Book Review: The Disposessed
A SF novel about two worlds operating with two different philosophies.
Both insisted they were right and the other was wrong. Both minimized contact with each other.
https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=20&id=399
Estrenando compu, gracias al genio de @rikylinux
De fondo, la querida Ăšrsula :)
Why is Science Fiction Holding US Back?
They need to imagine a world where we get along much better:
https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=26&id=545
Started reading #Lavinia by #UrsulaLeGuin and WOW. JUST WOW. I didn't know books could do that. I feel I will love this book.
New life update #blog post!!
I'm in a transitional period in my life, moving from #Germany to #Spain, and I wanted to express more deeply what the immigration experience means for me. As well as what home means.
I've structured my post to mirror #Virgil's #Aeneid, taking inspiration also from #UrsulaLeGuin's #TheDispossessed and #Dante's #inferno.
The journey I want to talk about involves geographical displacement, but the real distance travelled takes place inside.
https://sofiabelen.github.io/blog/my-journey-home-is-to-a-place-ive-never-been/
Lo he aprendido de #ursulakleguin #ursulaleguin en #LaCostaMasLejana :
Pero si de nuevo hubiera un rey sobre todos nosotros, y ese rey buscara como en tiempos pasados el consejo de un mago, y si yo fuese ese mago, le dirĂa: 《Mi señor, no hagáis nada porque sea justo, o loable, o noble; no hagáis nada porque os parezca bueno, haced tan solo lo que tengáis que hacer, y lo que no podrĂais hacer de ninguna otra manera》.
Lo he aprendido de #ursulakleguin #ursulaleguin en #LaCostaMasLejana:
-Te das cuenta, Arren, de que un acto no es, como creen los jóvenes, lo mismo que una piedra que levantas del suelo y arrojas lejos, que da en el blanco o yerra, y nada más. Cuando levantas la piedra, la tierra se aligera y la mano que la sostiene es más pesada. Cuando la arrojas, influye en los circuitos de los astros, y allà donde golpea o cae, el universo cambia. De un acto cualquiera depende el Equilibrio del todo. [...] Pero nosotros, los que tenemos poder [...] hemos de aprender a mantener el Equilibrio.
Finally spent my birthday book tokens at a new bookshop in Stroud. I must have unintentionally walked in and done a search for “The.*of.*”.
3/3
And I can't stress enough that this isn't about being jaded or cynical. Take the inverse, let's call it Salemo. "This place has only unending suffering where everyone is tortured all the time and there's no hope." Boring. Literally the tvtropes page of Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy. "They do this because it ensures a perfect life for one child." Wow! Mass self-sacrifice! What's so important about the child that they all agree to undergo extreme suffering? Tell me more! Is there a lesson I could apply to my own life? I don't believe in perfect joy without a catch, sure, but I don't believe in perfect pain without a catch either. Even stories that start bad and end bad don't stay bad all the way through. Instead it's "Ah, things are terrible. Oh look, the main character is trying to turn things around! Oh no, they failed because of some tragic flaw in their character that they couldn't overcome!" And I say "Wow, what a bad fate, I should think about what kind of flaws I have."
I'm almost wondering if this was her actual point? To play around with what makes a story complete? Not just call me an edgelord?
2/3
I think where the disconnect lies is that I'm engaging with her story as just that, a story. The purpose of a story is both to entertain and to convey some information to get us to think about our own life and experience. An interesting story makes us have interesting thoughts. The story of "this place is perfect and nothing ever goes wrong" isn't interesting, but not because we think that's naive, it's because there's no useful information being conveyed there. Okay, they're perfect. Why? How did they become this way? Can I apply anything they do to my life so that I can make things better? Oh, you don't want to tell me? Then it's not a full narrative, it's only a snapshot of a setting. My brain is starving here.
Oh, they torture a child! Wow, what a shocking moral dilemma. One innocent's suffering for the welfare of thousands, hm, that makes my brain think about whether I would want to live there. Now I'm engaged and interested, not because a child is being tortured but because there's actually a topic of discussion.
Dave Volek
dolagasape📖🎙📷✊🏽
SofĂa BelĂ©n LĂłpez Vicens
Franz Helgon
Chris Newton
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