'Ursula Le Guin was able to reimagine many concepts we take to be natural, shared, and unalterable - gender, utopia, creation, war, family, the city, the country - and reveal the all-too-human constructions at their centre ... Literature will miss her. There's no one like her' Zadie Smith 'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER Through his dreams, George Orr can make alternate realities real - but who is controlling him? War rages and global warming wreaks havoc on the quality of life everywhere as seven billion ...
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'Ursula Le Guin was able to reimagine many concepts we take to be natural, shared, and unalterable - gender, utopia, creation, war, family, the city, the country - and reveal the all-too-human constructions at their centre ... Literature will miss her. There's no one like her' Zadie Smith 'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER Through his dreams, George Orr can make alternate realities real - but who is controlling him? War rages and global warming wreaks havoc on the quality of life everywhere as seven billion people jostle for living space and food. For George Orr, a mild and unremarkable man, the world is overwhelmingly difficult. But George is different: his dreams can change reality - although he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power. Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help, directing George to dream a world without racism. But as ambition gets the better of ethics, no one can predict the devastating consequences.
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It's hard to know what to say about this book that wasn't already said quite well in the editorial reviews in the next tab over, but I was sucked into this book immediately by its bizarre, nightmarish premise. George Orr is what any of us would become given the weight on his shoulders of responsibility, guilt, and fear of what his mind might dream up. On the other hand, while the reader might be tempted to condemn his psychiatrist for the egotism that leads him to use George as a tool, is it so hard to imagine that a person in his position would push the boundaries of the new power he wields? "The Lathe of Heaven," will make you think about responsibility, about the meaning of dreams, and about power relationships, particularly that between doctor and patient.
