Rapture of the Deep

The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin. Wow. First, I should start by saying that if you want your story to contain lots of action and a clear resolution, this may not be the book for you. If you want to explore ideas about how societies could and should work, though, this could be one of the very best books.

The story begins with Shevek, a physicist living on an arid and physically limited world, braving a crowd of angry people who want to stop him from boarding a ship for a lush and bountiful neighboring world, where he plans to visit and develop his ideas. The bountiful world, Urras, is the home planet for the people of Shevek’s world, Anarres; the latter was settled by a group of anarchists who were disrupting Urras too much and who needed their own homeland. Alternating chapters tell about Shevek’s time on Urras and about his life on Anarres leading up to his decision to go. It builds slowly, and I was in not-sad tears for the last three chapters, where we see some stark and surprising contrasts, both big-picture and small-picture. Even though Le Guin likes the idea of freedom that goes with this anarchist idealism, she is wonderfully realistic about how things might actually work. She shows us that the absence of formal laws on Anarres doesn’t preclude social laws and the tyranny of convention, and that there’s no way to enforce the law they do have, “the single principle of mutual aid between individuals” (p.300).

I said that Shevek is a physicist, and this is an absolutely brilliant part of the story – he’s a physicist of the “time” side of the space-time continuum, whereas our physicists have focused instead on “space.” Those of us who think about such things know that time can be thought of as Chronos (a steady progression of seconds, minutes, years, etc.) versus Kairos (the way we experience unusual immersive events). We can also think of time as moving past points that are set (like riding down a river) versus time being the movement itself (like standing on the bank watching the river). In Le Guin’s story, the two main theoretical aspects of time, in physics, are Sequentiality and Simultaneity. When Shevek talks about his thinking (he’s trying to get both parts into a grand theory), it’s clear that Le Guin put a lot of effort into developing this physics, but the reader is never overwhelmed by it. I appreciated that when Shevek goes to a concert on Urras, he thinks of music as the form of art most closely connected with time, but in this book, Le Guin achieves her goal of achieving the same through story.

As a scholar, I also appreciate Shevek’s problems with getting to develop and share his ideas. On his homeworld, there are gatekeepers who don’t want to take the risk of promoting (or permitting) anything new. On Urras – and here’s a problem I don’t have – there are people hoping to exploit his work to make themselves fabulously wealthy. Le Guin’s frustrations with the publishing industry are already apparent, back in 1974.

And, back in 1974, Le Guin was already pointing out that plastics are an everlasting pollutant!

I see on Wikipedia that Lester Del Rey thought the ending was too much of a “deus ex machina,” as it gives Shevek a way to move forward with outside help. I disagree – an important experience for the reader is our awareness that we do not, as far as we know, have recourse to this “deus,” which makes the story even more poignant. This book is a stunning achievement.

It’s also a great contrast with Naomi Kritzer’s Liberty’s Daughter, which looks at anarchism and libertarianism from another angle, one in which there’s no idealism of mutual aid whatsoever.

(This was my self-assigned book for October; I’m still working on my September book too. I started reading the other then learned about a group online reading this one, so I went ahead and read it now too.)

Long Boat: Star Crossing (Long Boat #1), by Matthew Ambrose. Last year I got to read this book my friend's friend had self-published, and it was a lot of fun. Even though there was plenty of action and suspense, the overall feel was "cozy," and the Christianity of several (many?) of the crew members reflected quite well on the religion. So if you're in the mood for some cozy, gently Christian space opera by a good storyteller with a knack for writing about technology in ways that are easy to picture, I can definitely recommend this book. This time through, I got to suggest copy-edits, which should make it into the next printed edition, whenever that will be. (It's mostly just a matter of commas.)

Today J, D, and DG drove down to Cottage Grove for another qualifier for a big Magic tournament, which will be in Portland in four months or so. DG had already qualified. In today’s event, J and D ended up in the finals, and J won. They’ll be going back a week from tomorrow for a third qualifier, to see if D can win this one.

It was great to be able to read outside again, last night’s storm having cleared the air beautifully. I hope tomorrow will also be warm; we expect rain on Monday.

Today I started the process of submitting that paper to the journal where it has a long-shot chance (one in seven). The process was quite straightforward until I got to the part where I needed to confirm that I had permission to name all the people I listed in the acknowledgments section, which is a relatively new requirement. That put the whole thing on hold until I could hear from a dozen people. It seemed like a pain, but actually it was great – they all wrote back with cheerful encouragement!

J. and I have tons of cleaning to do before his parents visit in mid-October, and my main job (for now) will be to sort through the 25+ boxes I moved from my garage to his garage in July for the heat pump replacement. In theory I could just move them all back, but I’d rather take advantage of the opportunity to sort them. My plan is to look through one box almost every day between now and the end of the month. Today’s box had electronics in it – I discarded three keyboards and two 56K modems (speak up if you want one!), and I organized at least a dozen cables and cords. Tomorrow I’ll set up a card table; crouching like that isn’t good for my lower back.

Then, this evening, J started playing the long-awaited sequel to Hollow Knight, which is called Silksong and features Hornet, a major character in the first game. Eight years is a long wait for a video game! It’s every bit as gorgeous as the first game, and they wisely went with the same amazing composer. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to research the accessibility settings, since Hornet is much bouncier than the original character, and it was pretty problematic for my visual vertigo. I sure hope we can figure it out. Already I have learned to shut my eyes for most of the battles.

So, even though the air has gotten smoky outside, we are pretty busy indoors. I’d still like to do more reading out there – we’ll see.

The Dallergut Dream Department Store, by Miye Lee. This generally light and entertaining book has sold over a million copies in Korea, and I can see why it’s a popular sensation. Penny applies to work in the five-story emporium where sleepers (both humans and animals) show up to purchase their dreams; they pay with the emotions they experience after waking, or sometimes after thinking about what they’ve dreamed and incorporating its message into their lives. The dreammakers – an equivalent of film directors in the waking world – are celebrities, each with their own specialty. We readers learn what it’s like to work for Dallergut in the department store, and we also glimpse moments in the lives of his customers, as the dreams work their psychological magic. Very fun.

(I should add that our library has this shelved under Mi-ye Yi, an alternate spelling of the author's name, which is a tad confusing!)

My main resolutions success for August was the completion of "Book 2" of Koestler's The Act of Creation - it was definitely worthwhile for me to have finished it, and I wouldn't have done so without my resolution. For September I think I'll commit to Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, by Isabel Wilkerson.

I was pretty active today, for someone recovering from whatever. It was the first football game of the year, and I use football games as a good way to structure "getting stuff done" in the livingroom, which included a fair amount of cleaning. Then as soon as the game was done, J let me know he was biking back from the river, so I walked down to the park to meet him. It was such a lovely temperature, and the sky was nicely clear! I then rested a bit and read, and chatted with D for about an hour when he came to visit, but as soon as the cats were inside J's house for the evening I mowed his lawn. So much! I hope I won't regret it - I don't have to do much tomorrow, at least.

Circle of Magic: Briar’s Book, by Tamora Pierce. This book was rather dark and sad – the city where the four kids live is stricken with a plague of “blue pox,” which has never before been encountered, and Briar finds himself in the thick of it, at first quarantined with a sick friend and many of the other early patients, and later helping the magical research team work on identifying a cure. The ongoing theme is “how many of Briar’s friends will die?” The one highlight of the book is that we get to know much more about Dedicate Crane, who is well known for his difficult personality – that part is excellent.