Just Finished re-Reading: The Dispossessed by Ursula K LeGuin (FP: 1974) [319pp] 

Shevek couldn’t understand why being a revolutionary within a revolutionary society could be so difficult. He had been taught from an early age that what he was doing, what he was best for, was best for everyone. He couldn’t help being the smartest person in any room he entered. That wasn’t egoism, it was fact. Of course, that only meant that his mathematics, his physics, his theories couldn’t really be understood, be truly appreciated, by anyone else on Anarres but he couldn’t help the way his brain worked. But challenging the status quo, challenging the accepted ‘facts’, challenging so-called ‘authority’ was at the very core of their beliefs, wasn’t it? Or had things really gone that far? Where they no longer free? Would they have laws now, police, jails, censorship? Had they gone THAT far? Maybe the only thing to do was to leave. To leave the moon for the home-world Urras, the first to do so in 150 years since the original Odonians  left in order to live as they wanted, as Anarcho-Syndicalists. On Urras Shevek would be able to continue his work, meet with other scientists and maybe resolve more than his equations. Once resolved he was convinced that they would change everything. They would end human isolation and maybe, just maybe, do the same for Anarres. Maybe, by leaving, he could save his home-world too... 

I think this is the 4th time I’ve read this book, although the last time was over 20 years ago. The first time I read it I was honestly blown away by it. The political philosophy of the Odonians (named after their founder) REALLY appealed to the teenage me and helped to shape my personal politics going forward. Along with 1984 I can certainly credit LeGuin’s book as a foundational text to who I am today. So, what did I think re-reading it after such a long gap? I was actually pleased that I found it both easy to read and that my memory of the quality of the writing had stood the test of time. I found that I remembered a few specifics – calling a hand THE hand rather than YOUR hand (as in ‘the hand hurts’ rather than ‘my hand hurts’ which is considered to be propertarian) and, rather weirdly, the scene where Shevek is introduced to a child's pet otter... The rest of the book seemed new and fresh. I was surprised, having forgotten, that the Anarchist society on Anarres was starting to ‘fail’ and had started to show creeping authoritarianism. I found the critique of that shift really interesting. I also very much liked the way the world of Urras – a planet very much like ours in many ways – came under scrutiny.  

As you might imagine this was a VERY political novel essentially contrasting a (mostly) functioning Anarcho-Syndicalist society with a Capitalist one (the country of A-Io on Urras). The genius of the work is that the political side of things is the water the characters swim in rather than constantly front and centre in the narrative. This is, above all else, a character driven story. It is centred, as you might expect, on Shevek himself (who IMO is a GREAT character) but his partner Takver gets a great deal of page-time too and I liked her almost as much. They made a great couple and I loved spending time with them. For those put off by the idea that this is science-fiction I can only say that, although it has SF elements (alien planets, it's in the reasonably far future, the core idea is scientific dealing with faster-than-light communication, and there’s a few spaceship rides) if ALL of these elements were taking away it’d still be a cracking story about choice, freedom and personal belief. So, after my 4th (at least) reading I’d still rank this as one of my Top 20 SF novels and is, therefore, highly recommended.