War-Earth. Now, while I knew that SF was often used as a tool to spread subversive messages under Communism, I'd never realised that the phenomenon had a flip side on the other side of the Iron Curtain. This novel sure as hell shows that. One of the elements I particularly liked about the depiction of the Cold War, with the nations of A-Io and Thu standing for the US and the USSR respectively, is that Le Guin chose not to show us Thu directly. And while there was no real story reason to go into Thu, I feel there's something else behind this too: Coming from the other side of the Iron Curtain as I do, I rather suspect that I would have been upset by any attempt by a western author to comment on the internal workings of a communist country. There just is no way that she could have done it in the same depth, with the same amount of sensitivity as she treated the capitalist counterpart she had direct experience of, and it is to Le Guin's credit that she chose not to try.Second to the communism/capitalism/anarchy discussion is probably the issue of gender. On Anarres, men and women are truly equal. On Urras, they very much are not. There are a few details, a few lines Le Guin uses to illustrate that dichotomy which encapsulate so much of the issue and so much feminist thought in so few words. There is the discussion among the Urrasti physicists of how they should use women as lab technicians to allow men to focus on the truly productive and creative sides of physics. It serves as a good reminder of how women were seen in western society not that long ago. Shevek's constant bewilderment at Vea's attitude - she won't open a door, she has to have it opened for her; she won't even offer to share the bill at dinner - is wonderful. He even wonders if Vea might be a prostitute, before he figures out that what she expects of him is "chivalry". And there is of course Vea's reaction to being told that Anarresti women don't shave - anywhere! - which made me whince because I can identify with both sides of that one.If ideology and gender are the two main themes of the novel, there are a number of other ones presented more subtly though in no way with less impact. There is a strong environmental/sustainability message which rings particularly true to the 21st century reader. There is a lot of subtle but ever-present commentary on the power of language to shape thought. There is an interesting side note on race - the Terran ambassador is Indian, and for an SF work of the 70s, "The Dispossessed" is well ahead of its time on that. The one area where the novel bears a touch of criticism is in its treatment of homosexuality. We are told that homosexuality is perfectly normal and accepted on Anarres. But really, we are never shown it. The one character of whom we know that he is gay lives the kind of life that was almost socially accepted in western society when the novel was written: he has no long-term partner, he throws his energy into other things, and that's pretty much all we know about him. In some ways, this makes sense when viewed in the context of Anarresti society where being partnered appears to be by far the less common option. And yet, Shevek, the main character, has what is reasonably close to our understanding of a family, with a long-term partner and two children. Bedap on the other hand seems to be spending all his time at work, with his group of friends or in politics. He does, towards the end of the book, realise that he would like a partnership, he would like his life to change, but it would have been nice to see a gay character in a happy and stable relationship. Still, had I been a teenager in the 70s I'm sure I'd have been glad of any gay characters in any fiction, as a way of validating my own universe.Much in the same way as most travel writing tells you rather more about the traveller and where they come from than it ever can about the country travelled, any social commentary or social science fiction tells you a lot more about the society the author is living in than about any fictional world they're creating. That, however, is for me the ultimate test for good science fiction: it should hold up a mirror to humanity and make us think about ourselves. This book definitely does that.

[leehua_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's won both Hugo and Nebula Award, so that I expect highly. The main idea was interested when I read from the back cover.When I reading it I found the story go on and go on until the end, I still don't know how two world are different in the detail, she doesn't describe furthermore to understand it. But I never read the book unfinished I only tell that I'm tired to finish it.

[questbird · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although I enjoyed LeGuin's Earthsea books, it took me a long while to get into her science fictions. However, I greatly enjoyed this book. It seems written for a mature audience, one who has lived a little and suffered a little. The protagonist, the physicist Shevek, is a man in his forties who has experienced marriage, separation, parenthood, danger of violence, rejection, self-doubt. He lives his life with fierce independence. He exemplifies the ideals of the anarchistic society of his homeworld Anarres, while rejecting its implicit social boundaries. An interesting study of a world where anarchism is the norm, how its society drifts over time to a form of non-totalitarian socialism. The world is described well and I found myself very curious about how such a (non-)government might work in practice. This book reminded me of Doris Lessing's 'The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire' and, somehow, Herman Hesse's 'Glass Bead Game'; the former for its questioning of existing governmental forms using different worlds as a literary device, and the latter for the innocence and completely different world-view of the protagonist.

[danconsiglio · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Social commentary for those of us who need spaceships in order to take a book seriously. I'm not sure that anarcho-communism is actually the answer to the woes of humanity, but it makes a fun story. Count me out of the first moon colony. Seriously.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to leave his home planet Anarres and travel to Urras to work on his theories of time travel with other physicists. Not only does he leave his family, he leaves his world, a Utopian society that was created centuries ago by anarchists who left Urras in the hope of creating an ideal world where people leave their egos and work for the good of the entire planet. By alternating chapters that describe his new life on Anarres with chapters that flashback on his old life on Urras, Le Guin compares two opposite societies - one capitalistic and similar to today's society in the US and the other a communist colony where people give up homes, possessions, and even the notion of a family for the good of the collective. What I liked about this book is that LeGuin is not preaching one form of society over the other. Both civilizations have some pretty major flaws and both suffer from many of the same issues. She brings up many good points without preaching. Very thought provoking.

[indigo7_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This story follows the life of Shevek, starting as a young man and up through his career as a physicist. He lives on the desert moon Anarres, which orbits his people's homeworld, Urras. Being followers of Odo, an anarchist leader now deceased, his people exiled themselves (?) to the moon to start a utopia; they are the dispossessed. Shevek has big ideas that are of no use in a pre-conceived society and looks for a way to contribute to all people in his square of the universe.The book is more intellectual than spiritual and not a real fun read. Most characters are living in a state of quiet desperation. The utopian situation is interesting, but the people there are very robotic and unquestioning.The Perennial Classics edition I read contained many, many mistakes in spelling and editing. I felt like someone had typed this up in 1974, no one proofread it, and no one has made any corrections since then. It's very annoying to read a book with this many printing errors. This problem was a contributor to my 3 star rating.

[comfypants · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's more of an outdated political argument than a novel. The protagonist comes from a sort of anarchistic "utopia," which - despite being somewhat hellish and cult-like - is very difficult to buy. You have to accept that in a population of millions, over two centuries, nobody ever tried to take power. The story, for most of the book, is almost nonexistent. And just as things finally start to happen, the book is over, with no resolution.

[santhony_35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Recently, I've read a number of books written by Ursula LeGuin. This after having somehow avoided her for the last forty years, largely as a result of her Earthsea cycle. I've come to enjoy her science fiction with an anthropological slant, best represetned by The Left Hand of Darkness and her Hainish tales. This novel takes it a liitle further, adding a very philosophical political commentary to the sociological layer of the story.Our backdrop is the Tau Ceti system, and more particularly the inhabited planets of Anvarres and Urras. Urras is the cradle of Cetian civilization and is composed of several different nation states, the two most prominent being A-Io and Thu; the former, a free market capitalist state (think United States) and the latter an authoritarian Communist state (think U.S.S.R.). It would seem that 200 years in the past, the underclass of A-Io revolted under the leadership of an anarchist/libertarian by the name of Odo. The Odoists were gathered up and settled on the stark, barely survivable moon, Anvarres. There, they built their ideal anarchist society, with no concept of ownership or personal entitlement. Pronouns such as "my" and "mine" were not even part of their language. The worst insult from an Anvarren would be to term someone an "egoist" or "profiteer". Their motto: "No one starves while others eat." Though plenty starved. The two planets are almost completely isolated from one another.Our protagonist is an Anvarren physisist, Shevek. Shevek cannot fully explore his ground breaking theories (involving instantaeous space travel, Simulaneity) on Anvarres and is invited to study and publish in A-Io, an unprecedented turn of events. It is Shevek's journey to A-Io, his observations and the interactions between the several competing political systems that make up this novel. There is a second thread which describes the lead up to Shevek's journey, in which we learn more of the Anvarren, anarcho-socialist civilization, and its far from ideal operation.This novel becomes somewhat weighted with political discourse and even theoretical physics, sometimes to the detriment of the underlying story. However, by and large, it is a fair treatment of the various political systems, their strengths and weaknesses. We see two alien races interacting with the Cetians, the Terrans and the Hainish. For those familiar with the Hainish tales of LeGuin, we discover the source of the ansible, a communications device allowing instantaneous communication throughout space. The story is similar in style to Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in its socio-political overtones, but not as dense as some of Philip Dick's or Frank Herbert's work. Bottom line: A worthwhile and enjoyable read.

[hermit_9_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A comparison/contrast between two societies—one an almost pure socialist/anarchist society, the other a capitalist state. I read it in the 1970s, and remember it as a great read. It’s on my re-read list (If I can find my copy).