The Lathe of Heaven - Hardcover

Le Guin, Ursula K.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684125293 ISBN 13: 9780684125299

Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co, 1971

Synopsis

George Orr is a mild and unremarkable man who finds the world a less than pleasant place to live: seven billion people jostle for living space and food. But George dreams dreams which do in fact change reality - and he has no means of controlling this extraordinary power.

Psychiatrist Dr William Haber offers to help. At first sceptical of George's powers, he comes to astonished belief. When he allows ambition to get the better of ethics, George finds himself caught up in a situation of alarming peril.

About this title

Review

First published in 1971, Ursula Le Guin's SF novel The Lathe of Heaven combines a sheaf of future possibilities--including an early evocation of global warming--with a parable about wishes that has the terrible clarity of a fairytale.

The uncomfortably gifted George Orr is desperately drugging himself to avoid sleep, because he knows his dreams can change the world. Psychiatrist Dr Haber begins with good intentions of curing Orr, but when he finds he can shape Orr's "effective dreams" and force his own wishes into reality, the lure of power is too much. Though Haber believes he wants only to do good, he's also quick to upgrade himself from obscurity in a windowless office to Director of the prestigious Oregon Oneirological Institute.

During his flawed attempts to create an earthly paradise, we see that each sweeping change makes matters worse. Let's fix over-population: suddenly there's a new past in which humanity was almost destroyed by plague, billions of people are written out of existence, and Haber drinks a toast--"to a better world". Let's fix war: the hapless Orr's dreaming mind can only imagine and create a new threat that unites Earth against outside foes. Let's fix racism: the result is even more painful. As Orr broods:

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

In this mad round of poisoned wishes, it becomes necessary to stop. But power-crazed Haber refuses to stop....

Beautifully written, jolting in its moral force, The Lathe of Heaven is one of Le Guin's finest SF excursions. --David Langford

Review

"A very good book...A writer's writer, Ursula Le Guin brings reality itself to the proving ground."--Theodore Sturgeon"Profound...Beautifully wrought...Her percetions of such matters as geopolitics, race, socialized medicine, and the patient/shrink relationship are razor sharp and more than a little cutting."--"National Review""Le Guin neatly and eerily conveys the bad-dream civilization which is George's everyday world."--"Washington Post Book World""A brilliant novel about the future."--"Pensacola News""Gracefully developed...Extremely inventive...What science fiction is supposed to do."--"Newsweek""A rare and powerful synthesis of poetry and science, reason and emotion."--"The New York Times"

"Profound. Beautifully wrought...[Le Guin's] perceptions of such matters as geopolitics, race, socialized medicine, and the patient-shrink relationship are razor sharp and more than a little cutting." -- "National Review"

"When I read "The Lathe of Heaven" as a young man, my mind was boggled; now when I read it, more than twenty-five years later, it breaks my heart. Only a great work of literature can bridge - so thrillingly - that impossible span."--Michael Chabon

"A rare and powerful synthesis of poetry and science, reason and emotion."--The New York Times

"Gracefully developed...extremely inventive.... What science fiction is supposed to do."--Newsweek

"Profound. Beautifully wrought... [Le Guin's] perceptions of such matters as geopolitics, race, socialized medicine, and the patient-shrink relationship are razor sharp and more than a little cutting."--National Review

"A very good book... A writer's writer, Ursula Le Guin brings reality itself to the proving ground."--Theodore Sturgeon

"When I read The Lathe of Heaven as a young man, my mind was boggled; now when I read it, more than twenty-five years later, it breaks my heart. Only a great work of literature can bridge - so thrillingly - that impossible span."--Michael Chabon

Edition details

• Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co
• Publication date: 1971
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684125293
• ISBN 13: 9780684125299
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 184