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My 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
by nkoren 9y ago
My 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.
- muricula 9y agoI was thinking of the Lathe of Heaven, sorry!
- BenjiWiebe 9y agoThe wizard of EarthSea... That's why her name sounded so familiar!
- jacquesm 9y agoI'd recommend The Lathe of Heaven. Short and extremely powerful.