This little book is a rather odd, almost-random-seeming collection. However, there is a enough of a thematic connection between the fragments that I can see why this was at the anarchist bookseller's table where I found it!
'The Wild Girls' is a long short story that is...pseudo-historical fiction with a smidge of magical realism? The social structure described doesn't quite map onto any real society that I'm aware of, but the conflicts between the people of the cities and the nomads, the pervasiveness of slavery, the way city women are sequestered in a part of the house known as a "hanan" had me picturing early Mesopotamia. I liked the pair of sisters it focused on, and I had hoped that their rebellion might be bigger or their story less tragic. However, I should have been warned by this:
"Modh did not say, ‘But-‘. It was perfectly clear to her that it was a system of exchange, and that it was not fair exchange…any slave can see the system with an undeluded eye. But Modh did not know of any other system…that possible even when unattainable space in which there is room for justice, in which the word ‘but’ can be spoken and have meaning.”
'Staying Awake While We Read' is a terrific essay that makes so many excellent sarcastic points that to share them all would require re-typing the entire thing. Le Guin starts out by noting how weird it is that newspapers seem to delight in pointing out statistics like "27% of Americans haven't read a book all year". She notes that reading for pleasure is a rather recent phenomenon; that for centuries whole classes of people were often forbidden from learning to read or didn't have the opportunity, with literacy being a tool to control history, religion, taxation, etc. If there was a high point in people reading books, it was in the 19th century, when more people COULD, there weren't many other sources of entertainment, and there were particular books that people latched onto as a shared social experience. Then she turns on the publishing industry and how it has come to treat books as a commodity, and she is SAVAGE:
"[To corporations] a 'good book' means a high gross and a 'good writer' is one whose next book can be guaranteed to sell better than the last one. That there are no such writers is of no matter..."
and
"The relationship of art to capitalism is, to put it mildly, vexed. It is seldom a happy marriage. Amused contempt is about the pleasantest emotion either partner feels for the other. Their definitions of what profiteth a man are too different."
My favorite bit might be this, though, because it is such a multi-directional burn:
"The occasional exception proves my rule: the genuine grassroots bestseller, like the first Harry Potter book. It hit a slot the PR people didn't even know existed: adults hungry for the kind of fantasy they'd stopped reading at ten. This was a readership Tolkien, despite his permanent bestsellerdom...couldn't satisfy, because Tolkien's trilogy is for grownups, and these grownups didn't want grownup fantasy. They wanted a school story, where you can look down on outsiders because they're all despicable Muggles. And they wanted to talk to each other about it. When the kids really got in on it, this became the extraordinary phenomenon, fully exploited by the book's publishers of course but neither predictable nor truly manageable by them..."
I think she hits an interesting point here, because although many kids of course loved 'Harry Potter', eleven year olds don't have much disposable income - adults do. I've heard it said that that's the demand fueling the boom in YA fantasy books: Not so much teenagers as adults who want books that make them feel like teenagers again. Which is NOT a bad wish, BTW. While I have ZERO desire to feel like a teenager, I do enjoy a good children's book, because the best ones - for me not including HP, which even at 14 I thought was merely OK - provide that innocent whimsy and are simple without being simplistic.
On the positive-thoughts end: "And readers recognize their pleasure as different from that of simply being entertained...A book won't move your eyes for you...It won't move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart into it"
Then there are a few poems...which are fine, but illustrate why Le Guin is known as an SFF novelist, not a poet!
'The Conversation of the Modest' is an essay noting that, because of the unfortunate linkage of "modesty" to the control of women, we are neglecting quite a nice virtue: not over-estimating your worth (excessive pride) or under-estimating it (groveling humility) but sitting comfortably with who you are.
Finally, there is an interview of the 80-year-old Le Guin conducted by Terry Bisson. It is quite tongue-in-cheek. My favorite bits:
TB: "What have you got against Amazon?"
UL: "Nothing, really, except profound moral disapproval of their aims and methods, and a simple loathing of corporate greed."
...
TB: "...Do you like [Aeneas] better than Ulysses? Or Achilles?"
ULG: "Ulysses is way too complicated to just like or dislike, but Achilles really turns me off. Sulky little egocentric squit..."
...
TB: "Would you describe yourself as an anarchist (politically)?"
ULG: "Politically, no; I vote, I'm a Democrast. But I find pacifist anarchist thought fascinating, stimulating, endlessly fruitful."