I just finished re-reading The Dispossessed, and some articles about it,
and am surprised that nobody seems to take on the issues of time brought up
in the novel. So, I'll bring them here.
First, this is for a religion course, and I was very struck by the way
LeGuin reclaims
cyclical time as profane time/everyday time, which really fits into my idea
of religion
as absolutely intimate, not set apart/sacred. If religion is looked at
this way, everything
one does is affected by, or organized by, one's religion (ideology? I'm
not sure if they
are different). Similarly, I see that all the events in the book are
intimately affected by an
idea of time as cyclical and synchronous at the same time (Principles of
Simultinaity and Synchrony).. the shape of the book does this (parallel
events in Shevek's past and present),
as does the epithet on Odo's grave _To be whole is to be part/The journey
is return_ or
something close to that.
The physics seems to carry a philosophy and an ethics and a religion that
would be so
useful for thinking about our own world, and so much a carrier of LeGuin's,
the message of the book, but I can't seem to untangle it myself....any
thoughts on this?
Rudy Leon
Syracuse University
releon@syr.edu
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