The representation in The Lathe of Heaven is not something I find problematic despite Le Guin not being a bisexual male nor was she mixed race.

I just wanted to see a queer woman represented positively on the page and on the screen and I found a lot of representation that helped me but might be considered problematic. It’s something I constantly sought out as a teenager. As someone who is queer and mixed race (among other things), I long to see myself represented in movies, tv, and books. In addition, there is a character who is explicitly mixed race and gets involved with a white man.Ī huge topic of conversation in media revolves around representation. We can’t even get bisexual males represented in 2018. A bisexual male in a 70’s dystopian novel. It was literally one sentence, but it hit me really hard. Haber is said to have been with men and women. Three years later, she released The Lathe of Heaven which is completely different from The Left Hand of Darkness, but I found myself pleasantly surprised when Dr. I am constantly amazed that she wrote a book about a genderless/genderfluid society in 1969.

I know that’s not for everyone, but I would recommend her writing because of how influential she was. It reads as if she picked out every word very carefully. Le Guin’s writing is very slow paced and deliberate. The first book Caidyn and I read for our book club was The Left Hand of Darkness which we both loved. It felt like it wrapped up too cleanly and didn’t give me a real, solid ending that I could hold onto. The one thing I didn’t like was the ending. Because, you might think you’re creating a perfect world through your power, but corruption occurs and creates a dystopia. I think my favorite thing she tried nailing down was about power and corruption, linked in with how a “utopian” world walks a fine line between that and a dystopia. She is so odd and interesting with her works. I found it fascinating to read because, as I said, Le Guin is a fantastic writer. Musings on the reality of dreams, of corruption, and of humanity. It turns out, when he dreams intensely, he changes the world around him completely.Īnd from there the story goes into many directions. Haber, to get to the bottom of why he doesn’t want to dream and to force him to dream. I thought the book was masterfully woven, taking place in a dystopian Portland with George Orr as the main character, in trouble for using drugs to suppress his dreams. And since this book is only eleven chapters, you have to work fast. It takes a couple of chapters to get there with the book. It’s like any other older sci-fi or dystopian novel. Le Guin was a fantastic writer, but her books take a little bit.

This book took awhile for me to get into.

Ursula le guin the lathe of heaven