Social commentary can usually be hidden inside either science fiction or black comedy. The Dispossessed (Le Guin) is the former. I finished reading this book a few days ago, and I’ve quickly gotten hooked to Le Guin’s work. I have just started reading her other popular book The Left Hand of Darkness. Here’s a quote from Dispossessed that stuck with me:
They [People on Urras] all looked, to him [a Physicist from Annares], anxious. He has often seen that anxiety before in the faces of the Urrasti, and wondered about it. Was it because, no matter how much money they had, they always had to worry about making more, lest they die poor? Was it guilt, because no matter how little money they had, there was always somebody who has less? Whatever the case, it gave all the faces a certain sameness; and he felt very much alone amongst them.
– p.207, Kindle Edition