May 11, 2016 06:57 PM
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(Updated May 11, 2016 06:59 PM)
A demi-God he would have been,
But his shy nature left him unseen,
Altering the earth’s reality to the extremes,
He was much more than a helpless man with his weird dreams.
Ursula K. Leguin: She is an author who writes mainly in the fantasy and sci-fi genre for children as well as adults. Over the years her novels have received many awards for their creativity. This book is the winner of the Locus Award in 1972.
Plot: Just as a lathe is used for various cutting and drilling operations, the protagonist in our story, George Orr, cuts and drills across reality! His dreams have the uncanny way of altering the world and getting implemented in reality. The problem is that he has no control over the dreams and he has also turned his dream accidents into reality and caused the death of his family member. Moreover, no one seems terrified since the altered reality is such that no one remembers the past. A plausible explanation presents itself out of thin air and no one realizes that the world has changed overnight.
George takes the aid of depression pills and dream suppressant pills to no avail. It is only when he is recommended to psychiatrist Mr. Haber that he finds some hope. Haber realizes the potential of his patient’s psyche and now wants to alter the conditions of the world to make it a better place. He gets ambitious and wants to perform all sorts of experiments on his patient’s brain using a dream altering machine called the Augmentor. He does not attempt to stop the dreams of the poor man!
Now, a series of manipulated dreams are induced by Haber. Through George, he manages to reduce the world population by inducing a plague, eliminates racism by changing the skin colour of all people in the world and mistakenly provokes some aliens in outer space in an attempt to establish world peace!
Heather, who plays the love interest of George, is a lawyer who understands George’s peril and tries to help him from the clutches of his monstrous dream world.
Will George get rid of his effective dreams? Will Haber finally devise a solution?
Quotes:
He had been trying to lock the door through which the dreams came but none of the keys had fit the lock.
He could hear many voices in the office up and down the hall. The only solid partitions left were inside the head.
The power of dreaming alone is quite undreamt of.
Nothing will keep a man from dreaming but death.
My Opinion: On my search for Sci-fi and experimentation of new authors, I stumbled upon a list of ‘The best Short Novels ever’. This little novel of 184 pages seemed to be promising. This fable started off brilliantly with the fascinating revelation that George Orr can alter the past, present or future through his dreams. His terror, bafflement and helplessness are conspicuous over the initial pages. There is just a dust of humour throughout the prose which makes it a subtly light read.
However, the story progressed on the same lines with unbelievable things happening to the world, people and environment. There was no explanation of how and when all this started. I guess that is how sci-fi books are designed. They explore the world of impossibilities! But I couldn’t help comparing this book with the only other Sci-Fi books I have ever read- Jurassic park and The Lost World(the sequel). In these tales of the dinosaurs, there is a complete explanation of how the dinosaurs were ‘manufactured’ with attention given to the minutest detail. This may be inconceivable but the manner it was presented in was utterly believable!
The end was open too. The changed world never went back to the original state it was in. A psychiatrist has the duel responsibility of curing the patient as well as constantly reassuring and empathizing with him on his journey towards recovery. The psychiatrist Haber almost mocked the agonized soul by using his dreams even though it was for the benefit of the world. George was pushed into excruciating terror and the psychiatrist never attempted to free George from his predicament. Haber unheeded George’s jeremiad.
The story was definitely different and there’s no doubt that the fragrance of this book will linger on the reader’s mind long after the book is over. Going against all the rave reviews of this book, I award it 3 stars!
