Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven
Written up as being one of her best and prize worthy stories, Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Lathe of Heaven" was surprisingly difficult to find reviews on. This writer who has received various acknowledgements for her success in the field of Science Fiction and Fantasy writing has produced another triumph. This specific novel, although a somewhat futuristic, deals with the mind over reality issue instead of the more traditional machine tech-future that sci-fi is accustomed to. Le Guin holds a thought experiment, to see what happens when a man begins to play with the powers of a god. LeGuin utilizes three main characters in this book, George Orr, lives in a world full of self-inflicted anxiety. The year is 2002 and Orr has the ability to shape the world around him through what he sees in his waking dreams. This civilization does not have clue to the changes that occur around them as his dream rearrange their lives and even documented history. Diagnosed with a drug problem Orr is falls into the hands of a power-mad psychiatrist, Haber, who tries to control Orr's dreams to his ideology. This leads him to the third character, Lelache, who is a lawyer in the first reality but ends up intermingled through all of the alternate realit
ies. All three characters are well written and go through turbulent and descriptive emotional responses to the unfolding set of events. Orr's fatigue and distrust, Haber's over ambitious utopian ideals and Lelache's determination and submissive undertones are all so descriptively brought together that you can identify with each one of them. The second review also coming form the library Journal, November '71 have their mains focus on the theme. With a bit of a different look it describes other familiar themes as invasion of aliens and mad scientists. True that it does include those elements, the story is by far not contained into that at all. It uses those small components to shine a new light on an even more basic theme of corruption. This can even be traced back to Shakespeare's MacBeth in where Lady MacBeth is not satisfied with even her enviable position but pushes the envelop to ultimate tragedy. Even though is goes on to say that LeGuin carries the book past the stereotype of standard science fiction, this review fails to look deeper into the other more developed areas and generalizes its content. A large portion of this novel is dedicated to a good intentioned end but brought about by unscrupulous means. This book seems to cover all the classic cliches of "absolute power corrupting" and how even perfection can be flawed, but goes about it in such a way that can be described as utterly thrilling even though dealing with perhaps an exhausted plot. Some examples of this are shown when after every session Haber ends up attaining a higher status in society every time he changes the past. A man trying to be a leader, to be strong, never
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Approximate Word count = 1119
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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