Five:
Le Lecture Guin and The New Wave
This lecture is copyright to Graham J. Murphy, 2010.
Unauthorized use is expressly forbidden.
Note: this lecture contains excerpts from my book Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion
released by Greenwood Press.
The (British) New Wave
The 1960s and early-1970s was a period of profound cultural change and science fiction was no
different. Thanks in large part to an uninterrupted publishing schedule (e.g., the British publishing
schedule had that pesky World War II that had a negative effect on the regular publishing of magazines)
and such technological innovations as television and Hollywood cinema, science fiction was dominated by
an American vision of cowboys in outer space throughout the late-1940s and throughout the 1950s. This
is not to say British authors were not writing science fiction, but the market was flooded with an American
sensibility of the lone hero traveling out into space and fighting marauding robots, invading aliens, bugeyed monsters (what we call BEMs in the field), and other common motifs that still dominate today. By the
time the 1960s rolled around, British authors were, for the most part, sick to death of American-style
science fiction. They thought it was shallow (most of it was); they thought it sacrificed good storytelling
for vicarious thrills (most of it did); and, they didnt like the imaginative recycling of uninteresting material
(which most of it did recycle). They felt it was simplistic, juvenile, and ill-equipped to address serious
issues. Thus, they sought to break from the Golden Age tradition of authors and inaugurate a new form of
sf writing.
If John W. Campbell changed the face of science fiction with his editorial control of Astounding
Stories and the introduction/focus on such soft sf elements as telepathy, anthropology, and sociology, then
Michael Moorcock had an equally profound effect when he began editing the British periodical New
Worlds in 1964. Moorcock pushed New Worlds in a then-bold direction by attempting to re-invigorate
British sf by focusing on more literary material. This is probably no surprise; after all, his intentions are
pretty clear in a New Worlds editorial published in 1963, one year prior to his editorial ascension:
Lets have a quick look at what a lot of science fiction lacks. Briefly, these are some of the
qualities I miss on the whole passion, subtlety, irony, original characterization, original and good
style, a sense of involvement in human affairs, colour, density, depth and, on the whole, real
feeling from the writer. . .There are signs, however, that [the science fiction writer] is beginning to
come into existence that adult writers are beginning to write adult stories and that the day of the
boy-author writing boys stories got up to look like grown-ups stories will soon be over once and
for all. . . . (James 168)
This is a call-to-arms from an author who, one year later, would become an editor and push sf in an entirely
new direction: the New Wave.
The New Wave was based in London and centred on authors published in New Worlds. It must be
noted, however, that to describe the New Wave as a solid group like a club or gang with matching
jackets is a bit misleading. While key authors shared locations and New Worlds was a locus for the
movement, their associations with one another were not part of an organized endeavour. Rather it was
more of a loose affiliation. Essentially, they were the right authors at the right time with the right journal
edited by the right editor. But, what were the ideals of the New Wave? What was Moorcock looking for
in his New Worlds authors? Generally speaking these are the traits that emerged in the New Wave:
1. Countercultural sensibility: sf was encouraged to explore countercultural politics. Of course, the
1960s was a decade of countercultural politics as the entire social fabric was changed by the hippie
movement and protests against the war in Vietnam, resistance to the growing industrialization of
second- and third-world nations, changing beliefs in gender roles and sexuality (as in the feminist
movement), and a general sense of breaking with the past to make the world better/different;
2. Youth rebellion as sex, drugs, and rock n roll were making the younger generations increasingly
alien to their older parents;
3. British rejection of the clichd images of spaceships, rayguns, green-skinned aliens, etc that saw
a greater focus on soft sf;
4. Interest in non-Western belief systems: the 1960s saw expanded explorations and adoptions of
Eastern religions, non-Western modes of thought, and introspective investigations of altered states
of consciousness;
5. Interrogations of a world increasingly changed by the media and multi-national conglomerates.
Media critic Marshall McLuhan argued that the world is in the process of becoming a global
village thanks to the ubiquity of media technologies (television, radio, telephones) that are wiring
the world and allowing communication to anywhere on the planet. Also, multinational
conglomerates are controlling national economies and importing corporate culture that often
clashes with native nationalist cultures.
A key concept to the New Wave is also the idea of inner space. Author J. G. Ballard (one of the
authors Moorcock saw as heralding new directions for sf) described inner space in his 1962 editorial to
New Worlds: [s]cience fiction should turn its back on space, on interstellar travel, extra-terrestrial life
forms, galactic wars and the overlap of these ideas that spreads across the margins of nine-tenths of
magazine s-f [. . . ]. The biggest developments of the immediate future will take place, not on the Moon or
Mars, but on Earth, and it is inner space, not outer, that needs to be explored. The only truly alien planet is
Earth (qtd. in James 16-70). In the end, Peter Nicholls may have the most effective summary of the New
Wave:
Much of it shared the qualities of the late-1960s counterculture, including an interest in mindaltering drugs and oriental religions, a satisfaction in violating taboos, a marked interest in sex, a
strong involvement in Pop Art and in the media landscape generally, and a pessimism about the
future that ran strongly counter to genre sfs traditional optimism, often focused on the likelihood
of disaster caused by overpopulation and interference with the ecology, as well as by war, and a
general cynicism about the politics of the US and UK governments (notably the US involvement in
Southeast Asia and elsewhere). (866)
Ursula K. Le Guin: A Snapshot
Now, Le Guin is not often identified as a New Wave author; however, there can be no doubt that
she was heavily influenced by the New Wave. In fact, she acknowledges the importance of the New Wave
on her writing in the introduction to the Norton Book of Science Fiction (she co-edited it with Brian
Attebery and Karen Joy Flower): [I]t is fair to say that science fiction changed around 1960, and that the
change tended towards an increase in the number of writers and readers, the breadth of subject, the depth
of treatment, the sophistication of language and technique, and the political and literary consciousness of
the writing (18). So, it is during the mid-1960s that Le Guin released her first three novels of what would
be known as the Hainish sequence. By the end of the 1960s she released the phenomenally successful The
Left Hand of Darkness, a canonical sf novel that explores gender roles and sex designations. The 1970s
was equally successful for Le Guin as she repeatedly produced award-winning novels, including The
Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia and the one on our course: The Lathe of Heaven. Le Guin continues
to produce and has released several novels in the past few years, including The Telling (2000) and The
Other Wind(2005).
Plot Overview
The plot of The Lathe of Heaven is deceptive. On the surface it is nothing more than the struggle
of the protagonist, George Orr, to come to terms with his dreams. As part of his mandated treatment
(Voluntary Therapeutic Treatment) for using barbiturates and Dexedrine that have been illegally purchased
using other citizens Pharmacy Cards, George is sent to Dr. William Haber to determine why he is using
the chemicals to suppress the dreaming state of sleep, the d-state or REM state. At first Haber treats
George as simply another patient, a drug abuse case, but he quickly re-assesses George when it becomes
apparent Georges dreams take on special abilities: when George dreams, the world he awakens to has
changed. More frightening, however, is Georges realization that nobody in the newly-changed has
any world recollection of the previous world. Only George can remember the old world. Haber initially doubts
Georges claims and tests his new patient by submitting him to a device of his own creation, the
Augmentor, a device designed to augment d-state dreaming. This allows Haber to get his patients into dstate more rapidly and he can then record their brain waves. It quickly becomes clear to Haber that George
does in fact possess this dreaming ability of which he claims.
The bulk of the narrative has to do with Georges attempts to reconcile his d-state effective
dreaming abilities with Dr. Habers manipulations. Overall, Habers intention is to use the Augmentor to
record Georges brainwaves which would allow him to cure George without losing the power of effective
dreaming. Unable to simply stop attending the court-mandated sessions, George is increasingly frustrated
with his lack of treatment at the hands of Haber. In an attempt to break this cycle of dependency, George
visits the attorney Heather Lelache. Although she is initially skeptical, Lelache witnesses one effective
dreaming session and literally sees the world transform around her. Following the session, she and George
attempt to determine the best course of action; finally, out of desperation, Heather suggests George dream
Haber is a more benevolent person, someone who is less power-hunger and will cure George rather than
exploit him. During the hypnosis, however, Heather recklessly suggests George also dream that aliens are
no longer on Earths moon. George subsequently awakens to a world where the aliens have left the moon
and are attacking Earth. In spite of the risks of submitting George once again to Habers control, Habers
Augmentor is the only way to once again rectify reality and bring peace to the planet. While successful
in halting the war, the remainder of the novel finds George cycling through several realities some of
which include Heather Lelache as his wife, some that have no Heather whatsoever and he learns the
aliens, the Aldebaranians, have a word for his ability: iahklu. Befriending an Aldebaranian merchant,
Tiua=k Ennbe Ennbe, George is increasingly comforted (albeit still confused) that his ability is not entirely
unique to him but can be conceptualized, albeit not articulated, by the alien race. Tiuak Ennbe Ennbe
helps reconcile George to his abilities, symbolized when the alien, in an attempt at communication, gives
George a copy of the Beatles With a Little Help from My Friends that provides George, albeit strangely,
with an informal support network, what is called Er perrehnne in the language of the Aldebaranians.
This support network is needed in the end when Haber, using his Augmentor, attempts to replicate
Georges d-state abilities and inadvertently creates a nightmarish world: The emptiness of Habers being,
the effective nightmare, radiating outward from the dreaming brain, had undone connections. The
continuity which had always held between the worlds or timelines of Orrs dreaming had now been
broken. Chaos had entered in (Le Guin 167). Apparently cured of his own d-state abilities, George
simply shuts the Augmentor off, restoring the world but leaving Dr. Haber in a permanent mental fugue
that finds the once-esteemed psychiatrist housed in the Federal Asylum for the Insane. For George,
redemption is offered in the form of Heather Lelache, a woman he has loved in several timelines who once
again enters his life and portends a bright future where dreams of the heart might come true one last time.
Le Guin and the New Wave:
So how is The Lathe of Heaven representative of the New Wave movement? Remember, as part
of that journey to inner space, the counter-cultural 1960s milieu saw younger generations break with belief
systems of the past to explore new modes of awareness, facilitated by the energy of rock >n roll, the
changes in sexuality, the emergence of women=s liberation movements, and drug experimentalism. In
addition, non-Western belief systems and methods of altering consciousness and perception were
embraced, including Taoism, Buddhism, the Tarot, and other non-Western perceptual systems.
Inner space and the focus on Taoism are clearly structuring principles for The Lathe of Heaven.
For example, a chief figure of Taoism is Chuang Tse and several chapters begin with his epigraphs.
Theres more to say in this department but Ill hold off until the next lecture. Also, while outer space
notions are certainly evident in The Lathe of Heaven including aliens, lunar colonies, apocalyptic
plagues,. nuclear weaponry, and inter-species warfare inner space is the engine driving the novel. The
challenges to the psyche, the links between the conscious and unconscious minds, and the reality of dreams
are what are of interest in the novel. Throughout The Lathe of Heaven, George is repeatedly struggling to
make sense of his jumbled mind as his experiences from one continuum to another continuum overlap, his
vision of external reality repeatedly in a state of flux. For a time, George is unable to distinguish the
difference between the waking mind and the sleeping mind and he believes he may in fact be dreaming
that he is awake. From the outset, The Lathe of Heaven is interested in exploring alternative modes of
Being and positing new realms of experience. The unconscious as the dream realm, a state of Being
normally buried by our waking mind and forgotten by the daily trivialities of wakeful living, becomes as
real as the conscious world. This is eloquently summarized by Haber when he tells George that [w]hen
you see another mans dream as he dreams it recorded in black and white on the electroencephalograph, as
Ive done ten thousand times, you dont speak of dreams as unreal. They exist; they are events; they
leave a mark behind them(18). In all, the novel raises important questions regarding the perception of
reality, the responsibility of those possessing power, and, ultimately, the relationships among (human)
beings and the planet. These are all traits that emerged in the 1960s when New Wave sensibilities
(re)shaped the focus of sf and what it could achieve in its narrative speculations.
Parallel Timelines
The Lathe of Heaven also uses a common element of sf: parallel timelines and alternate histories.
George keeps awaking to find a new history has supplanted the one he was living before he went to sleep.
But, what is the point of this? Is it simply a means of telling a story or does it serve a more theoretical
function? Well, there are some useful philosophical questions that arise when we consider history and the
narrative function of alternate histories. We typically look at history as having unfolded in the way it
should have unfolded; in other words, historical events must have worked out the way they were
supposed to work out by their having happened. Put another way, we live in a world where the Axis lost
World War II; thus, it must be right that they lost since that is the way history unfolded. History had to
have moved in its proper direction as evidenced in our contemporary reality. Alternate histories, however,
demonstrate the contingency of history, highlighting how reality is a by-product of individual actors and
actions, some on a grand scale while others on a minute scale. An alternate Earth allows readers to see
how history and historical actions are not written in stone nor pre-ordained macrocosmic events; rather,
events in reality that become history always respond to currents and eddies us and our actions!. Le Guin
encapsulates this reality-bending model through the figure of George who is buffeted by the current of
history and repeatedly shifts from one continuum to the next under the machinations of Dr. Haber, all the
while changing the world around him. The Lathe of Heaven demonstrates that history past, present, and
future and reality are contingent on human actions as the world that is made (and remembered) is
constantly in a state of change.
To be continued
Works Cited
Bernardo, Susan. M. and Graham J. Murphy. Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion.
Westport, CN: Greenwood P, 2006. Print.
James, Edward. Science Fiction in the 20th Century. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994. Print.
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Lathe of Heaven. New York: Scribners, 1971. Print.
Le Guin, Ursula K., Brian Attebery, and Karen Joy Fowler, eds. The Norton Book of Science
Fiction. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993. Print.
Nicholls, Peter. New Wave. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Eds. Peter Nicholls
and John Clute. New York: St. Martins Griffin, 1995. 865-67. Print.
Graham J. Murphy