I really found your essay moving because I have a very similar experience of not only reading The Dispossessed on a similar timeline but also leaving my hometown and my adoptive city (to find another restless malcontent similar to myself and move to a new place, which we love).
Moreover, this process of self-acceptance is truly revolutionary, and something my spouse and I have only been able to come into in our mid-thirties (about the time, for me, when I re-read The Dispossessed). Your comments about Shevek, and really seeing Shevek in this second re-read, were so moving. The best kind of endings are beginnings--they're truly hopeful and truly radical. Great post.
I only read the first 2 parts of your post because I don't want to spoil myself, but I wanted to say thank you for bumping this book back to the top of my TBR! It's been languishing there for way too long and you made me excited to pick it up again :))
I love articles like this that look at a single work through various stages of a person's life. So much more rewarding than hot takes on whatever book is trending at the moment. Nice balance between textual analysis and personal reflection as well!
Derek! This is absolutely beautiful. The Dispossessed has been on my list forever, but I just haven’t cracked the spine yet. I will do so now. And I can so relate to being the idealist/intellectual looking for belonging and other searching minds amidst the status quo. I’ve found it on the internet more than anywhere else, and perhaps that’s part of Le Guin’s point that the planets self-reinforce just as neighborhoods and places and friend groups do. That said, I put a lot of radical pamphlets in all of the little free libraries in my neighborhood and they are always snatched up immediately. So they are out there….
I really enjoyed reading this. If there are books that shaped my mind as a teenager and in my early twenties are Le Guin's.
I've found myself in the cycles, or rotations, that you describe as I've moved across fields of science and the ways of thinking they're built upon. The wall with which the novel starts and its ambiguity always stuck with me as a representation of how your perspective will flip if you stare at and think about something long enough, similarly to the two alternative shapes in optical illusions, in this case literally from outside to inside the wall and vice versa. Rather than as being banished from places, groups, or thought processes, though, I try to view the movement through these cycles as "being also elsewhere" and not always in the same "place", as others seem to be.
I'll definitely take my copy of The Dispossessed down from the shelf now to read it again :)
I really found your essay moving because I have a very similar experience of not only reading The Dispossessed on a similar timeline but also leaving my hometown and my adoptive city (to find another restless malcontent similar to myself and move to a new place, which we love).
Moreover, this process of self-acceptance is truly revolutionary, and something my spouse and I have only been able to come into in our mid-thirties (about the time, for me, when I re-read The Dispossessed). Your comments about Shevek, and really seeing Shevek in this second re-read, were so moving. The best kind of endings are beginnings--they're truly hopeful and truly radical. Great post.
This is such a sharp and interesting read of my favorite novel!
I only read the first 2 parts of your post because I don't want to spoil myself, but I wanted to say thank you for bumping this book back to the top of my TBR! It's been languishing there for way too long and you made me excited to pick it up again :))
Love to hear it! It sat in my TBR for a looong time and now I’ve read it twice, and I’m sure it’s not the last time.
I love articles like this that look at a single work through various stages of a person's life. So much more rewarding than hot takes on whatever book is trending at the moment. Nice balance between textual analysis and personal reflection as well!
Derek! This is absolutely beautiful. The Dispossessed has been on my list forever, but I just haven’t cracked the spine yet. I will do so now. And I can so relate to being the idealist/intellectual looking for belonging and other searching minds amidst the status quo. I’ve found it on the internet more than anywhere else, and perhaps that’s part of Le Guin’s point that the planets self-reinforce just as neighborhoods and places and friend groups do. That said, I put a lot of radical pamphlets in all of the little free libraries in my neighborhood and they are always snatched up immediately. So they are out there….
Thank you, Elle! No spoilers, but I think you will find that your comment is deeply resonant with the final section of the book.
Can't wait to read!!!
I really enjoyed reading this. If there are books that shaped my mind as a teenager and in my early twenties are Le Guin's.
I've found myself in the cycles, or rotations, that you describe as I've moved across fields of science and the ways of thinking they're built upon. The wall with which the novel starts and its ambiguity always stuck with me as a representation of how your perspective will flip if you stare at and think about something long enough, similarly to the two alternative shapes in optical illusions, in this case literally from outside to inside the wall and vice versa. Rather than as being banished from places, groups, or thought processes, though, I try to view the movement through these cycles as "being also elsewhere" and not always in the same "place", as others seem to be.
I'll definitely take my copy of The Dispossessed down from the shelf now to read it again :)