I finished reading The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin. I had watched both movie adaptations a little while ago. The premise is that a man named George Orr has dreams that alter reality. He is afraid of this power, so he abuses drugs to try to stop the dreams. He gets into trouble with the government after this, so he is assigned a therapist, Dr Haber. But when Haber realizes what George can do, he starts hypnotizing George so he can manipulate his dreams and reality. He dreams himself into a famous and powerful researcher. But the dreams usually go wrong in some way. Haber tells George to dream of peace on Earth; this leads to a war with aliens over the Moon instead. He tells George to dream away the overpopulation that is leading to mass starvation, so a plague comes and kills billions of people... and so on.

It is a short book with interesting if confusing themes of Daoism and antipsychiatry, but I take issue with the way minorities are written, especially George's love interest, Heather. She is a biracial (Black and white) woman who dislikes having brown skin. When Haber tells George to dream away racism, everyone becomes gray. Gray Heather is "gentler." In the end, Heather becomes brown again and her personality becomes "fiercer" and "difficult" as a result. There were other odd things about her character but suffice to say, I don't like it.

#TheLatheOfHeaven #UrsulaKLeGuin #UrsulaLeGuin #books #reading #Daoism #Taoism #psychiatry #antipsychiatry

I may have many flaws, irritations, and philosophical head-scratching beliefs, but I'll tell you one thing—I'll sure as shootin' never be destroyed on the lathe of heaven.

Antwerp!

#tao #taoism #thelatheofheaven

Nobody asks for #Nobilis 2nd edition reading lists these days, and well they shouldn’t - it’s been out of print for years if not decades. But that being said, The Lathe of Heaven is absolutely on the reading list that exists outside time and entropy as an example of how The Light is also led by monsters.

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#TheLatheOfHeaven
#TheDark