Two books from Ursula k. Le Guin.

The Dispossed

Published in 1974, A marvelous work about 2 planets, about anarchy, it’s workings and it’s contrast and conflict with an older capitalistic world.

The story is cut in half, devided even and uneven chapters. On following a man who leaves the anarchistic homeworld founded almost 200 years ago after a revolution to visit the old capitalistic world where his people came from, and the other describing the world it’s workings and it’s faults and how the man came to the choice of traveling.

The book describes quite well how a anarchistic world could work, and what one of it’s major pitfalls could  be. It also sets a situation where a world like this could come to exist, a revolution, a conflict and a compromise. And showing how anarchy although ideal, is and can be in conflict with many other structures.

A great work, very well written and capturing, I could hardly put it down.

Voices

A more recent work by Le Guin, published in 2006.

Voices describes a fictional world, set on the coastline somewhere on a planet, in a country where books are valued greatly, a culture with many gods which are loved closely, but feared by none. A common and free society where knowledge is held in high regard.

Until the Alds, They come in fear of demons, obeying their single god from a world where books are evil and demonic, women are little more then slaves, worse off then their horses. They destroy all the books, forbid reading, rape the women on the streats and are after something in the city.

The describes the horrible conflict about 17 years later, that still goes on. The oppression of the Alds on the Ansul. About how a young girl lives in it, as a daughter and servant of the oldest house of Ansul. How things finally change.

It’s a story about religion, about politics, about knowledge and about freedom.  LeGuin seems clearly inspired by east and middle asian conflicts in this book, both cultures have a clear resemblance to existing cultures, and perhaps so does the conflict. She describes the conflict, and provides a possible solution, but as in the book. The interpretation is still up to the reader.

Another great work I think, very easy to read, read it in 3 days. I found the value added to commerce orriented society a bit downputting, but it’s not the Dispossed. And as a descriptive story, it’s certainly more realistic that way.

Both books I recommend to anyone, go read! :)

In the Last week most south-east-asian countries on the pasific coasts have been battered by the typhoons Ketsana and Parma. Next to that Indonesia has been hit by 2 major eartquakes (7.6 and 6.8) and Samoa by a tsunami.

The Philippines first got hit by typhoon Ketsana. Resulting in by 295 death and 39 still missing. And leaving over 400.000 people homeless.
Ketsana was shortly followed by typhoon Parma, resulting in: 17 deaths, 61,600 metric tons of rice destroyed, 74,373 hectares of rice-growing areas and 6,000 tons of corn, fruits and vegetables. With windspeeds of 195kph to 230kph.
Total financial damages up to 96 milion USD.

Pictures

After the Philippines, Ketsana struck Vietnam. This resulted in 159 deaths, 112 milion USD in crop losses, 180.000 destroyed homes and 50.000 hectares of agricultural land destroyed. There also where miles of railroad tracks washed away or destroyed.

(on average, vietnam gets 6.4 typhoons a year, this is the 9th and there some more months in the season).

Following Vietnam, Ketsana hit Cambodia and Laos.

In Cambodia the death-toll topped 17 and 1519 people lost their homes. Cambodia lost 50.000 of rice paddies, 40km of road was destroyed and 160 irrigation systems.

In Laos 24 people died and 135 people are still missing. 37.500 are homeless due to the storm. The water of the sekong river had risen 13-15 meters, arround 14 villages have been flooded.

In most affected areas in these countries the water levels haven’t dropped yet or are even still rising. Support organisations are working hard on saving and supporting people, but due to the damages to infrastructure this has turned out quite difficult.

In the mean time,  in Samoa and Tonga where hit my a big tsunami of about 7.5m in height which swept land inwards upto 1.5 km. In total arround 170 people died and thousands where turned homeless.

Next to all this, Sumatra (Indonesia) got hit by 2 earthquakes, one of a 7.6 and one of 6.8 magnitude. arround 1600 people did not survive the quake, but some hunderds more are still at risk due to famine. arround 38.000 homes where damaged, leaving thousands of people homeless.

This leaves the south-east-asian area quite battered and the typhoon season isn’t over yet for the comming months. Typhoons Parma and Super Typhoon Melor are still in the area. Threatening Japans and the Philipines.