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Ursula Le Guin has died
- tilt_error 9y agoThe music of my childhood. I read and re-read those novels.
- jtmcmc 9y agoShe was a fantastic author. I read her earthsea books as a child and I read much of her adult fiction later on. She has always remained one of my favorite authors. However, it seems that she had a long life that was good so I can't be too upset.
- whowouldathunk 9y agoRIP Ursula. I just finished The Left Hand of Darkness and am in the middle of the Earthsea series and it's absolutely fantastic. Love her writing.
- zem 9y agoRIP :( i love every single thing she has written, particularly the earthsea books.
- gbrunacci 9y agoSo sad! I loved all Earthsea book.
- icebraining 9y agoThe introduction to one of the versions of Left Hand of Darkness is one of my favorite texts about Science Fiction: http://theliterarylink.com/leguinintro.html http://theliterarylink.com/leguinintro.html
- aidenn0 9y agoIt is one of mine as well, but I could not remember the source for it, thank you.
- tunesmith 9y agoAnyone remember the source of the essay about the town where everyone was happy, and how it feels unbelievable until you find it has a horrible secret, which somehow makes it more believable? I think that is her writing.
- d_j_b 9y agoThat is a short story called "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"
- Angostura 9y agoI think I have it in "The Winds 12 Quarters"
- steveax 9y agoSalem O backwards
- BerislavLopac 9y ago"People ask me 'Where do you get your ideas from, Ms. Le Guin?' From forgetting Dostoyevsky and reading road signs backwards, naturally. Where else?"
- emmelaich 9y agoYes, a story that has haunted me ever since I read it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Om... The EarthSea Trilogy has stuck with me too.
- kej 9y agoEarthsea was a trilogy from '72 to '90, but it's now five novels and a bunch of short stories. They're all good.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vishbar 9y agoI almost always skip the intro of books like this. I didn't skip this one. The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness are two of my favorite books of all time.
- sciurus 9y agoSee also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16218391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16218391 That has more votes at the moment. This looks like a better source, though.
- CandidlyFake 9y agolocusmag is a decades old magazine dedicated to scifi. It is a far better source than the nytimes on this matter.
- sciurus 9y agoAll I mean is that the obituary linked to at the NY Times contains much more information than the one linked to at Locus. I'm not judging the quality of either source more broadly.
- workingwriter 9y agoLocus promises a more extensive obit later. I'll guess they don't have writers on staff whose job is to write obits in advance and update periodically. ;-) Similarly, the LeGuin site currently directs readers to the NYTimes obit: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/UKL_info.html http://www.ursulakleguin.com/UKL_info.html We shall miss her.
- macrael 9y agoI am not trying to say that I was happy, during those weeks of hauling a sledge across an ice-sheet in the dead of winter. I was hungry, overstrained, and often anxious, and it all got worse the longer it went on. I certainly wasn't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even recognize at the time; I mean joy. —The Left Hand Of Darkness
- stcredzero 9y agoIf you like Sci-Fi that likes to speculate on the nature of sex and gender, also check out Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis saga.
- KingMob 9y agoButler's books made my skin crawl in the best possible way. I can't think of another author in SF who so thoroughly conveyed the feeling of rape to a man who'd never experienced it. Her books were potent brews of control, acceptance, family, and love. I keep hoping Kindred will be made into a mini-series one day.
- stcredzero 9y agoI'm from the 90's, partially. I hope your username is a reference to The Invisibles.
- teachrdan 9y agoWhen I was deep into The Invisibles, I looked up "King Mob" and learned the character was likely inspired by the real-life radical group of the same name from 60s-70s London.[0] 0 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Mob https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Mob]
- KingMob 9y agoYep! Love that comic.
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- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin
- Karrot_Kream 9y agoTruly the passing of a legend. RIP.
- tpae 9y agoR.I.P. :(
- Barrin92 9y agoThe place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas. I'm not usually affected by authors passing away but damn this stings a little. One of my favourite authors.
- jonahx 9y agoIt's such a fine last paragraph it's worth quoting in full: At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
- newen 9y agoRIP. The Dispossessed is one of my favorite books.
- nickbauman 9y agoThere are few books that have a single sentence or two that change you utterly. The Dispossessed has that for me.
- laretluval 9y agoWhat were the sentences? The book also had a big effect on me.
- nickbauman 9y agoTook me a while to find one near the very end, where Ketho, a Hainishman, member of the oldest sentient race in the universe, decided to risk his life with Shevefc on his return to Anarres: "[Ketho] looked at him gravely, as if he was not sure what happiness was, and yet recognized or perhaps remembered it from afar. He stood beside Shevefc as if there was something he wanted to ask him. But he did not ask it “It will be early morning at Anarres Port,” he said at last, and took his leave, to get his things and meet Shevek at the launch port."
- pasquinelli 9y agome too. when talking about the prison odo was held in, she describes it as sitting there as if to say, "i've been here for a long time, and i'm still here." when i read that first i had to put the book away and walk around a minute.
- jlebar 9y agoLikewise. Frankly I didn't enjoy The Left Hand of Darkness when I read it, but I think about The Dispossessed all the time.
- stcredzero 9y agoI enjoyed reading The Dispossessed, though I have also been known to characterize it as, "A Sci-Fi universe where communism actually works, hence the 'Fi' part." However, I've recently read Thomas Sowell's book about the original formulation of Marxian economics and philosophy, and I've come to the conclusion that the technology of the late 21st century might possibly enable a viable communal society through the replacement of the distributed optimization of the market with AI, as Ursula K. LeGuin presaged in The Dispossessed.
- celim307 9y agoThe dispossessed. Changed my life. RIP Ursula. You will be missed
- nickbauman 9y agoChanged me as a person too.
- autarch 9y agoI've read most of her books but The Dispossessed was the one that had the greatest influence on me from a philosophical standpoint. Such a great book!
- xab9 9y agoI add it to my list, thanks!
- andrei_says_ 9y agoWhat a loss. A creator of worlds and unimaginable before experiences and understanding through knowing myself in her characters. An activist and mentor for many writers. This is a sad day.
- takk309 9y agoThe Lathe of Heaven is one of my favorite novels.
- mjn 9y agoAnother obituary: https://www.opb.org/news/article/celebrated-oregon-fantasy-author-ursula-k-le-guin-dies-at-88/ https://www.opb.org/news/article/celebrated-oregon-fantasy-a...
- ExploitsforFun 9y agoI just finished re-reading A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan last week. It was enjoyable because I picked up some of the themes that teenage me missed when reading the series all those years ago. A gifted writer RIP
- danharaj 9y agoEvery time I've read an Ursula Le Guin book, it's changed the course of my life. Both fiction and non-fiction. Her writing always felt like it could weave between all the complications of life to get at the Truth of things.
- e40 9y agoLoved those books.
- ilamont 9y agoCoincidentally, I purchased the Earthsea series for my son a few days ago, who I think is the right age. I also read some of her work from the 1990s, a short story collection whose name I cannot recall, but was very powerful and thoughtful. I think in many respects she was able to take science fiction and fantasy in emotional and social realms where few authors were willing to tread.
- schrectacular 9y agoMy parents read them to me when I was seven. Etched in my memory. I've been back to read them a few times since and always found more to enjoy.
- watersb 9y agoI am just in the flow of re-reading her novels, and now this news. :-( Such a writer! And one from whom it has been easy -- well, never easy, but accessible and immensely rewarding-- to learn the craft of storytelling on a human, epic scale. God bless you and family, Teacher, and your voice still sings.
- nosequel 9y agoR.I.P. a true loss If you aren't familiar with her work, "Left Hand of Darkness" right now is on sale at Audible for $4 and the narrator is George Guidall. I didn't add a link because I'm not looking for some kickback, just a rare combination of two all-time greats on one book and for very cheap.
- zokier 9y agoThis might not be the best time to put this comment, but quite some years ago I attempted reading Dispossessed, because it is such highly rated novel and Le Guin even more highly respected author. But I didn't get very far, the whole Communism vs Capitalism aspect felt so hamfisted and overbearing that I lost interest. That cold war did end, as such the context of modern reader is quite different. The political nature left kinda bad taste in my mouth when I was expecting more of fancy futuristic/scifi stuff.
- slartibardfast0 9y agoWhy do this? It's not like Ursula K. Le Guin's work was directly focused on allegory. Feeling absent from two systems was a major point of The Dispossessed, not the content of either systems.
- MrHetzner 9y agoThe book was mostly about how Anarchism and Capitalism produce power structures that work against the individual. The communists in the book were not mentioned a lot from what I remember (there was a communist state on Urras?).
- jholman 9y agoR.I.P.
- rgrieselhuber 9y agoI love everything I've read by her, but one of her short stories "Buffalo Gals" was such a cool and unique story that I still think about it often: https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Gals-Other-Animal-Presences/dp/0451450493 https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Gals-Other-Animal-Presences/d...
- bolasanibk 9y agoR.I.P She is one of the authors whose books have always made a long lasting impact on me.
- efm 9y agoShe started blogging[1] at 81. This is an interview with her, around the time of the publication of her book which came out of that. She will be missed. [1] https://newrepublic.com/article/144719/happens-science-fiction-genius-starts-blogging https://newrepublic.com/article/144719/happens-science-ficti...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pmoriarty 9y agoOne of the things this NYT obituary does not mention is the influence of Jungian psychology on Le Guin. In the Wizard of Earthsea, for instance, the protagonist is figuratively and literally searching for his own shadow.
- alannallama 9y agoWe will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries, the realists of a larger reality. ― Ursula K. Le Guin, accepting the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the National Book Awards
- ppbutt 9y agoCool paywall
- viburnum 9y ago"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art."
- kiliantics 9y agoUrsula Le Guin was an ardent socialist and it comes through in all her writing. I don't understand why the only comments and quotes about her politics are all downvoted in this thread. But I guess that's the average Hackernews reader for you... EDIT: the quote is from a speech, which you can hear/see in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk
- dmitriid 9y agoShe also warns how socialism can be easily turned into the power of the few. See The Dispossessed.
- vidarh 9y agoAny system can be easily turned into the power of the few. Socialists have warned about that pretty much from the start. Marx warned against reactionary and outright feudal forms of socialism in the Communist Manifesto in 1848, and the argument over the dangers of authority split the First International as early as 1872 when the anarchists around Bakunin thought Marx too was too authoritarian for their liking. Later you had people like Rosa Luxembourg sharply criticizing the Bolsheviks, and the many thousands of Russian socialists and communists that laid down their lives to fight the Bolsheviks even before it became clear just how authoritarian they were to become. The authority vs. anarchy axis is largely separate from the economic system - a number of socialist ideologies have as their explicit goal the destruction of hierarchy and government, and a further number of left libertarian ideologies share right libertarian goals in terms of minimizing the power of government, and others want to use state power to bring about redistribution or fail by bringing in systems that makes abuse too easy (e.g. Leninist party theory is pretty much begging for power hungry people to abuse it), just as you have anything from absolutist monarchists and fascists to right libertarians on the right wing.
- danaliv 9y agoOne of the greats. Always Coming Home is one of my all-time favorites of hers. Required reading if you’re in California.
- davidgould 9y ago“Always Coming Home” is unique and powerful. I struggled with it many years ago, and could not quite tell if I liked it. All the chants and digressions bothered me and I don’t really remember much of the story. What I do remember is finding myself thinking about it and humming or sub vocalizing the damn chants for about a year and feeling like some thing had changed in me or in the world, a different emotional tone, or perhaps the light had changed color. The only other book that had that effect on me was “Gravity’s Rainbow” although in an entirely different way.
- wavefunction 9y agoK It was always there in the middle of things.
- YZF 9y agoI remember the Earthsea series as some of the best reading I've ever enjoyed. RIP
- saganus 9y agoWow. So sad. I hoped that she would revisit Earthsea again.
- crimsonalucard 9y agoI liked her anthology World's of exile and illusion.
- zumu 9y agoI've always been interested in Le Guin, but never read much, outside of an Earthsea book or two as a child. From the contents of the thread I seem to be gathering The Dispossessed might be the best place to start. Is this correct? Are there any other must reads?
- Freak_NL 9y agoI second this request. I have read A Wizard of Earthsea recently — because of its status as an archetype of fantasy writing — but (perhaps not surprisingly considering its intended younger audience) it seemed to me a bit dry and descriptive in its prose. I gather that her more adult-oriented works are different?
- jonnycomputer 9y agowas it intended for a younger audience? her sequels are more reflective. you might like them more.
- loudmax 9y agoThe Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness are seminal works. As you've gathered from this thread, The Dispossessed can be understood as a critique of capitalism. It is not uncritical of the alternatives. Likewise, the Left Hand of Darkness can be understood as a feminist critique of patriarchy, but it isn't uncritical of feminist ideology. On a deeper level, both novels are nuanced ruminations on society and human nature.
- taejo 9y agoI'd like to add The Lathe of Heaven to those two.
- nkoren 9y agoTry "The Birthday of the World". Bite-sized short stories that are utterly indelible. Will make you hungry for her longer works.
- peter_retief 9y agoFeels like I lost a friend
- SolaceQuantum 9y agoShe was truly one of my heroes.
- _Codemonkeyism 9y agoThe book that changed me most of all books is possibly "The Dispossessed". But he had not brought anything. His hands were empty, as they had always been.
- davedx 9y ago"If you can see a thing whole, it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives. . . . But close up, a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you loose the pattern." --The Dispossessed Incredible author. R.I.P.
- sjclemmy 9y agoI read “The Lathe of Heaven” when I was younger. I remember being fascinated by it, as only a young person can be. I hadn’t really thought to look at her other books since then (which is probably about 35 years). I’ll definintely be reading “The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Dispossessed” due to the comments on here. Thanks HN! And thank you U.K. LeGuin for introducing me to a world of ideas and possibilities.
- shaunxcode 9y agoThe dispossessed is quite possibly one of the most important books I have ever read.
- JoeDaDude 9y ago"The Lathe of Heaven" has been made into film - twice! Both were made-for-TV movies [1]. Most people (and I agree) believe the earlier version made by PBS to be the better one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven#Adaptations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven#Adaptation...
- _ZeD_ 9y agoOnly in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky. RIP
- pavlov 9y agoI first read “The Dispossessed” in a hospital delivery room while waiting for my first child to be born. The way Le Guin paints an entire life’s dreams and hopes and their external bounds left an indelible impression. There is a birth scene in the book that I remember with as much emotion as the actual birth the same night. On a more general level, “The Dispossessed” is a good example of the paradigm shift that Le Guin (and some other writers of her generation) introduced to science fiction writing, because the book compares so directly to Heinlein’s “The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” written less than ten years earlier. Both are about experimental societies on a moon, but there’s a huge difference in approach. Heinlein’s book is basically the last hurrah of the pulpy, swashbuckling post-war style of sci-fi novels. It’s an enormously entertaining book, but the characters have practically negative depth — they just do whatever the plot requires at any given point — and the future society is a charmingly naïve macho fantasy of a resourceless American West where nobody has anything, yet everybody behaves their best because that’s just what people do (and when a couple of black thugs show up, they get thrown out of the airlock — crime problem solved forever). Although it’s easy to misread “The Dispossessed” as singing the praises of a particular style of anarchic communism, Le Guin avoids Heinlein’s stilted political prescriptiveness by focusing on people — they get mistreated by the system as often as they get lifted up by it. In the end she makes the explicit point that this is just one possible way of organizing human societies among a nearly infinite set of possibilities. Le Guin’s sci-fi is almost as soft as it gets, and the genre has been so much better for it.
- wz1000 9y ago> they get mistreated by the system as often as they get lifted up by it. In the end she makes the explicit point that this is just one possible way of organizing human societies among a nearly infinite set of possibilities Well, the book is subtitled "An Ambiguous Utopia"
- vidarh 9y agoWhich is fitting, given that Thomas More's original Utopia (as in the novel of that name) was also very much ambiguous (e.g. a lot of the features of More's utopia were things very much at odds with his rather pious catholic personal views).
- DaniFong 9y agoWhat a beautiful soul. You will live on in me, dear Ursula. Take my knee. I will be the dark knight of your soul. <*3 forever; in the stars.
- ainiriand 9y agoPeople like Le Guin are immortals in their legacy. Her work is going to remembered for a thousand years.
- nkoren 9y agoMy favourite living author is now my favourite dead author. It has been such a privilege to read her works. Ursula Le Guin conjured new worlds and and lay them out before my mind's eye -- but that's not what made her special. Many writers have done that. What she could do -- almost uniquely -- was to conjure a new mind's eye. She understood that the world exists at the point of perception, so she built her worlds out of perception itself. In her 1994 short story, "Solitude" (collected in "The Birthday of the World"), she tells the story of a culture whose world-view is virtually as opposite to my own as it is possible to be. And she made me believe it. To this day, I can feel the pull of that world-view. It's like being haunted by an alien soul. It's still not my world-view -- not remotely -- but being able to cohabitate with such a foreign consciousness feels... valuable. It gives me awareness that my own way of perception is just of many possible ways of perception -- not as a intellectual conceit, but as a visceral, lived understanding. Thank you for this, Ursula. I am infinitely grateful.
- frostwhale 9y agoPretty big sci-fi reader and have never read her (to my shame), can you recommend where to start?
- muricula 9y agoHer most well known sci-fi novels are probably the Left Hand of Darkness, Winter, and The Dispossessed. They are well summarized in the obituary. If you prefer fantasy, she wrote The Wizards of Earthsea series as well. Le Guinn explores social and political questions overlooked by those who came before, and has had a profound impact on those who came after. The recent Hugo winner Ancillary Justice was heavily inspired by Winter, for instance.
- nkoren 9y agoWinter? That's not a novel of hers... do you mean the short story Winter's King? Anyhow, the Left Hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed are great books. I actually didn't get into the Wizard of Earthsea for some reason, but this was probably a problem with my teenage brain; I need to go back and give it another chance. I'm also very partial to her short stories, with The Birthday of the World containing several of my favourites.
- otempomores 9y agoWould you like to use the handkerchief i carry?
- z0ltan 9y agoWho?
- JepZ 9y ago> [...], I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. When I read that, I thought of Amazon (book selling river) but wasn't sure if 'sold down the river' was some idiom. Searching for it brought me to: > journalist Lee Sandlin said "the threat of being 'sold down the river' was seen as tantamount to a death sentence." [1] What an impressive choice of words! [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/27/265421504/what-does-sold-down-the-river-really-mean-the-answer-isnt-pretty https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/27/265421504...
- dwb 9y agoI'm not a massive fiction person (though I was as a kid), but "The Lathe of Heaven" is one of my very favourite works, in any medium or genre. Near-on perfect. RIP.
- mmustapic 9y ago“A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well – this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociability as a whole.” -- The Dispossessed
- hi41 9y agoThose words are so beautiful!
- MaysonL 9y agoOver the years I've done a fair amount of good work as a programmer. These days, I get as much joy as I ever got programming by cooking some vegetable soup and sharing it with friends. (And it's cheap: $10 makes about 2 gallons [~7 liters]).
- nkrisc 9y agoIt's remarkably true and something I relate to. Some of the smallest but most satisfying experiences I have are hauling heavy rocks up a riverbank to build a fire pit and chopping firewood after walking miles to find the right spot to camp. It was menial and tiring but damn was it satisfying and did it make me feel good to have done it.
- Filligree 9y agoI read Earthsea as a ten-year-old, and I loved it. Then I re-read it as a thirty-year-old... and I loved it, though I understood it far better. Ursula Le Guin was one of the true greats, and the world will be worse off without her.
- hmhrex 9y agoIt was 12 and 27 for me. I can't wait to read these to my kids as they grow up. So many lessons within.
- drderidder 9y agoI read A Wizard of Earthsea around age 12... it opened the world of fantasy/sci-fi. Sad for her passing and reminded that I always wanted to read more of her books... RIP.
- kenbolton 9y agoI've been reading N.K. Jemison's works intermittently for the past year and perceive her as the literary successor to Le Guin.
- cicero 9y agoHer National Book Award speech is short but very good. I like her expression "realists of a larger reality," but she also talks a lot about publishing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2TFeL_aPiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2TFeL_aPiA
- jonnycomputer 9y agoI read The Wizard of Earthsea in the 3rd grade. Literally. I would have it at my desk and try to read it by holding it under my desk. Ursula Le Guin's is daughter of Alfred and Theodora Kroeber. Alfred Kroeber is a preeminent figure in the history of American anthropology and archeology, along with his PhD adviser Franz Boas. The influence of anthropology on Le Guin's writing and thought are easily seen in the Left Hand of Darkness, one of my favorite sci-fi novels.
- SubiculumCode 9y agoI probably read these, and recognize the titles, but I cannot recall them. Time to revisit.
- fulminatorz68 9y agoI'll login for this. Timeline: * Susan Cooper * Tolkien, Lewis, Saberhagen, Howard * Le Guin, Wolfe and Ellison. * Jack Vance. With Vance I understood all in fantasy and everything before but you need to have read those imitators/influences to understand Vance. Wolfe may be the exception but he is jaundiced by religion. I find decoding him without merit now. I once told (online) Le Guin that her opinion was without merit and was without intellectual honesty in condemning the habits of other (political figures) promiscuity: those days had come and gone. I don't think she was wrong. I think she was beyond the temporal distinction. This hurts. She was amazing and kind and I will miss her and Ged.
- fibo 9y agoI was 12 years old and fell in love with "A Wizard of Earthsea"