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While we read a novel, we are insane—bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren’t there, we hear their voices… Sanity returns (in most cases) when the book is closed.
Ursula K. Le Guin (via amandaonwriting)
Posted 9 months ago with 1,203 notes
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If we thought of all fictional genres as literature, we’d be done with the time-wasting, ill-natured diatribes and sneers against popular novelists who don’t write by the rules of realism, the banning of imaginative writing from MFA writing courses, the failure of so many English teachers to teach what people actually read, and the endless, silly apologising for actually reading it.
Ursula K. Le Guin on genre Le Guin’s Hypothesis | Book View Cafe Blog (via penamerican)
Posted 10 months ago with 174 notes
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As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.
Ursula Le Guin (via creativehypocrisy)
Posted 11 months ago with 472 notes

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

The book is set in Portland, Oregon in the year 2002. Portland has three million inhabitants and continuous rain. It is deprived enough for the poorer inhabitants to have kwashiorkor, or protein-deprivation. The culture is much the same as the 1970s in the United States, though impoverished. There is also a massive war in the Middle East, with Egypt and Israel allied against Iran.

George Orr, a draftsman, has long been abusing drugs to prevent himself from having “effective” dreams, which retroactively change reality. After having one of these dreams, the new reality is the only reality for everyone else, but George retains memory of the previous reality. Under threat of being placed in an asylum, Orr is forced to undergo “voluntary” psychiatric care for his drug abuse with the psychiatrist, William Haber.

I really enjoyed this story. I was glad to read it for my English class this past semester. It is science fiction, which I haven’t gotten the opportunity to read a lot of. I found the idea of manipulating reality by dreaming to be a great starting point in the novel. I appreciated how this novel took the idea of power in authority and even of ethnicity. Le Guin writes this novel so eloquently that it’s easy to follow and understand.

If you enjoyed 1984, then you will definitely enjoy this novel. Even the protagonist’s name sake is written for the author’s pseudonym George Orwell. These novels both have fairly similar. They both deal with authority and the willingness of fight back. I would highly recommend this novel!

4/5

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Orr was where he had been for months - alone: knowing he was insane and knowing he was not insane, simultaneously and intensely. It was enough to drive him insane.
The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin
Posted 1 year ago with 19 notes

ladytheadoraofthelightseekers reblogged your post: Fact: In 1968, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a book…block

Did it get published? I want

Oh yes, it was published and it’s a series as well. It’s called A Wizard of Earthsea.

Fact: In 1968, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote a book about a boy who finds out he’s a wizard and goes to a wizarding school. It is called A Wizard of Earthsea.