In another essay, in another book, Le Guin has said that so-called realism centers the human. Only the literature of the fantastic deals with the nonhuman as of equal interest and importance. In this and so many other ways, fantasy is the more subversive, the more comprehensive, the more intriguing literature. These two issues combined—our inability to deal with our own numbers and our insistence that we are what matters most—may well be the finish of us. And with these thoughts, I arrive at the end of the world, where I tire finally of thinking about beetles and go back to thinking about
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