Carl Malmgren, in his essay “Meta-SF: The Examples of Dick, LeGuin, and Russ,” points out that George Orr continually recreates Dr. Haber in all of his dreams. Despite Orr’s power to erase millions of people through his effective dreaming, he doesn’t erase Haber. Malmgren goes on to discuss what this means for LeGuin as an author. For Malmgren, The Lathe of Heaven is a work of meta-fiction in the sense that the whole novel acts as a comment on the role of the SF writer. What’s more interesting to me, however, is the complex psychological economy opened up by Malmgren’s initial insight. Despite his seeming anxiety, Orr ensures that Haber survives, suggesting that Haber is crucial to Orr’s psychological well-being. In fact, one could argue that Haber isn’t a real person at all, but simply a portion of Orr’s psyche. Within Freud’s structural psychodynamic theory, the Haber figure seems analogous to the superego – an interior, often putative construct fashioned out of social regulations and added to the restrictions enforced by the individual’s father. But instead of demanding that the individual abide by society’s rules, the superego in the novel seems to demand that society conform to its own ideals. In this way, Orr can be seen to offload his visions of social reformation onto a villainous, anthropomorphized aspect of himself. Perhaps this drive is partially due to the growing fatigue with collective social movements in the 1960s that, although infused with positive goals, could be seen as a cause of civil unrest. Balance this leftist version of social transformation with burgeoning Nixonian conservatism and there become two world-transforming visions in conflict. Honestly, I don’t know where this is going, but sometimes it seems like the novel is also unsure. The book seems to be in great conflict with itself. One thing that can be said is that LeGuin, through George Orr, seems to emphasize the importance of honest though sometimes imperfect communication (as seen in Orr’s efforts with the aliens) and local connections (e.g. with Heather Lelache) over a theoretical ideal that tramples the particular. At the end of the novel, an alien tells George “You have lived well,” which underscores the importance of lived life over the concept of life.
3 thoughts on “Casting About”
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Thanks, Josh, for pulling in the Malgrem article. Published in Extrapolation in Spring 2002 (43.1), the article is worth a look, and you can view a full-text pdf version of it through the library’s site.
I actually hadn’t considered The Lathe of Heaven in terms of meta-(science)fiction before, maybe because it’s almost so obvious that it’s easy to overlook. But it makes perfect sense: a man who dreams up apocalyptic scenarios, space wars, and alien invasions sounds a lot like your standard SF writer.
Your question about Haber-as-superego is a good one. I’d like to frame it a bit differently, though. (After a messy breakup with Lacan about four years ago, I now tend away from psychoanalytical concepts in literary and cultural studies, except as loose metaphors.) The relationship between Orr and Haber really seems to me essentially about power and knowledge, in the Foucauldian sense. In this week’s reading, David Harvey gives a quick summary of Foucault’s central thesis, that “there is an intimate relation between systems of knowledge…and domination within particular localized contexts” (Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, p. 45). Compare Haber’s “system of knowledge”–the elaborate discourse and machinery he wields over Orr and Lelache–with Orr’s seemingly endless preserve of passivity (or is it resistance?).
Speaking of Foucault, Harvey also mentions Foucault’s important “Heterotopia” essay, which would be of some use in discussing The Lathe of Heaven. The essay (actually called “Of Other Spaces”) was written in 1967, and published in English in Diacritics (Spring 1986, 16:1). There’s another online version of “Of Other Spaces” at the Foucault.info site (the essay was released into the public domain shortly before Foucault’s death).
Dr. Sample,
Thanks for the comment. I’ll be able to better respond when I pick up my course reader this afternoon and read the Harvey piece (there’s a long, annoying story involving my travails at the bookstore that I won’t go into). I’m sure the Foucault piece will give us some useful tools in advancing our understanding of the LeGuin text, but I don’t think I’m ready to abandon a more orthodox psychoanalytic view. The Harvey quote you used in your comment suggested that the “intimate relation between systems of knowledge” effects a “domination within particular localized contexts” — but I think it’s important to remember that one of these ‘localized contexts’ is the individual psyche. Whereas your Foucauldian turn allows you to describe the “machinery [Haber] wields over Orr,” I would suggest that a psychoanalytic turn allows us to locate Orr’s passivity as the result of a complex internal power struggle rather than an overt power struggle involving an unproblematized ego. In fact, one of the interesting aspects of The Lathe of Heaven is that the standard SF hero — a rugged, physical, and confident (male) individual — is traded in for a troubled and interior person, and LeGuin seems to emphasize the interiority of this struggle.
Josh, thanks for helping me with the weird relationship between orr and haber; your psychoanalytic slant reinforced my assumption that haber doesn’t really ‘exist’ as the other humans/aliens do in the novel. besides for standing in as a symbol for science, progress, and rationality, haber acts as orr’s depository for unwanted social responsibility as orr tries to acheive his true calling as an extremely passive kitchen tool designer, which is an allusion to the early disciples of Toaist thought, all simple woodcarvers… and continuing on the pyschoanalytic path, no one has yet mentioned that orr’s reality changing dreams started as a result of some perverse sexual encounter with his aunt. (orr’s sexual deficiencies/embarrassment leads him to subconciously murder his aunt).