The Lathe In Heaven Blog Post #3
By: Matthew Evans Quite a few things have happened since my last blog post. First off, when Heather tells Orr to dream about Dr. Haber being a good man, she also says to dream about the aliens not being on the moon anymore. With this information, Heather and Orr wake up to a world where the aliens have now landed on Earth and are defending themselves against the human militaries of the world. They rush back to the city and meet up with Dr. Haber to try and reverse this mess. After Orr is hypnotized once more, an alien aircraft crashes into the window. An alien appears and tells a terrified Dr. Haber that they actually come in peace and mean no harm. After hearing this, Dr. Haber realizes that civilian life is being lost due to a useless war. He tells Orr to dream about peace with the aliens and a few other requests. Orr wakes up to see that the people around him are all gray and have lost the color in their skin. Everyone also dressed the same. Apparently, Dr. Haber got rid of this to stop racial discrimination along with war as a whole. Portland also became a hub for international relations as the world changed drastically. The aliens also began fitting into society as normal citizens. With this came a price though, he lost Heather Lelache in the process. After processing this, Dr. Haber tells Orr that in each scale relating to traits about himself, he perfectly falls in the middle of each. In this way, he is both normal and abnormal. After learning this, Orr began to question Dr. Haber and even tells him that he isn't going to put up with being used anymore. Dr. Haber reminds Orr that he is in his control legally and can't do anything about it. Orr then allows him to perform the Augmentor while he is still awake. After this, he finds out that Dr. Haber is planning to use him to fix all of humanity's problems. The next day, Orr visits an antique shop owned by an alien. There he learns that the word "iahklu" means incommunicable. He also purchased an antique along with a free Beatles record he gets from the alien called "With a Little Help From My Friends." After finding a record player, Orr listens to it 11 times before falling asleep. He wakes up married to Heather Lelache. Apparently, they have been married for 7 happy months. Next, they drive over to one of Orr's therapy sessions with Dr. Haber. Dr. Haber says that this is Orr's last session ever. After hearing this great news, Heather watches Orr dream through hypnotism one last time. After everything is set and done, they leave together to go to lunch. After a but though, Orr feels uneasy and says that he needs to go see Dr. Haber. Heather forcefully follows him. As they make it closer into the city, the both watch the city slowly melt away. Orr comes to the conclusion that Dr. Haber has found a way to dream effectively and is using it to create the perfect "heaven" he told him about. Leaving Heather behind, Orr makes it up to see Dr. Haber as the world quickly falls apart. He can't stop as the gray world is stripped away entirely. After waking Dr. Haber and seeing what he has done, Orr believes he has lost Heather for good. After that though, an alien finds Orr and tells him to follow it. The alien leads Orr to a bed where he can use his effective dreams to bring back the world that was once known. After dreaming, Orr wakes up to a new world created from the dreams he intended to get rid of. In this world, Dr. Haber ends up in jail for that he has done. After failing to talk to him, Orr makes his way downtown and spots Heather. She doesn't remember that they were married at some point but they do start to talk. After a while of reintroductions, Orr and Heather decide to finally go out to lunch together, since they've missed that chance twice already. This is where the book ends. The book has a theme of doing "God's work" in the sense that Dr. Haber wanted to reshape the world in his image. I see this theme in real life when leaders and dictators force their plans on a nation to reshape it in their image. For example, Hitler forced his radical nazi views on many Europeans which eventually led to the Holocaust. Overall, I really liked this book and how it took a more supernatural take on a "dystopia." It showed what dreams can be to people and how they could affect the entire world. I would recommend this book to a friend because of the very engaging and unique story. I will comment on Maddi P and and Leslie's blog posts.
4 Comments
Madison Perales
6/14/2018 07:24:25 am
I found it really intriguing how you used gods work ,as the connection to our world today. I never thought of using that as an example. But it’s true, there is so much controlling the world, and it’s a lot like what Dr. Haber was doing to George. If you had the chance to make a difference on the world, would you? If so, what would you change?
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Michael Quinn
6/14/2018 07:59:34 am
I agree that the book was extremely engaging! I am curious what your opinion is on why it is amazing! This book has many good things such as the wonderful story telling, to the concepts of sleep, and the deep moral philosophy regarding what makes the best reality and if there is such a thing as a Utopia. There is so many good things about this book but what is your favorite thing about it?
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Angeli
6/14/2018 09:26:13 am
The comparison between Haber and Hitler was interesting. It is true that both men had power and what they thought was good was actually terrible. Do you think that a sensible and reasonable person with Haber's power can actually make a peaceful world? Or will there always be room for a negative outcome?
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Leslie Aguilar
6/14/2018 09:59:28 am
I like that you were able to go into detail in your summary, very well done. I agree with you that a theme in this book is having power and doing “Gods work”. Would you agree that this book is modeling how this could happen in our world?
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