Book review – The Lathe of Heaven

“The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.“

Ursula K. Le Guin writes classic science fiction, and The Lathe of Heaven is my introduction to this genre. It is a short, concise novel of ideas, and a powerful idea at that. George is a man who can change the world by dreaming. Each time he dreams, he creates a new world with a new history, and only he can remember both. But now he is with a therapist, a man who wants to suggest him new dreams, who wants to make the world a better place.

This novel will not be for everyone. The dialogue is dense, the story can sometimes be slow, and it takes some patience to read (surprising for a story so short). I feel like the characters are drawn just a little bit too blank, leaving us to do a lot of work interpolating how they are looking and saying things just from dialogue alone. Perhaps a few of those dreaded adverbs in the dialogue tags would help. And somehow, science fiction forces a cramp in the lovely style of prose I associate with Le Guin. There are a few golden sentences, but the book isn’t poetry.

And yet, the story is extraordinary. Le Guin imagines so many future earths, each a different future: there is climate change and overpopulation, post plague humanity, and more and more. I can’t tell you everything, as part of the story is the different universes created by George’s dreams. Each of these poses a question about how the future might be and allows us to explore these potential futures. But in the hands of the stories, it also asks us about the consequences of changing the future, and whether such a power should be used. What happens when humans play God?

In this drama, Le Guin gives us only three characters: George, the dreamer, Haber, his therapist who wants to use his dreaming, and Lelache, a lawyer whom George brings in to help him. George doesn’t want to be used. He thinks that things should be left well alone. It is an articulation of a kind of Daoist philosophy. Every change to history comes with benefits and unexpected consequences. For me, this reminds me a little of the debate over military intervention, which is the closest we (in the West at least) come to playing God. And then there is the question of motives, for with every change to history, George and Haber grow wealthier and more powerful. Can we separate the desire for power from the desire to do good?

Le Guin handles all of these questions with immense finesse and aplomb. This is a classic, and just for all the thoughts it provokes and all the questions it asks, it deserves to be read.