The Dispossessed

Synopsis

The Dispossessed is the story of a man who is part Albert Einstein, part Valentine Michael Smith, part Florentino Ariza (anachronistic, yes), with a dash of Howard Roark. Albert-Valentine-Florentino-Howard (Shevek = "Alvanord"?) is an anarchist living on the isolated, oxymoronic, desolate utopia of Annares. He leaves home for the scary(to him)-but-familiar(to us) companion planet, Urras. He has some fine adventures and returns home enlightened and humbled.

Prose Pros

• It wasn't The Left Hand of Darkness. (Zzzzzz...)
• Shevek's/"Alvanord's" relationship with his partner served as a nice metaphor for his relationship with his home world.
• There was just enough science to make the plot work.
• Topless women at parties are a cultural norm on Urras.

Prose Cons

• Pages and pages of social description and commentary. Got a little "Ayn Rand-y" at times.
• Though I'm sure the author had her reasons, passages that suddenly referred to main characters generically (e.g., "the passenger") instead of by name were a little annoying. Kind of threw me out of the story for a few pages.
• It beat out PKD's Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said for the Hugo, the Locus, and the Nebula, which is something of a travesty. (At least the Campbell folks got it right!)

Overall, I enjoyed the book even though it was a struggle to get through some of the lengthier social passages. I am glad that, on the one hand, I read it at an age where I am old and wise enough to understand and apperciate the social description and commentary, and, on the other hand, an age where I am still young and immature enough to enjoy the mental picture formed by reading about bare-breasted women attending upper-class cocktail parties.