The Scourge of Heaven
The Scourge of Heaven ( The Lathe of Heaven ) is the German title of a science fiction novel by the American author Ursula K. Le Guin . In it, the author tells the experiences of the main character called George Orr , who can change reality through her dreams.
The novel won the Locus Award for Best Novel of 1971 in 1972, was translated into nine languages and filmed twice for television: The Lathe of Heaven , PBS 1980, and Lathe of Heaven , A&E 2002.
title
The original title of the book is based on a quote by the Chinese philosopher and poet Zhuangzi , which is quoted in the epigraph for chapter 3 of the novel after the English translation by James Legge. There the passage can be found in Book XXIII, paragraph 7.
action
The novel begins with the description of oceanic perceptions of a jellyfish from which the main character George Orr awakens in a reality in which he is a sedative citizen in a world similar to that of George Orwell in his novel " 1984 ".
Orr's addiction to sleeping pills is based on fear of his reality-changing dreams. In order to suppress his "effective dreams", as it is called in the German translation, Orr illegally procures sleeping pills. By violating the laws of reality into which he has dreamed, he sees himself forced to undergo so-called voluntary psychotherapeutic treatment.
The psychiatrist assigned to him, William Haber, initially regards Orr as a “normal” psychotic patient before realizing that Orr is not delusional, but can actually change reality through his dreams. With a procedure he developed, Haber tries to influence Orr's dreams in such a way that they change reality according to his personal ideas.
Ursula K. Le Guin describes in her novella how well-meaning ideas and wishes of a single person - those of the psychiatrist William Haber - can lead to apocalyptic conditions for the rest of humanity.
expenditure
- Ursula K. Le Guin: The Lathe of Heaven , (English first edition) Avon Books, 1971. ISBN 0-684-12529-3
- Ursula K. Le Guin: The scourge of heaven , translated by Birgit Reß-Bohusch (German first edition) Heyne, Munich, 1974. ISBN 3-453-30250-8
- Ursula K. Le Guin: The scourge of heaven , translated by Joachim Körber , Edition Phantasia Bellheim, 2006. ISBN 393789716X
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Writings of Chuang Tzu translated by James Legge
- ↑ The Scourge of Heaven Reading sample from the publisher (PDF file; 111 kB).