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This thread is intended specifically for the discussion of one Ursula Kroeber Le Guin, and the prolific work that she has done over her career. She has primarily worked in the science-fiction/fantasy genre, but always at its fringes, typically trying to push conventions or constraints in one way or another. She is possibly best known for her fantasy magnun opus of sorts, The Earthsea Cycle, which covers approximately five books and a collection of short stories, and which I recommend as a pretty good starting point. The first book in the series, A Wizard of Earthsea, is a very compelling, short, and satisfying novel. It's not a big time commitment to attempt to read, like George R R Martin or Tolkien. But then, Earthsea sort of skirts the "Young Adult" line, and while it was categorized at such when it was first written (partially for its brief length and deceptively straightforward writing style, I believe) you are not likely to find it in the YA section these days, but rather in the fantasy/sci-fi section, where it appropriately should be. The other book she is probably most well-known for is The Left Hand of Darkness, a sci-fi novel about a single human envoy who is sent to a planet undergoing an ice age, whose inhabitants are mono-gendered and utterly androgynous, with a very different society and approach to sexuality and gender than we are used to. Le Guin does some amazing things with this premise, and Left Hand is probably my personal favorite book of hers, though it can be difficult to get into initially due to a somewhat unorthodox, anthropological-like approach Le Guin takes to the novel and to her exploration of its world. Another good one to recommend is Lathe of Heaven - a more traditional stand-alone work of sci-fi by Le Guin that is a very wonderful, fun, mind-bending read. She wrote it as something of an homage to Philip K. Dick, and purposely borrowed a number of his tropes and motifs and used them to great effect. That said, it's not as if she "stole" from him, or anything - Dick gave the novel ebullient praise and loved it, which makes sense. I think I'll stop here, as that is likely enough of an OP for now, I suppose. All the links are to the corresponding wikipedia articles, and I hope that is perhaps helpful. I have so much more to say about these books that I feel as if I am holding back, but perhaps it's better to save it for discussion. I want to talk about the use of magic in Le Guin's Earthsea books, for instance, and how much I love the way she portrayed it. Or what her Dragons in those books are like - my favorite dragons from any fantasy novel. Or the way she uses race, and will sometimes very quietly makes her heroes dark-skinned without bothering to mention such an inconsequential fact till halfway through when we've already strongly identified with the character. But yeah, I'll save all that. Meantime, discuss, people! I will do my best to answer any questions. kaworu fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 19:31
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Surprised you didn't mention The Dispossessed. People focus on Le Guin as a female author writing in a male-dominated genre and they forget that she was also writing socialist works in a generally libertarian genre; The Dispossessed can be read as the antithesis of Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Ah! You got me here. This was the book that was on the bubble to be briefly profiled in the OP but I decided against it, since I am prone to writing wall-of-text posts that look too long to read. But it's one of my favorites, and I agree with what you're saying absolutely. It's a wonderful in that while it is the antithesis of that Heinlein book, it is not a response per se; Le Guin has no axe to grind, and no interest in simply making heavy-handed political points. Rather, one gets the idea that she is truly concerned with creating worlds and characters and telling stories first and foremost. The political architecture of a novel like The Dispossessed is set atop the foundation of a strongly told and compelling story. quote:And let us not neglect The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. I completely forgot about this. Maybe because no matter how many times I read it, I find it profoundly upsetting. And the more I think about it, the more upset I get. Which is to say it's a pretty stunning little piece of writing. kaworu fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 21:15
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Hedrigall posted:I've been considering buying the Earthsea Quartet for years, and thanks to this thread I finally went and bought this very pretty edition. It has the first four novels (hence "quartet"). Am I right in thinking that, once I'm done with this volume, all I'll need to get is The Other Wind and Tales from Earthsea to have the complete experience? I want to talk a little about this. The Earthsea books have been known, at various times, as a trilogy, a quartet, and a "cycle". I prefer to call it a "cycle" because it sounds cool, and in truth, the Earthsea books actually consist primarily of two entirely seperate trilogies, written during very different periods of Le Guin's life: Earthsea Trilogy 1 (released from 1968-1972) A Wizard of Earthsea The Tombs of Atuan The Farthest Shore Earthsea Trilogy 2 (released from 1990-2001) Tehanu Tales from Earthsea The Other Wind I think the books divide very nicely into these two, separate trilogies. The first trilogy primarily concerns the events of Ged/Sparrowhawk, while the second trilogy takes a broader view of things. I would say they should be read in this specific order, 1-6, as it is the order they were written in and the books make the most sense when read in that order. My belief, after some recent consideration, is that Le Guin wrote the second trilogy in part as a sort of... counterbalance to the first trilogy. To maintain some sense of equilibrium. She tried too hard in Tehanu, arguably the weakest of the series, definitely the strangest. Tehanu is best read from the perspective of feminism, and as a feminist response to how patriarchal the first trilogy was in construction and adherence to certain tried and true fantasy tropes. This does not detract from them, per se, but it's there nevertheless, as Le Guin was increasingly aware as she grew older. It is evident to me now that in the second trilogy, Le Guin purposely placed the balance of power firmly in the hands of the female characters (and the feminine side of things in general) during the second trilogy. And I have to say that the more I read those books and the think about it, the more it makes sense to me and the more I like and respect the choices she made - even in the controversial Tehanu. I hesitate to discuss more as I don't want to get too deep into spoilers. Albinator posted:A note for the practical reader: the Earthsea novels (the first three at least) can work really well as a bedtime read-aloud. My son loved having them read to him when he was around 7 or 8, and it's really nice to be reading something of that quality. This is so true. Lying in bed with my eyes shut as my father read the first trilogy aloud to me when I was around that age is a treasured memory... And I can only imagine those books were an absolute pleasure for him to read aloud to me. I highly recommend this to all parents. But I want to say that you should NOT read Tehanu aloud to your children. As an apropos response to both of the posts I quoted, Tehanu deals with the violent physical abuse, rape, and abandonment of a young girl by her family. Many thought at the time book was released that events such as those had no place in Earthsea novels, and perhaps this is so, but I sympathize greatly with the points Le Guin was trying to make. But nevertheless, I would not consider Tehanu appropriate YA reading - which is a bit of a shame because Tales From Earthsea and The Other Wind are pretty wonderful and perfectly appropriate for all ages, I think. That said, if you were reading this series to your kids, I think you could skip Tehanu and be more or less fine. kaworu fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Oct 29, 2013 |
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Oct 29, 2013 16:11
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To me, the Omelas story is extremely personal. I could dissect from a broad, political point of view but... That is not how I react to the story. As Lotish pointed out, it's a story that tends to elicit a visceral reaction. It hits me right in the gut, and I can't help but relate to it empathetically and personally. To me, it's about a decision I made at some point. I can't say when I made the decision, or if I was aware that I was even making it at the time. But there was some point where I became more aware of the extent of the suffering that can exist, and does exist on this world. And that my knowledge of this suffering, and lack of action to do whatever I could to stop it, somehow makes me complicit in this world that allows this suffering to occur. Or I don't know. Maybe I am wrong.
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Oct 31, 2013 05:04
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Autumncomet posted:Yay, a LeGuin thread. I am actually pretty sure it may have been the only "mainstream" fantasy novel to be brave enough to cast people of color in the vast majority of its roles. One of the things I loved was that she was relatively nonspecific about it too, so it left plenty of space in the imagination. I always imagined Ged and Ogion and other Gontishmen as looking vaguely like Native Americans in skin tone, while people in Havnor and the center of the Archipelago had more of an Arabian/Indian look to them, and then people in the east/southeast like Vetch were black like Africans. You probably have a different idea of things, which is great. And of course only the barbarian Kargads were white. It was amazing how... softly and quietly she interjected this into the story, and I truly loved that. It gave so much more substance and imagery to the world. Also, Left Hand of Darkness has a black man for its only actual human character in the book, which is pretty cool. I didn't fully even pick up on it initially. Sci-fi can be almost as bad as fantasy in terms of how white-washed it can be.
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Nov 2, 2013 14:54
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I don't know; I rather think we could keep some discussion up for a while, it seems to me that Le Guin is actually rather prolific, and I'm willing to bet we could find plenty to talk about. Maybe I was being overly optimistic, but I thought briefly about just making an Earthsea thread! I think this thread could thrive and do well, given that in my opinion there's lots to discuss. Although, as Hieronymous Alloy just pointed out, not much to argue about. Pretty much everyone who actually bothers to seek out her work is liable to love her. Something I wanted to mention was that Le Guin also wrote a book once called Steering the Craft, on the subject of writing, that I'd been meaning to track down. I had (and lost) a copy that was given to me as a birthday when I was 14 or 15, and I couldn't properly appreciate it at the time. I just this week ordered a reasonably priced used copy from amazon and am waiting for it to arrive with some trepidation. I harbored fantasies of being a writer when I was younger, which were slowly torn to pieces by my own inability to actually do the hard work required. I'm really looking forward to getting this book and actually doing the exercises in it, now - not that I suddenly think it will make me a writer or anything, but since I've started reading Ursula again I have just been - far more than every before - utterly mesmerized by the economy and beauty of her prose, and see much more clearly the influence of stuff like various translations of the Tao Te Ching or just eastern poetry in general. I'd always known her books were influenced philosophically by Eastern thought and religion, but it's very interesting to see the ways in which the more technical aspects of her writing were as well. It's a bit sad. I was going to talk about DRAGONS in this post, and write a lengthy treatise on why Le Guin's dragons are the *best* dragons by far, and captured the immutable essence of what a dragon is both practically and metaphorically. Her dragons are like the literal manifestation of the essence of all that fantasy and magic and the possibility of such things might represent. Or something. It's hard to put into words!
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Nov 5, 2013 17:42
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:They're sort of a perfect storm of "difficult to film". The stories are introspective and allusive, the protagonists are non-white and sometimes non-male, so forth. I've always had this fantasy since I was a kid (since before the Lord of the Rings movies even existed) that I would become a master filmmaker when I grew up and my magnum opus would be adapting the Earthsea books into a trilogy of films that had the same spare, lyrical beauty of the books. Of course it's utterly silly now, and those films would never get made. But it's nice to fantasize about. Earthsea films would have to be more in the vein of like... a Jim Jarmusch-esque indie where characters speak in stylized riddles and scenes can go for 15 minutes with no dialogue and almost nothing happening. Like, that's how the climax of A Wizard of Earthsea would have to be filmed - maybe 20 minutes of no dialogue with Ged and Vetch sailing into oblivion and speaking nothing for days at a time. God, what a wonderful film that could be if made properly. Oh, and the relationship between Studio Ghibli/Miyazaki and Earthsea/Le Guin goes deeper than that. Miyazaki has said that the Earthsea books are his absolute favorite novels of all time, as I recall, or some extremely esteemed praise like that. Back in the early '80s when he was starting out he really wanted to adapt them and asked Le Guin directly at least once or twice. She refused him at the time because she was still very wary of such things back then and didn't want to just give the Earthsea rights away to a guy who wanted to make it into a Japanese cartoon that (at the time) probably would not have gotten any wide exposure in America. And to be fair this was Miyazaki before he had made any of his great films, and was known mostly for his work on Lupin III and Detective Boy Conan. So it wasn't like Le Guin was saying no to the guy who had made Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. It's really, like, one of the truly great tragedies that she didn't say yes to him, nevertheless. And Le Guin, of course, wrote that she now deeply regrets that she didn't say yes back then. Miyazaki ended up making Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind instead, and interestingly you can see definite influences from Earthsea in it, as well as in lots of his work. I watched Princess Mononoke again recently and was struck by just how much it reminded me of the Earthsea books, especially the first one - being about a heroic young man bearing a sort of shadow-curse that is emblematic of the hatred that exists in the hearts of men. In any case, It sucks so badly that Miyazaki's son hosed the project up so much. I still haven't seen all of Tales of Earthsea - I got 10 minutes and shut it off because it was too goddamn painful. It really is just a different story that borrows the names. It's not even set on a freaking archipelago! It shouldn't even be named Earthsea in that case! And I love that the film is a bastardization of The Farthest Shore and Tehanu, yet is called 'Tales From Earthsea' which is the name of a short story collection from which the film adapts nothing. And it's a freaking wonderful collection of stories that every Earthsea fan should read.
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Nov 11, 2013 06:36
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House Louse posted:Tales from Earthsea has a lot of problems but Goro Miyazaki's not to blame for all of them, or even most, I think. He was only the director and co-writer; the other writer's stuff hasn't been very good either, like a lot of recent Ghibli films. You are probably entirely correct on this front, and the failure of a film like that (and I should note that it was not a complete failure as a film by all accounts), just a severe disappointment to those of who were both Earthsea and Ghibli fans and were hoping for something like an adaption worthy of the name Miyazaki - which it unfortunately was not. House Louse posted:There's probably a good semiotic reading of the book that I'm too ignorant to perform. It's interesting than for humans the Old Speech is impossible to lie in, and binds a person, implying that the signifier-signified connection is non-arbitrary (which is why it's magic) – but not so for dragons: they can lie in the Old Speech, though a vow by their names is binding. They don't seem able to do magic, why not? The dead, being part of the world, are know by their true names. The Master Namer's name means “nothing in any language”, so where do the characters' true names come from? Are they existing Old Speech words or inspired invention by the wizards? If it's the latter, wizards have a terrifying existential monopoly on Earthsea, also like priests. These are all very good points to bring up. Good enough that the exploration of some of these issues in fact forms the substance of the later books, as I am sure you are aware - though I don't know if you've read the second Earthsea trilogy (Tehanu, Tales From Earthsea, The Other Wind) or not. I did want to address a couple things briefly though. Dragons cannot do magic, and the answer to this is wrapped up in the fact that The Old Speech is their native tongue. Bear in mind that ALL wizardry is, in essence, based on men speaking the old speech, and working spells around it - and this is based on the concept that one cannot lie in the old speech; that in essence anything a man of power says in the old speech is made true. Thus, a wizard works a spell of changing his form, and the essence of that spell is stating "I am a falcon" and thus it is made so. At least, this was my basic understanding of how magic and speech are connected in the books. But with the dragons, I believe it is said that they not only speak the old speech natively, in a certain literal sense they are the old speech. Or as some character (probably Ged) puts it in some book, "As a fish is swimming, or as a tern is flight, so a dragon is The Old Speech." (thats based on memory so I have no clue how correct I got that quote). So it seems to me that the question of whether a dragon performs magic or not is almost immaterial; Le Guin's dragons very literally are magic in their absolute essence. Again, at least, this was my understanding. I really need to re-read The Other Wind and get on with these books (I'm currently on The Farthest Shore in my re-read) because I am almost positive Le Guin goes into a lot of this stuff in the final book. I did want to say, almost coming to the end of The Farthest Shore in my re-read, I am reminded again why this book was my absolute favorite, and why it moved me so much. I would argue strongly that the relationship between Ged and Arren is the strongest and most well-developed one in the series, and perhaps the central relationship of the series in many ways. It plays almost like a tragically doomed love affair, which it is in many ways, even if the love is platonic and spiritual, it is no less powerful or moving. I'm moving into the latter part of the book and there was a dialogue sequence between Ged and Arren that just moved me to blinding tears. It's intense stuff for me, perhaps because these books are so deeply ingrained in my consciousness, having read them several times when I was so young. kaworu fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Nov 14, 2013 |
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Nov 14, 2013 17:46
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I'll definitely take a look at that book Michael Swanwick, thanks  I'm really looking forward to re-reading the latter trilogy because I'm like 99% sure based on my recollection of The Other Wind that it largely concerns matters we're discussing, as well as lots about The Dry Land which is, to this day, the most utterly horrifying and vivid depiction of an afterlife I've ever encountered in description of depiction.I also finished The Farthest Shore last night and predictably, it makes me want to just re-read the original trilogy instead of plunging into Tehanu, the prospect of which frightens me, because it's the only Earthsea book I never really closely read at least twice in its entirety. I only gave it a single read over 10 years ago and barely remember much about it at all, except that at the time I found it bewildering, unpleasant, and upsetting enough that I couldn't even consider the "quality" of the book. I think I'll have an easier time of it now, because I am not going into it expecting a traditional Earthsea book or anything that could even be described as a true "sequel" to the original trilogy. The Other Wind was the fulfillment of the promise of a true "sequel" to the first trilogy, I think. There is a question I have for people who have read the original trilogy though, and especially The Farthest Shore, that is really bugging me and has bugged since I first read the book years and years ago. WARNING: Spoilers follow for the end of The Farthest Shore, so do not continue reading unless you have finished that book! Okay. My question involves why we never learn Cob's true name, and what point Ursula was trying to make with this. The stage is set for this when we learn Cob's story early on (before Arren at least deduces that this is the man they seek). Ged tells Arren the story of how, in his more prideful days of youth, he taught this particular mage (who was using the Pelnish lore to truly summon spirits of the dead as practically a parlor trick) a lesson by dragging him across The Wall of Stones (the barrier between life and death) and back again, despite his cowardice and horror. Arren asks the name of this mage, and Ged says he can remember his true name, but not his use-name. Then there is an odd moment in the book where Le Guin describes the silence, and Ged continuing (in a "changed" voice) that they called him "Cob" back then in Havnor. Thenceforth in the novel, he is only ever referred to as Cob, and we never learn his true name. When Ged and Arren are on Selidor, and Ged works a spell of summoning to bring Cob to them, he says only "My enemy" in the invocation, in place of where Cob's true name would normally be. When Ged, Arren, and Cob are all in The Dry Land in the book's climax, Ged freely gives his name to Cob, while Cob hesitates when asked his true name and says that it is "Cob". The implication is that he cannot remember his true name. So this sort of makes sense, at least, it makes sense to me that Cob might forget his own true name through the process of rebirth, and thus lose his true essence of self... But what confuses me is whether Ged has forgotten it or not, or if he is lying to Arren when asked that question. Or what the significance is of the fact that *we* never learn Cob's true name throughout the course of the novel. That's what really strikes me as odd. I know it's written from Arren's perspective, and not Ged's, so that might be why we don't know it, but still. It was something that always seemed curious to me, and I am not sure if my own explanation is correct or not.
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Nov 15, 2013 18:40
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I read this as Cobb not even *having* a true name any more. He somehow managed to . . void himself. If Cobb had had a true name, Ged would know it; that's what Ged does. Ged realizes that name is "gone" when he tries to remember it, and just remembers "Cobb" instead. Mmm. It's a good answer. Thank you, really, for explaining that, because it makes perfect sense. That's the moment when Ged realizes the truth on some level, when he remembers the man but cannot remember the name. Because that's the sickness that is spreading by the unlife of Cob - the forgetting of The Old Speech, of magery, of the true essence of things. So it really makes perfect sense that Cob and only Cob wold be an utterly nameless void still alive, sucking life from the great pool of The Archipelago at the edges/Reaches first and then effecting the core. Anyway. I'm several chapters into Tehanu and enjoying it *far* more than I thought I would. This is truly an adult book, because it simply deals with themes, conflicts, and issues that are truly pertinent only to adults, and those who have been in the world awhile. It's no wonder I was frightened and bewildered when I read this book at age 15; I had no frame of reference for how the above description of a lifeless, joyless world could be interpreted from a less mythic, more rural fantasy setting, and from the POV of an aging widow. And of course, it is all tied up in the existence of Tehanu/Therru - the walking metaphor for a the very feminine essence of the earth that has been used, abused, raped, beaten, burned, and left very nearly for dead by men/masculinity/wizardry - only to be nursed slowly and painstakingly back to life by blind hope and compassion. At least, I sort of read it that way, and I hope that doesn't sound too harsh or insensitive but, well, it's a very difficult and intense book, at least 100 pages in. I'm a little awed though, because it is much better than I thought it'd be. kaworu fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Nov 16, 2013 |
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Nov 16, 2013 21:40
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Yeah, I just finished Tehanu and honestly... I don't think I had ever read all the way through. Either that or I had consciously just chosen not to remember all the truly unpleasant parts. Because boy, the climax of that novel (I'm thinking specifically of the scenes with Aspen) are just downright painful to read, especially when you're so invested in Ged and Tenar. Troubling, indeed. The truth of it is that, with the exception of just three male characters in the novel (whom I won't bother naming because they are more or less the three main male characters from the first three books) all the men in Tehanu are just absolutely monstrous and downright terrifying, albeit to varying degrees. But all of them are chauvinistic in the extreme, and the worst of them don't seem to consider women to even be people. It makes me feel utmost loathing for my own gender. It makes me understand The Other Wind a good deal more too, and I literally cannot *wait* to re-read it, because, like the above poster said, it really is a very serene, beautiful novel with none of the brutality and departure in tone that Tehanu represented. "A sense of mending" is the perfect way to put, and it is no coincidence that the most important new character introduced in The Other Wind just happens to be a "mender" by trade. Le Guin is nothing if not beautifully concise in her literalness, at times. I want to re-read Tales From Earthsea from beginning to end, first, though because as much as I desperately want to jump and just read all of The Other Wind right now, I promised myself I would do a full sequential read-through of all the Earthsea material. Now that I've made it through every word of Tehanu (again, not that it's bad, it was just difficult and gave me honestly more to think about than I wanted or was prepared for, in some ways) I'm thinking it'll be a real pleasure to read these last two, no matter what. edit: Oh! I have noticed recently since having to purchase new paperback copies of the original trilogy at various used book stores, many newer paperback editions of all the first four books lack the maps that were included in earlier editions. Those of us who read those early editions know just how incredibly helpful and important it was to have those maps, even if you had to squint to make out the big one in the beginning and Havor was split in half by the page break. It still helped! Well, later editions really weirdly don't seem to have any maps. I bought a copy of Wizard with no maps at all - and my old first edition handed from my dad which is falling apart and I would never read or fear of damaging even had close-up maps scattered throughout the book of the inmost sea or the east reach or where-ever Ged happened to be at that point in the story. None of that in newer books. My old copy of Tombs of Atuan has incredibly helpful hand-drawn maps of both the underground Labyrinth, and the Place around The Tombs - the newer editions I found do not. I can't imagine reading these books without those maps. And once again, I know early editions of Tehanu had a close-up map of Gont showing all its villages and rises and valleys and inlets and whatnot. The new edition of Tehanu I've been reading didn't have it. Such a huge less and needlessly confusing to new readers. So I wanted to link a couple links things for people: High-resolution hand-drawn map of Earthsea by Ursula herself This a fantastic map and the one that was included in newer hardcover editions of The Other Wind. She very courteously provides four different resolutions, including an awesomely huge one that is freaking 3736x2823 in resolution, and currently my desktop wallpaper Here is a smaller one for the hell of it: The Isolate Tower - Maps This is just a little fansite but when I tried looking for the unique maps from Tombs and Tehanu, this was really the only place I could find decent resolution versions of it! It has been very helpful during my mapless re-reads of those books, and I have gone back to the site to refer to it and figure out where things were going on at various times. It was invaluable. I hope some that of that is helpful! kaworu fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Nov 19, 2013 |
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Nov 19, 2013 16:13
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I am so happy this thread has helped! And that it may encourage you to read more Le Guin. That makes me quite happy  And if you loved Tehanu and found it ultimately uplifting, then I think you are going to really love Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind. Both of them really improve on the ideas and themes that were raised in Tehanu, and they go deeper. And she does it in a much more gentle, joyful way. I just finished The Other Wind again last night and after this whole read through, I just had tears in my eyes for the last twenty pages practically that made it rather difficult to read, heh. I am truly in even more awe of that last book than I was before. I hope I am not raising your expectations too much, because I'm certain opinions vary. But I have a hard time imagining that anyone who read the preceding 5 books would not enjoy the hell out of The Other Wind. Also, the novella/short story that closes out Tales from Earthsea, Dragonfly, should really be considered the prologue to The Other Wind; it takes place at some point during the ~15 years that divides it from Tehanu. I might have said that before, but having re-read it all recently it rings much more true, as Le Guin really masterfully lays out the themes and concepts that she would be exploring, almost like a conceptual outline or primer. Another thing is that, well... I really can't help but compare Earthsea to GRRM's work, mainly because his massive tomes were the only other high fantasy I'd recently read in the last 5 years, besides Earthsea. It's almost impossible to compare them because they're so different, but in truth, well, they are both American authors who write about dragons and have created fantasy realms imaginative enough to develop lives of their own. And yet they are so different. I suppose Le Guin's sensibility is so much more similar to mine that it makes sense I would prefer her work to such an enormous degree... But it just casts Martin's work in possibly *the* most unflattering light possible by virtue of being (to me) so much better.
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Dec 5, 2013 17:33
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Let us not forget Ursula K. Le Guin's mother, either. From my understanding, Theodora Kroeber was by all accounts a very remarkable woman in her own right. Just to quote the first paragraph of her wikipedia page: "Theodora Kracaw Kroeber Quinn (March 24, 1897 – July 4, 1979) was a writer and anthropologist, best known for her accounts of Ishi, the last member of the Yahi tribe of California, and for her retelling of traditional narratives from several Native Californian cultures." This was something I believe she collaborated with her husband on, but we are still talking about a woman who had a master's degree at age 23 from Berkeley in 1920. Which was incidentally the year wome were first allowed to vote in America, amazingly enough. In any case. Ursula definitely must have had an absolutely fascinating upbringing and it would absolutely seem that her parents influence is right there in her work. I mean... it really all is right there. You read Left Hand of Darkness and find out that the sort of "research" and "myth" chapters she had in there were things she had written for herself over the course of the novel in order to "discover" things about the planet and people she was writing about. That says a lot right there.
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Dec 27, 2013 20:36
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Stavrogin posted:I've got kids now-- has anyone read any "Catwings?" You know, I haven't. But I have a little sister, and my parents would read those to her when she was young and she totally adored them, if memory serves. And my parents liked them just as much, if not more. I think read them to her when she was 5 or so and that's sort of the target age for those books more or less? I just checked and "4-8" is what it says on the barnes and noble page, so yeah. Anyway, it's Le Guin and it's about flying cats so how wrong could you really go?  Hieronymous Alloy posted:I just checked on her website to find the mailing address and she no longer does this, the printer who made the bookplates died =( This makes me truly, truly sad as I had intended on doing this at some point like a few years ago and it totally got away from me. I like that you can still write to her personally and she apparently reads it all herself and has no assistant it goes through sending canned responses. Which also means you almost certainly will not get a response. But nevertheless, it makes me want to handwrite a long and heartfelt letter to her about how much her work has truly meant to me (hopefully without sounding like a psychopath) before she does, as they say, shove off. Because she is getting up there in age; 84 now, I believe. Hope she lives to be 100 and in good health, though Anyway, I also want to add that I'm truly cheered by how well this thread has gone. I wasn't actually sure if it wouldn't just fizzle into total disinterest on the first page, so it's really wonderful to see how well it's gone. Nice to see that she still commands a good deal of interest!
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Dec 29, 2013 17:43
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Kassad posted:I've finished reading Tehanu not long ago so here's the gist of what happened (massive spoilers ahead): Tehanu's back-story is even more horrific than that, really. Some of it is more subtly revealed, I think, like the fact that she was raped and sexually abused by her "family", in addition to being malnourished and regularly beaten. I'm not sure but I don't think we find this out till later in the book where Tenar angrily misinterprets something her town witch says as meaning Therru is unfit to be a witch because she isn't a virgin. In any case, the implication I got from when Therru got burned was that they had used her for pity to beg for more money, but once it got to the point where it was too physically evident that they were beating and raping the child, they just shoved her face-first into the hot coals of a dying fire one morning on their way out of town, and left her for dead: which is where Tenar finds her. I don't know why, but I feel like that's even more awful than if they had... actively been cruel to her. But what made Therru's story so deeply awful to me was that her original "family" couldn't even be bothered to even be actively cruel to her, because that would mean acknowledging her as a person; they just used her for their purposes and once keeping her around was more trouble than it was worth, they throw her away like trash. Tehanu is really one of those rare books that made me so upset during certain scenes that I was literally both shaking with anger *and* crying. And what was so awful in a way was that Le Guin never, ever uses these events gratuitously or for shock value or lingers on the details or anything. It's not about that. The events are nowhere near as important as how we pick ourselves up again and learn how to live all over again. kaworu fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 04:12
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You know, it's funny. I almost have to consider Left Hand as three separate short books, in some ways. There are quite a few chapters that tell Gethenian legends and stories, or consist of earlier Ekumenical reports on Gethen. These chapters definitely feel distinct from the story but are nicely sprinkled throughout. Not being written by either of our protagonists/narrators (Genly and Estraven) these chapters definitely stick out, but it was a drat good thing le Guin put them in there, I think. And then we havee the two very distinct halves of the main story. There's the first half where Genly Ai is going about trying to accomplish his mission through the conventional means he has likely learned from his training with the Ekumen, and if his social attitudes reflect those of the era that the book was written in, we can hardly fault le Guin too much for that. [ While Genly is obviously trying to adapt to the Gethenian ways and get the hang of things, he is clearly held back in a number of ways, most significantly by his total inability to grasp the meaning behind shifgrethor, the sort of "game" or "system" of social pride and order and face-saving that essentially dictates how the Gethenians live their lives and what dictates their senses of self-work and value (spiritually, practically, sexually) in themselves and others. I think that there are a number of analogs on earth, but I have always loved the concept of shifgrethor and just trying to figure out what in hell it means. After the first half concludes with Genly's and Estraven's abject failure in their efforts to first get Karhide to take Genly seriously, and then get Orgoreyn to take him seriously. And thus the second (and by far the best) half of the book begins, with their long trek alone across a glacier in winter on a planet in the midst of an ice age. That second half is the part that really sticks with me, though, because it's also a love story in its own way - a very beautiful and tragic one. One of the things that also stuck with me are the brief but extremely significant allusions to Estraven's brother, Arek, whom he clearly loved deeply and tragically a very long time ago and had a child with. When Genly teaches his companion to mindspeak, it is Arek's voice that he hears in his head when Genly mindspeaks to him. I always thought that was so tragically beautiful, but maybe I'm a sap. But anyway, yeah. I really think there are basically three different distinct books going on here. Part of it is because I always felt the first half just felt so disconnected from the second half in tone and content. The first half is good, but the second half is GREAT and is what elevates this book to the status of classic in my eyes.
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Jan 18, 2014 04:51
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DirtyRobot posted:I also really love the intro in my edition that talks about where she got the idea for the town/place. It's from a road sign or something in Salem, Oregan, which fits the theme that actually Omelas could be any old place. Also, Omelas = salem, but backwards. That is, it means peace, but backwards. Or it's a kind of homophone for home hélas, which translates to "man, alas." Yeah, she mentions the origin of the name "Omelas" in one of my favorite quotes of hers, where she also talks about how she had inadvertently borrowed some central ideas for the story from when she had read Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov at age 25, a connection I didn't make, myself. Anyway, the quote: "[People always ask me] Where do you get your ideas from, Ms. Le Guin?' From forgetting Dostoyevsky and reading road signs backwards, naturally. Where else?" And there was something else I wanted to mention - I got around to reading the "A Description of Earthsea" section at the end of the 2012 hardcover re-release of Tales From Earthsea that I had bought recently. It's pretty great because it goes into detail about some of the legends and histories alluded to throughout the series (Erreth-Akbe, Morred and Elferran, etc) and it's just fun to read about that stuff in depth, as a longtime fan of the series. She also added in something that I thought was just GREAT and which I got a total kick out of. In telling the story of Erreth-Akbe in depth, she goes into detail about how he was best friends growing up with Prince (and eventual King) Maharion, whom you might remember as the last of the old line of the Kings. The one without an heir who made the long-unfulfilled prophecy about the one who will inherit his kingdom will cross the dark land living, a prophecy which of course Arren/Lebannen and Ged fulfill. In any case, Le Guin stats that Erreth-Akbe and Maharion were "Heart's Brothers" and the very, very strong implication was that they were homosexual lovers and that this was more or less commonly culturally accepted in Earthsea, at least back then (and I don't believe homosexuality is brought up much in the main books). But regardless, as a gay reader I got a real kick out of her making the big macho most powerful (pre-Ged) made and hero of legend (Erreth-Akbe) a homosexual. And it's not "retconning" given that this is how she has always worked, creating the history of her world as she discovers it herself.
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Feb 2, 2014 17:03
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I know I'm bringing back an old thread of mine, but I'm kind of surprised it didn't get bumped after Ursula K. Le Guin's *wonderful* speech at The National Book Awards back on November 19th. Some of you might have seen this, because it did sort of make the rounds on the social media sites a little bit. It's a pretty great speech, and it just makes me so happy to hear her saying things like this. We really don't have very many people like this left in the world, and when they decide to speak up and say something (even if just for 6 minutes) it's usually worth listening to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk Ursula Le Guin is pretty much the most awesome person ever. She's just of a breed that isn't around much anymore. She's so wonderful and witty and sharp and incisive here. I just wanted to post it here in case anyone missed it, because it's really worth watching. kaworu fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 04:28
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