★★★★★.

the dispossessed

i love le guin. this is the third book i’ve read by her this year. i think she was so ahead of her time in just about everything i have read so far; i think this book should be required reading for anyone looking towards a better world.

from a journal entry in july 2024,

[!journal] 7.27.24 the best experience, to me, when reading a book is when it seems to be winking at you, acknowledging your existence. it may teach you new things, but on a deeper level, it reveals things already known to you. shevek, a 24-year-old scientist, disillusioned by the society he grew up in, falls for a girl a year his junior who had been crushing on him, but was too absorbed in academia to notice. very accurate…

i noticed plenty of synchronicities reading this book (sort of superficially touching on age) which propelled me to read more and more. le guin knows how to make her sci-fi human, which means any subsequent plot points–no matter how chaotic or outlandish– are grounded in a psychology that feels familiar, refreshing.