A Book, According to Its Cover (and Quotes)

 The Lathe of Heaven includes many elements that work to entice and gain the reader's interest, beginning with the outer cover that Scribner (a publishing company) has applied to Ursula K. Le Guin's novel. However, beneath it's initial attractiveness, this cover suggests many things about the content of the novel. The title, in thin, white, rectangular script, is set on a gradient background that shifts from a deep navy blue to a light orange color from top to bottom respectively. On the cover, white cotton clouds float intermittently while bluish-green sea turtles swim languorously through the sky. The title—which in essence means the “maker” of heaven or the "producer" of a "world"—works with this illustration on the front of the novel to suggest that the plot concerns the construction of new realities. The sky appears normal, with its average-looking clouds and either a sunrise or a sunset producing a spectacular array of colors throughout it; however, the reader knows that it is not a normal sky at all when discerning that sea turtles take the place of birds in this illustration. Thus, the reality of this novel, while similar to a normal reality, has certain distinct, fundamental differences, and based on the title, the reader can safely assume that the novel concerns the object that produces these differences.

Designed by Kyoko Watanabe 

At the beginning of each chapter, the author has provided quotations of varying length for the reader to mull over before reading the following text. These quotations are interesting and thought provoking; they too seem to give clues about the content of the novel, foreshadowing both immediate occurrences and occurrences to come later on. At the beginning of chapter one, a quote from Chuang Tse is given.

“Confucius and you are both dreams, and I who say you are dreams am a dream myself. This is a paradox. Tomorrow a wise man may explain it; that tomorrow will not be for ten thousand generations”.

            This quote is applicable not only to the first chapter, but to the entire plot of The Lathe of Heaven. In chapter one, an account of a jellyfish and of the protagonist George Orr—who is recovering from the effects of lack of sleep and strong drugs—is given, and it is difficult to determine which events are the production of George’s mind and which are real—if any. This confusion is later amplified and projected on nearly all parts of Orr’s life, as his dreams create new realities on so many occasions that he has trouble determining which of the memories he has apply to the current reality he is situated in. On page 107 George has reconstructed reality to the point that he even exclaims “This isn’t real….There is nothing left. Nothing but dreams”, seeming to echo the quote the author provided at the beginning of the first chapter.

The Chuang Tse quote is also applicable to Haber, who attempts to control and harness the power of George’s dreams, but fails utterly. Haber believes so much in his own capabilities and “wisdom” that he doesn’t realize that man should not attempt to change reality, because not only is it not man’s place to change the world—which man is a part of, not the commander of—but because he does not fully understand the ways in which George’s dreams or his mind works. In fact, George’s mind is perhaps impossible to understand or control—the things that Haber suggests that George change while George dreams come out of George’s mind twisted and distorted. George exclaims to Haber on page 88, “Look: if you ask me to dream again, what will you get? Maybe a totally insane world, the product of an insane mind.” George realizes that Haber is not “wise” to the workings of George’s mind and that Haber cannot control it, even if Haber does not realize this, just as Chuang Tse stated that a "wise man" capable of explaining reality/dreams may never be found. 

            Scribner, the publisher of this novel, publishes mostly “mainstream” fiction, and might perhaps be using the engaging cover of the novel to sell more copies of this science-fiction work, just as the author might be using these quotes to do the same. However, the cover page and the quotes that the publisher and author use on and within the novel are not only meant to spark the reader’s interest. They foreshadow major occurrences within the novel while giving the events of the text a certain relevancy as the reader realizes that the issues of the novel are not limited to the characters within it, but to actual human beings in the history of mankind as well. 

Interview with a Critic:

Going Beyond Binary Disposition of 0/1: Rethinking the Question of Technology by Gyu Han Kang 

          There is no information included in the article “Going beyond binary Disposition of 0/1: Rethinking the Question of Technology” about its author Gyu Han Kang. The copyright date is also missing; however, through further searching it can be discovered that this particular article was published in 2009, well after Philip K. Dick wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Because it was written so recently, the author is able to utilize many articles concerning noted SciFi literature as well as other media sources –such as the film adaptation of Andriods—to support his argument. The title of the journal in which this article was published is Midwest Quarterly; this title gives little indication about the average reader of the journal. However, as the title lacks a reference to any scientific or technological theme, it is likely primarily a general literary journal, rather than a science fiction one.

            Gyu Han Kang begins the article by stating that technology is one of the most important developments of mankind and that it is and will forever more be inseparable from mankind’s history. For this reason, the topic of technology in literary works must be explored. The author explains that in most science fiction novels, technology is described as either something inherently evil that will lead to the downfall of mankind, or as something that can be used to achieve once unimaginable goals. He argues that, rather than viewing technology in either extreme, instead it should be viewed as neither good nor evil. Technology should be seen as something much too complex to be pinned down in such categories. His evidence for this argument includes analyzing the complex relationship between man and technology—specifically concerning cyborgs/androids and mankind. As technology becomes more advanced, the differences between man and machine can no longer be pinpointed, and the question arises if there is any difference between the two at all. The author repeatedly makes the point that in science fiction works machines seem to gain humanity as technology progresses, while humans seem to lose their humanity, increasing the difficulty of categorizing technology as “good” or “evil”.  I, the reader, developed many questions while reading this argument.

            Why do human beings lose their humanity in these SciFi works?  What are the processes and reasons by which these results come about, and could the machines’ more human-like behavior be the product of not having to undergo these experiences?

 It often seems as if humans undergo horrible tragedy (such as Philip K. Dick's "World War Terminus") in science fiction literature, and that this is the cause of their loss of humanity. The machines, however, usually do not undergo this tragedy; they are created by humans in accordance to an old model of humanity that these human beings can no longer apply to themselves, after the tragedies that they have been through. Another, related question also arose during my reading of this article.

Are the definitions of humanity and inhumanity the same in each of the works described in this article, or do they vary? If they do vary, in what ways are they different?

If the definition of what it is to be human varies from setting to setting, perhaps this could be evidence that "humanity" is constructed and influenced by culture, events in history, etc. Perhaps the human-like machines of one science fiction novel would not be considered very human-like at all in another SciFi work and vice versa, suggesting that “humanity” is not a fixed definition.

If these questions were addressed by the author, his discussion of the relationship between technology, mankind, and being classified as “human” would become even more complex, adding more layers to his analysis of technology in literature and providing more evidence that technology is neither an extremely good nor acutely evil development in mankind’s history.