This is the story of a disassociating god.
In this novel, a nuclear apocalypse has come and wiped out all life on earth. In the afterglow of this annihilation, George Orr went to sleep. When he woke up, he woke up safe in his bed in a completely non-destroyed world. George Orr, merely by dreaming, changed the world.
George is cursed. His dreams rarely go as expected. When he was a boy, George’s aunt attempted sexual assault against him. The next morning, she was dead, and she’d been dead for weeks. He didn’t mean to kill her, because George cannot control his dreams; his unconscious mind simply wished her gone, so she died.
A lifetime of trauma follows, culminating in drug abuse with his attempts to avoid dreaming at all cost. Eventually, he winds up a victim of the legal system, and is forced by the government to seek therapy from a therapist. Dr. Haber is a well meaning therapist; he earnestly wants what’s best for his patients. Unfortunately, Haber is a control freak.
Haber realizes very early on the utility of Orr’s god-like power. Orr can’t control his power on his own, but with Haber’s hypnosis techniques, Haber can control the world.
Spoilers Below. I’m writing this review in good faith, as one author reviewing another’s book, trying to balance positives with negatives.
WHAT IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE? WHAT GENRES? WHAT MAJOR TROPES?
- Daoism!
- Morality SciFi
- Hypnosis and dreaming and psychic powers
- Reality warping.
- Classic SciFi
- Anyone 12+
MY EMOTIONAL RESPONSE/ FUN FACTOR
This is a re-read for me. I read this once before, when I was ~14 years old. I’ve got to admit, the first time I read this it didn’t leave an impression. Re-reading it today at 35, it leaves a HUGE impression. This book is excellent. I don’t fully agree with it’s espoused morality, but this is so good.
5 stars, easily. It’s easy to understand why this is a classic.
WARNING! QUIT READING NOW UNTIL YOU FINISH READING THE BOOK!
CONCEPT AND EXECUTION
This book’s concept is: ‘It’s counterproductive to actively try to force change upon the world from above, like a king commanding a legion of peasants. The more you try to control the world, the more it spins out of control. The correct way is to passively go with the flow, and live life. Also, friendship is magic.’
This book’s execution… is good in one way, and bad in another.
The good: as an analysis of the daoist principle of going with the flow, it’s good! Over the course of the novel, Haber tries harder and harder to ‘fix’ the world’s problems of overpopulation, war, famine. But these attempts result in plague, alien invasions, and worse. This book had a monkey’s paw, ‘be careful what you wish for’ attitude. This was great to read.
The bad: this book’s ‘magic system’ is literally the protagonist’s unconscious mind. Because the protagonist constantly inflicts the world with plague, alien invasions and worse, it makes the protagonist seem like he’s deeply depressed and pessimistic. After a certain point, I had my suspension of disbelief disrupted. Doctor Haber is LITERALLY a therapist, he should be able to see depression a mile away. (Though honestly, maybe I’m trying to turn LeGuin into Sanderson here, with Sanderson’s focus on combining psychology and magic).
The fact that the narrative never once acknowledged that the protagonist was depressed or tried to treat his depression, I was frustrated. Of course his unconscious mind keeps making the world worse; try fixing the depression first, and then the magic will work.
CHARACTERS, CHARACTERIZATION AND DIALOG
George Orr was described as being aggressively normal. Equally introverted and extroverted. Equally masculine and feminine. Equally creative and logical. He is so boringly normal, that all the other characters walk all over him. He starts the book devoted to the Yin half of Daoism: going for the course of least resistance, avoiding effort, unwilling to stand up for himself. He’s a paradox: cosmic power, and no desire to use it. (When you think of Yin, think of water: it flows, avoiding obstacles.)
Doctor Haber is described as bombastically ambitious. He’s a large man: big shoulders, big beard, big voice. He’s a man’s man, feeling contempt for Orr’s flat aspect and vaguely effeminate nature. He’s the Yang half of Daoism: going the course of most resistance, constantly striving for power, refusing to accept the world as it is. (Yang is like fire, confronting everything which opposes it.)
And then there’s Heather. As a lawyer, she’s George’s ally against the legal system which persecutes him. Heather is half black, half white. She is a living, breathing, thriving woman, with thoughts, opinions of her own. She’s George’s love interest, but she’s not defined by that love.
When Haber tries to destroy racism, he winds up destroying Heather. The only way to destroy racism is to change the color of everyone’s skin color and make them grey skinned; per force, someone like Heather who proudly embraces her black womanhood, cannot exist in such a world. Haber accidentally deletes Heather from existence.
One of the book’s many themes is that even the best intentions can have unexpected consequences. In retrospect, this is a bit on the nose depiction of race and racism, but it was written 50+ years ago. I think it’s neat.
I really liked how the characters are presented. In the West, we’re supposed to like Haber. He’s strong, he’s active, he’s trying to make the world a better place. We’re supposed to dislike Orr; he’s a druggie who squanders powers which he could use for good. But by basing this book’s philosophical underpinning on Eastern thought, we’re forced to reflect on our presuppositions on what is good and bad.
Okay, now for the bad. Orr kinda sucks.
I get what the author was trying to say, that we should sail with the wind and not against it. But by contrasting extremely boring Orr with vital and vibrant Heather and Haber, Orr comes off looking like a wet blanket. The author wound up resorting to ‘telling, not showing’ to inform the reader about how cool and awesome Orr is, whereas the author used ‘showing, not telling’ to talk about how cool Heather and Haber are. ‘Show, don’t tell’ > ‘Tell, don’t show,’ at least in this case.
As a result, the author’s message suffered because Haber was so much cooler than Orr. There are ways to write a Yin character who’s not a wet noodle. I feel like LeGuin wrote this improperly. Orr needed agency, and a desire for agency; that desire for agency is compatible with a Daoist worldview. Orr needed to synthesize a Yin worldview and Yang worldview for the end of the book.
Probably the most malfunction-y part about Orr was his character arc. He begins the book HEAVY on the Yin end of the scale. In the beginning, he abuses drugs to avoid his problems; Yin is like water, and water avoids obstacles by flowing around them. At the end of the book, Orr STILL solves his problems by avoiding them, namely by using hypnosis to forget how to effectively dream.
Early on, his primary motivation was ‘I can’t use my psychic powers because I don’t want to hurt anyone,’ and in the ‘repaired’ part of his character arc, his primary motivation was ‘I can’t use my psychic powers because using it contradicts the flow of the universe.’ Orr behaves the exact same way (refusing to use his psychic powers) when he’s ‘flawed’ as well as ‘fixed.’ As a result, his character arc doesn’t feel substantial.
Orr ended up in the wrong place. He needed to learn to balance Yin with Yang. He stayed very Yin.
PACING AND STRUCTURE
This is a short book, only 175 pages. I don’t feel like it had much of a deliberate structure to it. It felt like the author wanted to explore the topic of ‘let’s make the world a better place! And it will go horribly wrong!’ from every angle possible. Famine, overpopulation, racism, war… Almost every real world problem, the author explores the idea and shows ‘be careful what you wish for.’
All of these tragedies, were building up to the climax when Haber climbs the Worldtree and becomes a god. Haber remembers the original timeline, when the nuclear apocalypse happens, and incidentally forces everyone else to remember too. This drives thousands of people insane, and turns Haber into something of an eldritch horror. Ultimately, this power is of the unconscious mind; NO ONE can control it, and it was hubris for Haber to think he could try.
Afterwards, Orr does NOT try to reverse the damage Haber caused, like you think a normal hero might. Instead, Orr holds to his desire of going with the flow and rolls with the punches. He lets the world recover naturally from calamity.
AUTHORIAL VOICE (TONE, PROSE AND THEME)
I liked the texture of the author’s voice. This is a dystopian setting; LeGuin’s style deliberately emphasized the grunge and the despair. Even in the cleanest of the alternate timelines, the contrast between light and dark was fascinating and made my skin crawl.
This book was ideas forward. It’s a daoist inspired book, emphasizing going with the flow, embracing change without seeking change. To be in accordance with the Dao is to move without effort, finding meaning in the unspeakable. and paradoxical. To simplify, Daoism is all about going with the flow, and finding a balance between being active and passive.
This book’s concept is the change of Orr personality, going from a Yin focused personality, to a Yin-Yang focused personality. He starts the book avoiding his problems by taking drugs, but he gains a balanced self where he learns to live without seeking to either a) control the world (the sin of Yang) or b) flow away from the world (the sin of Yin). (More on this earlier, I didn’t feel this was very well done.)
Ultimately, I didn’t agree with this book’s message completely. Orr was TOO passive. He seemed so beaten down by reality that he’s completely lost agency; it got to the point that he seemed to accept the nasty state of the dystopia he lived in. He wasn’t willing to fight to change it.
If it’s bad to use magic to change the universe, then what is the good way to make the world a better place? Where is the line between ‘good’ action and ‘bad’ action? This book was clear with it’s message; you can’t fix the world with top-down policies. If top down is bad, why not provide an example of bottom-up being good?
Orr being such a wet blanket kinda wound up hurting the story overall. It feels like this book ended one chapter too soon. It needed a codicil at the end addressing this topic, maybe showing Heather using her law degree to fix the damage Haber caused. Maybe they collect signatures for a democratic initiative. Haber tried to force change, which is bad; by crafting legislation, Orr and Heather flow through the system to cause change, which is good.
To me, this book feels half-baked.
- It shows why Yin-only mindframe is bad: instead of confronting your problems, you retreat into drug abuse.
- It shows why Yang-only mindframe is bad: you seek to exert control over the problems, but do it in a ham-handed and destructive way.
- This book never attempts a synthesis of Yin and Yang, using a balanced soul to exert agency (as much as you can exert agency in accordance with the Dao) and make the world a better place.
But there are other ways to interpret the story than just the Daoist message. Here is my alternate reading.
Orr has PTSD. His mental troubles give him depression. Because of his PTSD and depression, he cannot imagine a better world; as a result, whenever he dreams and changes the world, he makes the world subtly worse each and every time. No matter what Haber tries, the seed of depression and PTSD ruins everything he tries. (Note that I’m not a doctor; this is just my uninformed opinion.)
Let’s set aside the Daoist philosophy for a moment, and take a more traditional western lens. What if Haber was actually a good therapist and treated Orr’s depression? Orr’s depression and PTSD were the fly in the ointment, making his dreams into nightmares; with depression and PTSD under control, let his dreams be heavenly.
If the magic does NOT have a monkey’s paw attached to it, why not use it to fix the world for the better?
Once Orr’s depression is treated, Orr’s insistence that he doesn’t want to change the world is a pessimistic, nihilistic desire to not fix anything which is wrong with the world. People with power are not allowed to sit on the sidelines, because the mere act of not choosing a side is choosing the side of the people in power. Orr’s equivocating is the same thing as being pro-famine, pro-disease, pro-war.
What a fascinating book. When looked through a Daoist lens, Orr’s stubborn refusal to change the world shows his strength of character. When looked through a more Western lens, Orr’s stubborn refusal to change the world is defeatist and pessimistic. Neither lens is right or wrong.
Finally, the mental illness/PTSD lens.
I theorize that Orr effective dreams as a trauma response. Something hurts him, and by dreaming he unconsciously makes whatever hurt him disappear. Case in point, Orr’s aunt tried to sexually assault him; later that night, Orr’s effective dreaming retroactively killed his aunt six months earlier, so the attempted sex assault never happened.
However, one of the primary causes of PTSD is the sense of loss-of-control. Because effective dreaming is an unconscious process, Orr cannot control it, so it makes sense that Orr has PTSD as a direct response to his own trauma response. Orr is traumatized by external trauma triggers (the attempted sex assault) as well as his own response to that trigger (effective dreaming).
Orr never gains agency over his trauma; instead, the book dabbles in the ‘magically healed of your mental disorder’ trope. I don’t like it when books magically have characters get over their mental disorder; it’s not realistic to get better overnight. Hypnosis can be a valid medical technique IRL, but it was used as a shortcut in this book. IRL, there are no shortcuts. This book was problematic in it’s depiction of mental illness, but given that this was written in the 1970’s, I give it a pass. LeGuin had good intensions.
How would I re-write this aspect of the book? I would have Orr, after becoming free of abusive Haber, find a non-abusive therapist and actually go through normal therapy. Orr thereby gains self-confidence, self-control and agency over everything which might potentially traumatize him. Maybe he learns Daosist/Buddhist meditation. Because effective dreaming is a defensive trauma response, Orr gaining equanimity will let him confront future traumas without resorting to effective dreaming. Orr never stops being able to effective dream; instead he doesn’t need effective dreaming anymore as a defensive trauma response.
To use a metaphor, a patient abuses alcohol to cope with stress. The therapist needs a two-pronged approach: treat the stress first, and the alcoholism will follow. Treat all of Orr’s other mental illnesses, and he should spontaneously stop effective dreaming.
The final idea I saw toyed with was: beware of doctors who are more intent on the science of medicine than on healing people. Haber is an abusive therapist, gaslighting Orr. Orr’s effective dreaming is a defensive trauma response; in effect, Haber is traumatizing Orr repeatedly to change the world. Haber’s ambition blinds him to the suffering before his eyes. In the end, when Haber tries to effective dream himself, he gives himself a MASSIVE trauma response.
AUDIOBOOK NOTES
This book’s narrator is the luminary George Guidall. Check it out, he did great.
LESSONS LEARNED
As an author, I want to improve my own writing/editing skills. To that end, I like to learn lessons from every story I read. Here’s what I learned from this story:
- Use eastern philosophy to provide contrast to western ideas.
Here’s a link to all the lessons I’ve previously learned.
SUMMARY
A good book, but not without flaw. It deserves to be called a classic.
Did you like this critique/review? Here are some more: The Rest of My In Depth Reviews
On a personal note, I’m open to editing books. I don’t like putting myself out here like this, but I’ve been told I should. Check my blog for details if interested.
John Mendez- Book Reviews and More 