{"id":31,"date":"2005-09-10T22:45:16","date_gmt":"2005-09-11T02:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/2005\/09\/10\/casting-about\/"},"modified":"2005-09-10T22:49:03","modified_gmt":"2005-09-11T02:49:03","slug":"casting-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/2005\/09\/10\/casting-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Casting About"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s power to erase millions of people through his effective dreaming, he doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s more interesting to me, however, is the complex psychological economy opened up by Malmgren\u2019s initial insight. Despite his seeming anxiety, Orr ensures that Haber survives, suggesting that Haber is crucial to Orr\u2019s psychological well-being. In fact, one could argue that Haber isn\u2019t a real person at all, but simply a portion of Orr\u2019s psyche. Within Freud\u2019s structural psychodynamic theory, the Haber figure seems analogous to the superego \u2013 an interior, often putative construct fashioned out of social regulations and added to the restrictions enforced by the individual\u2019s father. But instead of demanding that the individual abide by society\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019s 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 \u201cYou have lived well,\u201d which underscores the importance of lived life over the concept<\/em> of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s power to erase millions of people through his effective dreaming, he doesn\u2019t erase Haber. Malmgren goes on to discuss what this means for LeGuin as an … Continue reading Casting About<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}