Ursula K. Le Guin

George Orr discovers that his dreams possess the remarkable ability to change the world, and when he falls into the hands of a power-mad psychiatrist, he counters by dreaming up a perfect world that can overcome his nightmares. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

A Novel

The Lathe of Heaven

taylor miles hopkins

Destruction was not his line; and a machine is more blameless, more sinless even than any animal. It has no intentions whatsoever but our own.

Heather moved the fingers of her left hand in a tiny circle on the resilient, grainy surface of the armchair, the stuff that had once been the skin of a living animal, the intermediate surface between a cow and the universe. 

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.

It had not been destroyed when the city was cleaned up and rebuilt…perhaps because it was so large, so useless, and so ugly as to be, to the American eye, invisible. 

“I don't know. Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass."

George Orr discovers that his dreams possess the remarkable ability to change the world, and when he falls into the hands of a power-mad psychiatrist, he counters by dreaming up a perfect world that can overcome his nightmares, in a new edition of the classic science fiction novel. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

The Lathe Of Heaven

This poses such an interesting question in terms of nurture, conditioning and the limits of the human mind. Orr grew up in a similar world to ours and when asked to dream (literally) for peace between humans, his mind came up with a war against aliens as a pretext to unify humanity and wonders if such thing - not bloodlust, but this taught and lived view of violence and war as a inherent state of humanity - was too embedded in the bedrock of his being and unconscious. makes me wonder what realities and possibilities live beyond the traits, systems and things we think (and were taught to think, frequently under the guise of "human traits" and social darwinist arguments) are inevitable and/or inherent of our reality/societies?

isabella

I guess I can't, or my subconscious can't, even imagine a warless world. The best it can do is substitute one kind of war for another. You said, no killing of humans by other humans. So I dreamed up the Aliens. Your own ideas are sane and rational, but this is my unconscious you're trying to use, not my rational mind. Maybe rationally I could conceive of the human species not trying to kill each other off by nations, in fact rationally it's easier to conceive of than the motives of war. But you're handling something outside reason. You're trying to reach progressive, humanitarian goals with a tool that isn't suited to the job. Who has humanitarian dreams?"

"I thought you could change the world. Is this the best you could do for us— this mess?"

He would have preferred less of a mess himself, but it wasn't up to him. And at least it had her in it. He had sought her as best he could, had not found her, and had turned to his work for solace; it had not given much, but it was the work he was fit to do, and he was a patient man. But now his dry and silent grieving for his lost wife must end, for there she stood, the fierce, recalcitrant, and fragile stranger, forever to be won again.

Well, after all, [the world] is on my side. That is, I'm a part of it. Not separate from it. I walk on the ground and the ground's walked on by me, I breathe the air and change it, I am entirely interconnected with the world.

"You can't go on changing things, trying to run things." 

"You speak as if that were some kind of general moral imperative. [...] But in fact, isn't that man's very purpose on earth— to do things, change things, run things, make a better world?"

"I don't know. Things don't have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What's the function of a galaxy? I don't know if our life has a purpose and I don't see that it matters. What does matter is that we're a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass."

That is, I'm a part of it. Not separate from it. I walk on the ground and the ground's walked on by me, I breathe the air and change it, I am entirely interconnected with the world.

“…Life — evolution — the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy — existence itself— is essentially change."

“That is one aspect of it," Orr said. "The other is sillness." 

“When things don't change any longer, that’s the end resut of entropy, the heat-death of the universe. The more things go on moving, interrelating, conflicting, changing, the less balance there is — and the more life.”

Why had this gift been given to a fool, a passive nothing of a man? Why was Orr so sure and so right, while the strong, active, positive man was powerless, forced to try to use, even to obey, the weak tool?

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.

The more Ursula K. Le Guin I read the more I like it.

Another fantastic story from her. Highlighting the difficulty in utopia building and making us all see it not from the architect or craftsman's eyes, but from the experience of the tools. 

Liam Richardson

The more Ursula K. Le Guin I read the more I like it.

Another fantastic story from her. Highlighting the difficulty in utopia building and making us all see it not from the architect or craftsman's eyes, but from the experience of the tools. 

Is a thought-provoking read. It challenges me to confront the complexities of a god complex, posing deep philosophical questions within a fast-paced narrative. It's balancing entertainment with introspection. The story led me to ponder my own nature—if I had the power to reshape the universe, would I act humbly or arrogantly? The reflection on my choice was unsettling.

The concept was good and I liked that through the middle and the end, Heather was introduced and the book ended on a good note. However, I always caught myself wanting to finish the book as quickly as possible to be done with it. I think this was due to the paragraphs that were so long and often confusing. Anyway, I do not think I will be reading this book again.

Sarah Sammis

Read the Collectors next.

S/M	Uhoria	Maze	99CCCC

Overall, an enjoyable read. At times it felt a little messy, but the chaos of it all kept me hooked throughout. Plenty of beautiful prose within it, and I felt heavily invested in George Orr's story. 

The lathe of heaven

Seperti The Dispossessed, walaupun sci-fi totok, The Lathe of Heaven penuh dengan kritik sosial dan bahan diskusi tentang moral. It's kinda the trolley problem all over again. Would you save people if you can at the expense of others? And better yet, whether they survive or were disposed of, they won't even know! But the problem starts when you think that even a single person is dispensable. When you value people's rights differently, you start with discrimination, segregation, classism, sexism, and racism, and end up with apartheid, eugenics, and genocide. 

Indeed, the abuse of power in this book lead to unthinkable repercussions. It's a dystopia from the beginning, but as Heber called for 'improvements', they spiraled more and more into chaos. Sebenarnya, apa memperbaiki sistem yang busuk itu salah? Tanpa interferensi kekuatan super pun, manusia sudah senantiasa berusaha meningkatkan kualitas hidupnya. Pada akhirnya usaha pribadi menjadi hajat negara, dan kita sampai ke peradaban yang demikian maju sekarang. Perkembangan adalah keniscayaan, pencapaian kolektif ini bahkan bisa kubilang kekuatan super juga? Dan faktanya ada orang-orang di belakang layar yang memutuskan mau ke arah mana dunia mau dibawa. Tapi ya sama, mau Heber, mau elit global, makin hajat hidup orang banyak dijadikan proyek pribadi, makin belok kita dari apa yang sungguh baik untuk semua orang. Tapi apa yang sungguh baik untuk semua orang? Every turn we make has consequences. Someone even said that the invention of agriculture was when we as a species messed up everything, as soon as 9500 BC! 

Yah, apapun yang manusia lakukan pasti salah/ada salah-salahnya, yang bener kan cuma Tuhan. Maka, jadi pemimpin itu sulit, jadi orang biasapun sulit. But we need to make our decisions to be as ethical as possible, and definitely not at the expense of other people's lives. Apalagi Orr dan Heber cuma manusia. Walaupun aku sempet bertanya-tanya apa omnipotensi Orr membuatnya bukan manusia di situ, he's indeed a human through and through, lengkap dengan berbagai kelemahan, dan otak manusianya yang berpengetahuan terbatas dan penuh bias. Tbh, I'm with Orr here, his power is unsettling, nobody's qualified to wield such omnipotence. Even though Orr saves the world from utter destruction so many times, I'm still conflicted whether he has the right to change anything at all (Heber sih 100% enggak, that narcissistic ass), but since he doesn't have full control over it, I won't put it against him. Might not read it again but I guess I'll think about this book for a long time.

Cody Degen

Probably 4.5 stars. Maybe 5 if I think about it more. Definitely a classic of the genre, can easily see influence of this in later works.

A classic science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the greatest writers of the genre, set in a future world where one man’s dreams control the fate of humanity. In a future world racked by violence and environmental catastrophes, George Orr wakes up one day to discover that his dreams have the ability to alter reality. He seeks help from Dr. William Haber, a psychiatrist who immediately grasps the power George wields. Soon George must preserve reality itself as Dr. Haber becomes adept at manipulating George’s dreams for his own purposes. The Lathe of Heaven is an eerily prescient novel from award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin that masterfully addresses the dangers of power and humanity’s self-destructiveness, questioning the nature of reality itself. It is a classic of the science fiction genre.

The first of Ursula K. LeGuin's collection that I have gotten my hands on. PROS - a great concept, great characters, a good intro to sci-fi, some beautiful ruminations on the nature of humanity, and an epic perspective on environmental catastrophe from the 1980s. CONS - for a book that's less than 200 pages, it often got bogged down in sci-fi techno jargon, despite the fascinating concept I didn't feel compelled to keep picking it up. OVERALL - the book is a retelling of the classic story 'be careful what you wish for' in a unique new manifestation; however, it didn't quite compel me.

cedar winslow

logan chung

'Her worlds have a magic sheen . . . She moulds them into dimensions we can only just sense. She is unique. She is legend' THE TIMES 'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER George Orr is a mild and unremarkable man who finds the world a less than pleasant place to live: seven billion people jostle for living space and food. But George dreams dreams which do in fact change reality - and he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power. Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help. At first sceptical of George's powers, he comes to astonished belief. When he allows ambition to get the better of ethics, George finds himself caught up in a situation of alarming peril.

ursula le guin the writer that you are…!!!

Cathy Trình

Shape Mismatch

It's amazing how she weaved a simple concept, classic storytelling into something this engrossing, crazy and generally amazing book. I'm finally convinced to go through her works, and I am convinced it's going to be a good ride!

Rohit Arondekar

A man dreams. Some of these dreams come true in twisted and unpredictable ways. Not knowing which dream will alter reality and what the consequences will be, the protagonist becomes dependent on drugs to avoid dreams altogether. This leads him to a man intent on using the protagonists power to shape the world to be more hospitable and just. But can any man be trusted with making such decisions? Can a single human being alter the state of the world and affect the lives of millions in order to create a world that is good? Ursula Le Guin explores this question through a well written and engaging book that felt quite modern. I'm surprised there isn't a series or movie on Netflix with the same plot! The ideas and philosophy discussed are deep and I've only scratched the surface. In the beginning I felt like the protagonist is weak and this is a wonderful power. But as the story progresses the idea of having your intentions go through a deep and unknowing consciousness and manifest in the real world in unpredictable ways seemed terrifying. I think this is one book that will read differently based on your own life experiences and world view.

my first (!!!) le guin novel, and i think i’ll be reading a lot more after this one. she wrote beautiful prose and creates the best worlds, i enjoyed immersing myself in this one so so much

Gavin

Hot-footed mystical parable, afloat on a bed of Tao, psychoanalysis, and Nietzsche. Bad guy’s a Grand Unscrupulous Utilitarian: excellent, manipulative, and innocently destructive (Confucius?). Her memorable para-omnipotent protagonist George Orr is put-upon, dismissible, infuriatingly passive (or, rather, wu wei): the Tao. 

Scifi has a lot of conventions which can easily end in literary clumsiness – think contrived alien names, more or less stupid extrapolations from current science, brooding passages about the curst Capitalised Social Change of Twenty-three-dickety-four – but LeGuin, even this early, was in charge of them. Gripping, but top-heavy.

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How does it do as Serious science fiction?

 Social development: Too full of psychoanalysis to be sound. The bit where George solves racism by turning everyone grey, to awful effect, is good.

 Software development: None.

 Actual Science: Not its aim.

Le Guin gives me chills like no other. This book masterfully combine speculative fiction, Taoism, unreality, and poli-sci discourses in the unique and routine way the author has built an amazing body of work on. She somehow manages to capture that elusive and ethereal way in which a saccharine dreams sticks with you both in form and function of this magnificent story. 

Mike M

Midori Kobayashi

4/5stars


Classic Sci-fi asking all the right questions like? Should we even try to play god? If yes to what extent? What is the limit? How far can we go?

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

While the plot of this less than 200 pages book is beyond amazing, that is just one aspect of it. There is so much more to this dystopian sci--fi novel Ursula K. Le Guin is an amazing writer. Pick this one up if you haven't already. 

You have to help another person. But it's not right to play God with masses of people. To be God you have to know what you're doing. And to do any good at all, just believing you're right and your motives are good isn't enough.

Pavonini

Fraser Simons

Excellent classic sci-fi. Superb at provoking interesting questions. Maybe The question for me: Who are you actually, when opportunity presents itself. Money, or power, in whatever form it takes, is absolutely terrifying when looked at from that lens. I’d wager that if you grew up in poverty, even more so. People become their absolute worst selves as they achieve what we label success in our society. 

What if they the abstraction of influence was literalized, though? Replicating how we are socialized with that dynamic in place. Where the powerless are the designers of the world; dream crafting reality, what would that look like? The inclination to do good with power that essentially scales with ambition is a fantastic critique for many aspects of our society. From the meek “dreamers” in history, such as those we find in the future of this text, the IT space, Silicon Valley, etc. they really have shaped humanity. In some ways enriching life, other ways literally helped to destroy it further with those initial good intentions. 

One of the best analogy for capitalism in this generation is that of the save the trees! Do you remember that? Save them! We’re cutting them down. Clear cutting, the world is going to be affected terribly. In response we have gone fairly paperless. And the servers we use to do this are now arguably far worse for the environment than that ever was. There are only seemingly intelligent solutions in capitalism. Stuff we can’t see the repercussions of initially. But capitalism is inherently a stupid beast. There is no good outcome and every solution becomes a new problem. 

Such is the case in this book, only directly pointed at thought mechanics and the nature of humanity. I love when sci-fi books interrogate the human experience and make you think. Had this been a bit tighter of a story, short as it is, it would have easily have been 5 stars. As is, a solid 4 and more interesting than most scifi churned out today.

Claudia

"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new."

Ursula K. Le Guin re-makes our love of the imaginable and unimaginable with every book she writes.

Cindy Lieberman

If you could dream away the COVID pandemic, would you try? Why wouldn’t you?

When George Orr has an “effective” dream, it changes reality for everyone. If he dreams effectively of a pink dog, when he wakes there have always been pink dogs and everyone knows it. Only George knows that they didn’t exist before he went to sleep. 

George tries different approaches to not dreaming, including self-medicating. This gets him arrested and assigned to a therapist who, once he believes George, starts manipulating the dreams with suggestions that, because these are dreams, often go awry due to unexpected consequences.
 
If you could dream away the COVID pandemic, would you try? Not if you’ve read The Lathe of Heaven!

vins

3.5 star

I really wish this was a longer book. This is the first Le Guin book I read that is set in non-fantasy setting -- that is, on 00s earth -- and it detrimentally brings some of Le Guin's outdated politics into starker relief (mainly her speculation on international relations, and some troubling 70s notion on mixed identity). There's also a lot of neurobabbles that I could still parse due to my education background, but would alineate other readers. So really YMMV about these two points. 

The emotional catharsis of this book relies heavily on its romantic subplot. Problem is, Le Guin isn't really that known for her strong character arcs, and welp!!!!! There were potentials though; the characters have texture and depth, but their emotional connections feel truncated since the book put too much focus on the ongoing happenings around them. Which is why: I wish this was a longer book. I wanted more room for these characters and their growing relationships to breathe.

That say, her writing is as ingenious as ever. She has so much to say about the world around her; despite the aforementioned dubious politics, some of the throughlines that hold this book together still ring true even today.

B.H. Pitt

Orla Kilroy

I think probably her best book, characters are always so engaging but I just wish she developed some of the dream plots more  - not actually a critique of the book as I understand why she wouldn't, and it's not really her style for a massive book with a million plots, but each could be their own book. Total legend

Astha Prakash

A powerful, thought-provoking and unstoppable read. I had to tear myself away every time I had to work, eat or sleep. I love the way it's written, and also how it remarkably shows the tussle between two philosophical schools of thought. Though I really wish the ending was stronger, I'd still recommend this to everyone. Doesn't matter if you like sci-fi, or dystopia, or drama; it's a great story, and one that can very well mess with your sleep. Sweet dreams.

The Lathe of Heaven A Novel

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