I don't actually currently have with me either of the books, The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin, or Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Yet over the years, I have found myself recalling both books frequently in my meditations on philosophy and the nature of human societies, although until just now, never really at the same time.
I had a very weird epiphany, the other day, however. In my mind, anyway, these books are actually in the same category. Most thinkers would be alarmed by this suggestion, I imagine. LeGuin and Rand are hardly philosophical comrades-in-arms.
Both books, thematically, are about utopias. In fact, both are about flawed utopias, though the flawed utopia of each one is the dystopia (anti-utopia) of the other. Yet both tread the ground of the conflict between the two topias. Both authors influenced me hugely in my own thinking about utopias and intentional communities of all kinds.
My epiphany is "incomplete" – I need to work through how these books connect. They may even be in a kind of accidental dialogue.
Interestingly, my curiosity prompted a quick googlesearch, which revealed to me that LeGuin has explicitly claimed she was NOT influenced by Atlas Shrugged. This is almost humorous, in light of my epiphany. It makes me want to try to prove otherwise. If LeGuin read Atlas Shrugged, as she admits, then it suddenly becomes inevitable, in my way of thinking, that there must be some influence, if only that LeGuin is writing against Rand. I am recalled to mind of critic Harold Bloom's influential work, The Anxiety of Influence.
If I had the texts in front of me, I would be tempted to re-read them in parallel and find out what relations might exist. Maybe I'll purchase copies on my next trip to the bookstore – I heard there's a new Kyobo Mungo store at 백석, a much closer trip than heading into Seoul – the Kyobo Mungo outlets there form my main source for English-language books.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
