Ursula K. Le Guin

Lathe of Heaven

Ursula K. Le Guin does it again. The concepts she chooses to tackle have been only hits for me. Her explorations are not only interesting to follow, they feel fresh and reflective, worked but not rigid, informative but not proselytizing.

In The Lathe of Heaven, a character deals with having unwanted and uncontrolled superhuman abilities, others with how to deal with such a person and the possibility of using him or being victims of his powers. Responsibility versus duty, the guilt of action versus that of inaction, voluntary action versus involuntary consequences, self-confidence versus hubris, none of these are used superficially here, even if this is quite a short book.

“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.”

In the space of a couple of months I read some books that probe this idea of power and responsibility, from The Strength of the Few to Blood Over Bright Haven and then the upcoming Ode to the Half-Broken, all of them through different perspectives and scales, and I felt The Lathe of Heaven works as a kind of coda for this theme.

If I ever write a novel, this idea will be a big part of its theme.

André Nóbrega

Ursula K. Le Guin does it again. The concepts she chooses to tackle have been only hits for me. Her explorations are not only interesting to follow, they feel fresh and reflective, worked but not rigid, informative but not proselytizing.
In The Lathe of Heaven, a character deals with having unwanted and uncontrolled superhuman abilities, others with how to deal with such a person and the possibility of using him or being victims of his powers. Responsibility versus duty, the guilt of action versus that of inaction, voluntary action versus involuntary consequences, self-confidence versus hubris, none of these are used superficially here, even if this is quite a short book.

“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.”

In the space of a couple of months I read some books that probe this idea of power and responsibility, from The Strength of the Few to Blood Over Bright Haven and then the upcoming Ode to the Half-Broken, all of them through different perspectives and scales, and I felt The Lathe of Heaven works as a kind of coda for this theme.
If I ever write a novel, this idea will be a big part of its theme.

Lathe of Heaven

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