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[skygiants]

It is almost this month's book club, which reminds me that I never wrote up last month's book club book, Ursula LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven.

The Lathe of Heaven is one of those deceptively short, simple LeGuins that takes a premise and just steadily and relentlessly works its way through it.

In this case, the premise is that when hapless little George Orr goes into REM sleep, his dreams accidentally change the world.

Nobody knows about or remembers any of the previous iterations of reality but George, and George is EXTREMELY STRESSED about all of this. So stressed that the mild dystopia in which he lives eventually mandates that he go to therapy -- where his therapist Dr. Haber becomes the second person to learn about George's abilities, and has the bright idea of combining hypnosis with sleep manipulation to create a perfect (for Dr. Haber) society!

Dr. Haber has probably not read The Monkey's Paw or any of the other various helpful fables about being careful what you wish for, but even if he had read them, he probably wouldn't think they applied to him anwyway.

What follows is an increasingly weird series of dystopias, as George fumbles through an effort to take some sort of responsibility for his unwanted powers by attempting to convince Dr. Haber that he should not be taking responsibility for the whole world, while, around them, any kind of definitive sense of 'reality' starts to fold inward on itself like the end of an Ikuhara series.

The book has three characters -- George, Dr. Haber, and Heather Lalache, George's lawyer and love interest, who in the first half of the book seems like she is going to be a force on the order of the first two and in the second half of the book functions almost entirely as a metaphorical symbol for Why A World In Which Race Does Not Exist Is A Dystopia. (Heather is mixed-race.) This is probably my biggest frustration with the book and the reason I do not wholeheartedly love it, but is also something that I do not think would have happened were this not one of LeGuin's first novels, and written in 1971.

There have been a couple of TV movies made of this book and I haven't seen any of them, but the more I think about it, the more I would love to see a really surreally animated version.

Comments

[sdelmonte]

I saw the PBS film some years ago, and it's worth a watch if you can track it down. It was pretty experimental, and rather surreal, and filmed on a budget but still really interesting in a 1980 kind of way. The cast includes Bruce Davison (Sen. Kelly in the X-Men films) and Kevin Conway (Kahless on Next Gen), and the screenwriter was Diane English years before she created Murphy Brown. It's not a perfect film, but it's stuck with me for a long time, while the book - which I read about two years later - hasn't.

PS: LeGuin was actually involved in the production. That sort of thing never happens.

[skygiants]

Ha, I don't know how available it is in general but it is actually really easy for me to track it down because it's in our archive!

[sovay]

Ha, I don't know how available it is in general but it is actually really easy for me to track it down because it's in our archive!

I'm pretty sure I saw it on DVD, but it is also on YouTube.

That said, you should totally watch the copy in your archive; that's awesome.

[kore]

Le Guin helped polish the script and she and her husband were extras in it actually. She wrote a charming essay about it called Working on the Lathe. There was another production by A&E in 2002 which was TERRIBLE and she disavowed it. IIRC the f/x on the original Lathe were by Ed Emshwiller. It's not like the book in a lot of respects, but it's a really solid little movie.

[sovay]

PS: LeGuin was actually involved in the production. That sort of thing never happens.

Seconding the 1980 PBS film. It is microbudget and I remember the climax being highly confusing to people who have not read the book (like the person I watched it with years ago), but I liked Davison's George and Margaret Avery's Heather a lot.

[kore]

Kevin Conway as Haber was excellent too. Le Guin really liked all three leads. She also really liked the Alien costumes.

[sanguinity]

FOUR characters: George, Dr. Haber, Heather Lalache, and Portland. If you're familiar with the city and its history, there are several recognizeable visions of what the city might have been. At one point I was going to do a photo/history blog of the urban references in that book, and then (as with so many projects!) got bogged down and never quite got it up and rolling.

[skygiants]

Oh man, I was wondering what Portlandians made of the book! I would be FASCINATED to see that hypothetical blog (but, uh, I imagine it would be a very time-consuming project.)

...admittedly I also wonder what 1971!LeGuin would have made of Portland's reputation now.

[sanguinity]

Well, I for one am very amused at Mt. Tabor erupting at the end of the book. We are very proud to have a volcano inside city limits, after all. :-D

But yeah, there's a TON of recognizable stuff throughout. I'd have to see if I still have my notes... Oh, here's a c&p from an email where I went into some of this for a friend, who was staying in one of the Convention Center hotels in inner NE:

BTW, [the Convention Center] is pretty much the location of George Orr's first round of therapy, in the "Willamette East Tower." That little pocket of skyscrapers there was *just* being built when the novel was published: the Lloyd 700 building (700 NE Multnomah) had just been built, and the Lloyd 500 building (500 NE Multnomah) was under construction.

Of course, that little pocket of skyscrapers is puny compared to what's in the book: the psychiatrist's office is on the 62nd floor of the Willamette East Tower: there are no buildings that tall in Portland, not even Big Pink or the Wells Fargo Tower. Lloyd 700 and 500 are a paltry 16 floors, however much they pop above their surrounding skyline. But Willamette East Tower was in the massively overpopulated version of the world, one where Portland has 3 million people (as opposed to the half-million it has now).

Oh, and the MAX that runs from the Convention Center down to PSU (yellow/green lines) wasn't built yet in 1971 -- not even the original MAX line had been planned, let alone built! -- and yet the subway that George Orr takes home after therapy *is* the current green/yellow line. Because transit patterns are super-stable in a city's life, and just because the MAX didn't exist then didn't mean that you couldn't tell exactly where it should go, if it should ever be built.

There's also a point in the novel where someone takes a streetcar up into the hills above Goose Hollow: that streetcar line existed once upon a time, the ruins are still there.

There's also a reference in the novel to "the old Lloyd Center, once the biggest shopping center in the world, back before the Crash." Lloyd Center, as I recall, was just being built then. I don't think of it as being particularly large, even by 1970s standards, but I'd have to dig through the newspaper archives to see what was being said about it at time.

But yeah, just a ton of stuff like that, all throughout the book.

And no, I haven't the slightest idea what 1971!Le Guin would have to say about Portland's current rep; I don't even know if she has a public opinion about it now.

[skygiants]

This is all fascinating! I maybe especially love that LeGuin predicted the MAX line.

[kore]

There's also how Haber's Tower of Learning is the Pittock Mansion by the end, which is hilarious.

[kore]

At one point I was going to do a photo/history blog of the urban references in that book

OH, THAT WOULD BE AWESOME

Did you ever read the photobook Le Guin wrote captions for called Blue Moon over Thurman Street?

[snickfic]

My takeaway from this review is that clearly I need to read this novel again, because I remember basically none of it. Oops. I do remember coming away feeling like I'd just read Le Guin writing a Philip K. Dick novel, though - that kind of paranoid nature-of-reality stuff was such a big theme for him.

[skygiants]

Yeah, it definitely falls squarely in that slightly hallucinogenic vein. But it's so clearly LeGuin writing in that vein!

[sovay]

There have been a couple of TV movies made of this book and I haven't seen any of them, but the more I think about it, the more I would love to see a really surreally animated version.

Oh, man, if Satoshi Kon weren't dead.

[lnhammer]

I'm pretty sure Kon cited this as an influence, actually.

[skygiants]

...OF COURSE HE DID.

[skygiants]

Not gonna lie, I was also thinking this.

[hokuton_punch]

It's actually one of my favorite Le Guins - I adore Heather and George and the Aliens, and some of the passages are so lovely. The very end where the world is collapsing while Haber dreams freaks me out to this day. ... I keep wishing there were more fic for it (especially with MOAR HEATHER), but so far the only ideas I have ever had were crossovers. (I wrote them anyway and am very proud of them, particularly the Marathon one, but I would still like to do Lathe of Heaven-only fic at some point...)

I would 100% watch a trippy animated version, though I did like the PBS version I watched on Youtube! But - animated. Oh man, that would be lovely.

[kore]

It's one of my favourite Le Guin novels too. I think George and Heather are two of her best characters. I wish she'd done more books like it, she said it was an homage to Philip K. Dick.

[hokuton_punch]

I have to admit, I haven't read a whole lot of Philip K. Dick, but I definitely prefer Le Guin to what I have read. XD (Not that I hate Dick, but it's hard to measure up to my love for Le Guin!)

[kore]

Oh yeah, I think she's a much, much better writer -- one of the best. But if you'e read Dick there are definitely a lot of themes and symbols of his that she's kind of using -- dreams, unreality, the confusion about which reality you're in or if you're deluded, the dystopian urban setting, even the emphasis on drugs at the beginning, that kind of thing. Le Guin brings us much closer to her villain than Dick ever does, though -- he usually has three tiers of characters, a kind of nobody, an upper-management type and then the villain, who's powerful but rarely seen. Le Guin takes us right into Haber and he's a total satire on the whole idea of Enlightenment and unchecked growth and "the proper study of mankind is man," and Dick's villains usually aren't that philosophical, either. They mainly want to destroy. Haber is fascinating to me because Le Guin shows how what you might think are the best things about him, his idealism and willingness to experiment, actually enable his worst actions.

And you probably already know this, but I am pretty sure George's name is a tribute to Orwell and 1984, which also has the benevolent/twisted Wise Man and rebellious love interest and repressive society, &c &c. Orr's shifting realities even mirror the Eastasia/Eurasia thing, a bit.

[skygiants]

I had not thought of crossover potential, but dang, now you mention it it would work with almost anything, in sort of the same way Utena does -- constructed reality is no hindrance.

[mneme]

There was a play version of this (at the experimental theater near Bowling Green) which I saw and Did Not Hate--although, in addition to being reasonably faithful [kinda] it was deeply weird. Their usual habit of putting on shows with like 3-4 actors worked incredibly well for this very small novel, though.

[skygiants]

Ha, well, 'deeply weird' definitely seems appropriate for this book.

[mneme]

Yup!

IIRC, they switched the "Mixed race" lawyer to fit the actresses' ethnicity, which worked fine. They may also have had everyone be -green- during the race-blind bit near the end as well, rather than grey.

[luzula]

I think I have read this, but it was ages ago and I hardly remember it. Hmm.

[skygiants]

Perhaps a reread is due!

[kore]

I do think Heather sadly fades out (and literally, even, maybe, that part of the book is v strange) but I love that passage where she's watching over George in the cabin, I think it's one of the most vivid things Le Guin ever wrote. IIRC she had written Tombs of Atuan in 1970 from Tenar's POV, Planet of Exile and Lathe have shared male/female narration and The Eye of the Heron is the first book she wrote where there was no central male hero (this is from Wiki but still good)

I gradually realized that my own fiction was telling me that I could no longer ignore the feminine. While I was writing The Eye of the Heron in 1977, the hero insisted on destroying himself before the middle of the book. "Hey," I said, "you can't do that, you're the hero. Where's my book?" I stopped writing. The book had a woman in it, but I didn't know how to write about women. I blundered around a while and then found some guidance in feminist theory. I got excited when I discovered feminist literary criticism was something I could read and actually enjoy. I read The Norton Book of Literature by Women from cover to cover. It was a bible for me. It taught me that I didn't have to write like an honorary man anymore, that I could write like a woman and feel liberated in doing so.

So I think that affects Heather's characterization too. I never find a reason for why she returns at the end of the book, but it's always great to see her as herself again.

[hokuton_punch]

Heather and George at the cabin is definitely one of my favorite parts! I've always like the sound of creeks and little rivers, but I love it just a little bit more because of that passage where Heather hears singing in the sound of the creek.

[skygiants]

Heather in the first part of the book is so great, I loved her very much and was all primed to see her enter the lists as an equivalent force to Haber -- everything from her POV when she's still herself is wonderful, and then ... I would really love to see the version of the book that she would write post-Heron.

[kore]

Yeah, the part where she comes back in the gray-skinned reality and isn't really herself is....a bit weird. I thought she would help take on Haber in the final confrontation, and she doesn't really? at least not that I remember? And it's great when she comes back, bu there's essentially no reason for it.

The book works better for me if I see it as part of Le Guin's "marriage thesis" thing -- that it's not so much about three people, as a dyad and its antagonist. (Le Guin is careful not to have Haber emotionally intimate with anyone, and most of her villains use and alienate other people as a matter of course.) George/Heather are like Shevek/Takver in Dispossessed, with some of the same problems, the female characters start out as very vibrant and then fade out when the romance starts up. Same thing happened with Tenar/Ged -- not that there was romance, but after Tombs of Atuan I really thought we'd see her in the third book, and I think she gets one tiny mention. (And then of course there was Tehanu. Oh boy. But even in that, she and Ged are still like a dyad.)

I mean, I don't know if it works for other people, but I started looking at Le Guin's books after she said the thesis of her whole work was "Marriage" (in Language of the Night) and her books usually do have two protagonists, male/female, and she loves having a male "jellyfish" and a stronger female character. So they usually have an unconventional relationship to each other, but they're in the conventional relationship socially speaking? And I really see it in Lathe -- George comes to Heather asking for her help, she's the outwardly aggressive and even fierce partner, there's a lot of emphasis on his soft vulnerable flesh (that repeated visual of Haber laying his great hand on George's throat, yeek) v Heather's metallic armour and masks, and then she has that wonderful realization in the cabin (which is really maybe my fave part of the whole book) that "Here, short, bloodshot, psychotic, and in hiding, here he was, her tower of strength" -- he's not just taking from her, but giving something nobody else can. (And then she thinks right afterwards "Life is the most incredible mess," which is great.)

And then when the colour of her skin can't exist, she can't either, which is.... ....yeah. I mean the text flat out says she couldn't be born. And then she's brought back by the dreaming? The music? The Alien? And then she goes pouf, and George is the one who gets the big heroic gesture. (Which I also love, because it's "pressing one damned OFF button.") And then wait, she's back again. I mean, I love that she does come back because **HEATHER,** but it is sort of how Left Hand read as a book about a planet of dudes because the male narrator used the default male pronouns. It's a big step forward, but there's also something off about it.

/babble because I do love that book a whole lot, sorry

[sovay]

Same thing happened with Tenar/Ged -- not that there was romance, but after Tombs of Atuan I really thought we'd see her in the third book, and I think she gets one tiny mention.

How did you feel about The Other Wind? I have huge problems with the metaphysics, but I like cranky older Tenar and Ged.

[kore]

I read it once, maybe twice, and it didn't grab me that much. IIRC it's more like Tehanu, focused on Tenar's story but with multiple narrators and Ged pretty much stays out of the picture, but they're still a dyad. There's also the dyad of the princess and the king. Tehanu isn't paired with anyone and then she's miraculously changed and I don't know how I feel about that. It felt like it should have been her book, the way the book with her name on it wasn't.

[skygiants]

BABBLE ALWAYS WELCOME but yeah, there's something really frustrating to me about how she functions in the second half, or rather doesn't function -- there's so much in the beginning about her aggression and strength, I really wanted her to get to utilize those qualities actively against Haber, and instead it's just her existence/lack thereof motivating George; it was such a deflation of what I was hoping for after her first introduction.

[dhampyresa]

This sounds like a very interesting book.

[skygiants]

It was a very good book club selection! PLENTY to discuss.

[nextian]

I really loved Lathe of Heaven, mostly because of Heather, but also because of the vivid unreality/surreality of the dreams and the insistence of the vision of governance. It reminded me how much I love LeGuin, really, how much it's like "no, listen, even when she's being kind of amateurish and early she's still pretty dang masterful."

[skygiants]

There's a sort of clean and direct quality to her writing that I desperately admire, in a way that's very different from the directness of somebody like Hemingway -- the fact that she can evoke that hallucinogenic quality and that sense of knifelike precision in her writing at the same time is kind of amazing to me.

[allchildren]

This was my first LeGuin, assigned for some reason in a writing class I took. I don't even remember having to write a paper on it, although maybe we did. Mainly I just remember the incredible turn of phrase regarding Heather's "French diseases of the soul" such as ennui and malaise.

[skygiants]

That was definitely the bit of narration when I imprinted hard on Heather.

[monanotlisa]

Huh, now I want to read it. Thanks!

[skygiants]

Hope you enjoy it, if you do!