Ursula Le Guin year-long reading challenge

[Michele]

The recently released The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition has been nominated for a Hugo this year! I got a copy from my mom for Christmas and it's really stunning.

[Kaa]

Started Left Hand of Darkness today! I added some additional short stories to the schedule - Winter's King and Coming of Age in Karhide after Left Hand, The Day Before the Revolution prior to The Dispossessed, and The Shobies' Story after The Dispossessed. I'll probably also start Mythmakers and Lawbreakers while I'm reading The Dispossessed.

[Beth]

I will see if my library has a collection with those two stories. I have definitely read Winter's King before but I am not sure about Coming of Age in Karhide.

[Kaa]

I should note that Coming of Age in Karhide is one of the most sexually explicit Le Guin stories I've read - it is about someone going through kemmer for the first time. I once loaned someone my copy of Birthday of the World and they were pretty taken aback because that is the first story in the collection.

[Lost Planet Airman]

Beth wrote: "I will see if my library has a collection with those two stories. I have definitely read Winter's King before but I am not sure about Coming of Age in Karhide."

If you want to find what collections a short story might be hiding in, you can use The Internet Speculative Fiction Database at, conveniently, www.isfdb.org. Winter's King is mostly in The Wind's Twelve Quarters and the other two overlap in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea.

Cheers!

[Lost Planet Airman]

Kaa wrote: "Started Left Hand of Darkness today! I added some additional short stories to the schedule - Winter's King and Coming of Age in Karhide after..."

@Kaa, I see you put The Shobie's Story on your list. I think it is also in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea if you want to defer it a couple of weeks...

[Beth]

Mike wrote: "Beth wrote: "I will see if my library has a collection with those two stories. I have definitely read Winter's King before but I am not sure about Coming of Age in Karhide."

If you want to find what collections a short story might be hiding in, you can use The Internet Speculative Fiction Database."

Thanks! I have placed a hold on Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 1: Rocannon’s World / Planet of Exile / City of Illusions / The Left Hand of Darkness / The Dispossessed / Stories for Winter's King and Coming of Age in Karhide.

[Lost Planet Airman]

Beth wrote: "Mike wrote: "Beth wrote: "I will see if my library has a collection with those two stories. I have definitely read Winter's King before but I am not sure about Coming of Age in Karhide."

If you wa..."

Also a good place to read them. I hope you are not in Maryland -- there appear to be only two copies in the state, and I still have one of them out! Almost done, though!

[Kaa]

Mike wrote: "Kaa wrote: "Started Left Hand of Darkness today! I added some additional short stories to the schedule - Winter's King and Coming of Age in Karhide after Left Hand, ..."

Yes, this is true. I'd added it in this section because several of the characters are from Gethen and Annares, but I see now that the story has a direct sequel that is also included in Fisherman of the Inland Sea, so I'll wait to read it with the rest of that book.

There's a lot of overlap between UKL's story collections, so my approach is going to be to try to read short stories along with the series they belong to and then fit the rest in where I can.
Winter's King and The Day Before the Revolution are both in The Wind's Twelve Quarters.
Both Coming of Age in Karhide and Old Music and the Slave Woman (which is the fifth Way to Forgiveness, and I'll be reading with Four Ways to Forgiveness at the end of this month) are also in The Birthday of the World and Other Stories.
I'll be reading the remainder of Wind's Twelve Quarters and Birthday of the World in mid-May.

[Lost Planet Airman]

Brilliant! But I expect no less of you!

[Kaa]

Hah, thanks. I ended up making an entire spreadsheet to keep track of which stories were from which series in which books, because otherwise it was too much to try to figure out.

[Michele]

Someone needs to do a comprehensive index to her oeuvre :)

[Anisha Inkspill]

Michele wrote: "The recently released The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition has been nominated for a Hugo this year! I got a copy from my mom for Christmas and it's really stunning."

Last week I finished the third book in this series, there's something about them that has my attention, I'm reading these for the first time.

Seeing this edition is available on kindle - well, I too have it now. Scrolling through it, yes, the illustrations are amazing. I didn't know it was nominated for a Hugo, it is a beautiful book.

[Kaa]

Sorry I haven't been posting this past week - I've had a bad cold/allergies that give me a fuzzy head and a need for reading that doesn't require lots of thinking, so I haven't been able to start the Dispossessed yet. I did finish Left Hand, Winter's King, and Coming of Age in Karhide last weekend. I enjoyed seeing the progression in the writing approach as Le Guin experiments with writing genderless characters. The stories are sequential chronologically, but also offer an increasingly closer look at the Gethian perspective, which I enjoyed.

I also read the Le Guin interview in Mythmakers and Lawbreakers. The whole book is interesting, and it was cool to have an interview focused on her politics.

[Lost Planet Airman]

I, too, also read the Le Guin interview in Mythmakers and Lawbreakers. But that's where I'm stopping (will DNF it shortly); I've got too much on my TBR!

[Maggie]

I finally finished Rocannon's World and liked it well enough to push into Planet of Exile which I liked even better! Nice to remove some of my LeGuin skepticism.... :)

[Beth]

I also liked Planet of Exile better than Rocannon's World. Maybe because of the characters?

I still need to read Coming of Age in Karhide -- this weekend I think. I am skipping The Dispossessed; I have read it before and didn't like it very much.

[Kaa]

@Mike: IMO, her interview was probably the best of the batch. It's an interesting book, but not one I'm likely to ever return to (and it's clear that the 10 years since it was published has dated it a bit).

@Maggie: I'm glad you're enjoying them! I think that whole trilogy is a lot of fun.

[Phillip]

I got the first three books of the Hainish Cycle a few months back. I'm about to start Rocannon's World

[Thomas]

I rediscovered LeGuin last winter, when a friend loaned me Tehanu. The book was worth reading just for the conversations between the characters. That may be the one thing that Le Guin has in common with Quentin Tarantino. :) Seriously, Tehanu is a beautiful book, and it inspired me to put all the LeGuin books I can find on my TBR list. I look forward to discussing them further.

[Travis]

Thomas wrote: "I rediscovered LeGuin last winter, when a friend loaned me Tehanu..."

That is one of my favorites of hers. Such a fantastic book.

[Thomas]

Travis wrote: "Thomas wrote: "I rediscovered LeGuin last winter, when a friend loaned me Tehanu..."

That is one of my favorites of hers. Such a fantastic book."

Great minds run in the same track!

[Thomas]

Beth wrote: "I am thinking of joining in for The Left Hand of Darkness and some of the nonfiction. I will check to see which of the nonfiction books are at the library.

This isn't part of the chal..."

I really enjoyed Lavinia! It has the beautiful language and thought-provoking ideas one expects from Le Guin. Also, Le Guin clearly has an affection for the original work and for the time period. When you read it, please post your thoughts!

[Thomas]

Anna wrote: "I was finally able to face reading the last ever new-to-me Earthsea story, "Firelight". I'm emotionally drained, and mourning Le Guin all over again. I also have a question for anyone who's read Fi..."

I assume so, but it is a great question!

[Anisha Inkspill]

It's been helpful following this tread. I've now read the first 5 earthsea books - really interesting and how they vary. In the interim I also read a couple of short stories (unrelated to this saga). And will look out for more works by her. Thanks.

[Kaa]

Ok, it's been a sec since I updated, so I've got through quite a few more Hainish stories:

The Dispossessed has been a favorite for a while, and I did enjoy the chance to re-read it, but I was even more interested to read several other stories that were connected. The Day Before the Revolution is a lovely look at the history of Annares, while the Hainish stories in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea continued the story in some interesting ways. The stories got further away from Annares as they went on, exploring the churten technology (Le Guin's hand-wavy way of getting around FTL travel). The first, "The Shobies' Story" has a character from Anarres (and several from Gethen), which is a nice connection. And the last, "Another Story", partly takes place on the planet O, which is also the setting of several stories in The Birthday of the World and Other Stories.

Birthday of the World is another favorite - I love the way this collection explores sexuality and relationships across a number of different societies. I picked it up because I'd gotten a little stalled on Four Ways to Forgiveness (it's very obviously a white lady writing about slavery and as a result isn't always as meaningful as it's trying to be), but then switched back when I got to "Old Music and the Slave Woman," which is the Fifth Way to Forgiveness. I did enjoy the Hain and Ve parts of "A Man of the People" quite a bit, but we'll see how the Werel part goes.

In the midst of this, I also read The Telling, which is a very political book about stories. I enjoyed it a lot, and I think it makes a good accompaniment to "A Man of the People" because of the way they both discuss knowledge and ways of being.

[DivaDiane]

I loved The Telling. I bought the book when it came out, but I waited forever to read it because I was consciously trying to spread out the UKL goodness knowing the inevitable cycle of life was going to close in eventually. At any rate, I finally read it a couple of years ago and I think it's one of my favorites. I really need to reread both Four Ways and The Birthday of the World. It's been a long time and I don't remember them very well.

[Kaa]

Yeah, the more I think about the Telling, the more I appreciate it. It has a lot of classic Le Guin elements (the strenuous journey, the heavy influence of Taoism, rebellion/resistance) but enough new ideas/framings to make it interesting.

On the other hand, I just finished Four Ways and was left pretty uncomfortable verging on upset with it. This may be at least partly a timing thing, as I was especially not in the mood to read this this week, but I think also is partly because Le Guin is not really very good at writing about race or racialized oppression. (I can't say I really like the way she writes about rape and sexual violence, either.) I still have to read "Old Music and the Slave Woman", which I am dreading a bit because I've been enjoying the rest of Birthday so much.

[DivaDiane]

I hear what you are saying. I would have to reread Four Ways with race relations etc. in mind to really appreciate what you are saying. Now, I’m a white middle aged American woman from a middle class background, so my context is probably very close to UKL’s and therefore probably shouldn’t comment at all, but I do think it’s a good thing she even tried. I’m pretty sure her intentions were honorable, and there weren’t many SF/Fantasy novels around back then that weren’t completely white washed. How do you feel about that?

[Kaa]

Yeah, I think her intentions were good, the execution just didn't work for me. I'm white as well, though, so hardly an expert.

I read "Old Music" this morning, and honestly have no recollection of reading it before, although I can remember reading all of the previous stories in the collection.

[Lost Planet Airman]

Kaa wrote: "Yeah, I think her intentions were good, the execution just didn't work for me. I'm white as well, though, so hardly an expert.

I read "Old Music" this morning, and honestly have no recollection of..."

Is that because "Old Music and the Slave Women" was not in the original Four Ways to Forgiveness, but was a separate short story, at least until Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2: The Word for World Is Forest / Stories / Five Ways to Forgiveness / The Telling?

[Beth]

I was planning to join in for at least The Wild Girls and Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places but I completely forgot The Birthday of the World and Other Stories. I will see if I can fit it in later.

[Kaa]

@Mike: Oops, should have clarified. This was my first time reading Four Ways, but I've read Birthday of the World before. I should have read Old Music in that, but I just don't remember it at all!

@Beth: Join in whenever you like with the short stories! I'm enjoying them a lot, but probably won't comment on too many specifics unless someone else decides to read them.

[Lost Planet Airman]

Kaa wrote: "@Mike: Oops, should have clarified. This was my first time reading Four Ways, but I've read Birthday of the World before. I should have read Old Music in that, but I just don't remember it at all!
..."

Gotcha! Thanks!

I've set down Ms. Le Guin for a bit -- I couldn't keep up with your pace! But I plan to get back and finish theses reads sooner or later!

[Kaa]

Mike wrote: "I've set down Ms. Le Guin for a bit -- I couldn't keep up with your pace! But I plan to get back and finish theses reads sooner or later!"

Lol, I've been having trouble keeping up myself! The short stories are a bit easier for me, though. I'm almost caught up again.

[Kaa]

I read the Wind's Twelve Quarters (I'm done with the Hainish series!), Wild Girls and a couple other short stories this week, and finished The Language of the Night.

Wind's Twelve Quarters is unique in the collections I've read so far in that it is the first that really displays the breadth of Le Guin's writing, rather than focusing mainly on one theme or type of story.

I thought Omelas was excellent, but N.K. Jemisin's "The Ones Who Stay and Fight", in How Long 'til Black Future Month?, was even better. It was interesting to read a couple stories that shared the same theme, as well as some literary analysis on the original story.

[Kaa]

@Beth: I'm going to finish my 26th book this week and I've already read Dancing at the Edge of the World, so I'm planning to give myself a break and skip this one. I do own the book, however, so if you want to read it and chat about it I'm happy to discuss it with you.

[CBRetriever]

Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places is currently @2.99 in Kindle version for US residents if anyone wants to get it.

[Thomas]

I really enjoyed the hardcover version!

[DivaDiane]

Finally saw Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin the other night! I backed the Kickstarter and had access to the streaming video but never watched it, in hopes I’d be able to see it on a “big” screen. It was a VERY small venue catering to alternative, non-mainstream events. There were maybe 50 people in the audience and the film was displayed from a laptop to a screen about the size I remember from school in the 70’s. Nevertheless, it was fun going on a little adventure and watching it with like-minded people. It’s a little bittersweet. And when it finally makes it to PBS or to a screening near you I encourage everyone to watch it.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Diane, that sounds lovely! I will check the schedule for when it broadcasts :)

[Kaa]

I read Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences over the weekend, and found it a really lovely collection of (more-or-less) animal-themed stories and poems. I had to go to my former university library to find a copy, but I would say it was worth it to get this particular assortment of writings together.

It was also a nice work to transition me back into Always Coming Home, which I was finally able to make some significant progress on. I'm 300 pages into the Expanded Edition, which is about half of the original book (2/3 if you leave out the Back of the Book material, which I am likely to skim rather than actually read closely). I enjoy the stories, and am trying to appreciate the poetry, but some of the more textbook-like descriptions make my eyes glaze over.

@Diane: Thanks! I'll have to look for screenings while I'm still living in Portland.

[Beth]

I will start Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences soon.

I didn't like the short story in The Wild Girls but the essay was very good.

[Kaa]

Beth wrote: "I will start Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences soon.

I didn't like the short story in The Wild Girls but the essay was very good."

Yeah, I found The Wild Girls pretty unpleasant. I wouldn't say I didn't like it, but I definitely can't say that I did like it. In general, I find Le Guin's approach to topics around (view spoiler)[sexual assault/coercion (hide spoiler)] to be a bit lacking.

[Kaa]

Also, I read The Word of Unbinding and The Rule of Names today in preparation for starting the Earthsea series. I have an omnibus of the first four books, and am hoping to read through them pretty quickly. I'll be commenting on the original discussion threads for those books as I go.

[Silvana]

Are you going to read The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin at some point?

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Kaa wrote: "Beth wrote: "I will start Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences soon.

I didn't like the short story in The Wild Girls but the essay was very good."

Yeah, I found The Wild Girls p..."

I'll be curious to hear what you think of later works on that subject...I like to think she grew a little.

[Kaa]

@Allison: Hmm, I'm curious too! Do you have examples of works where you think she's grown some?

@Silvana: Almost all of the stories in the collection are also in the other collections I'm reading, so no, but I'm happy to chat about any of them as I get to them.

Already read:
The Wind's Twelve Quarters
-Direction of the Road (also in Buffalo Gals)
-The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
-Semely’s Necklace
-Nine Lives
-The Rule of Names

Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences
-The White Donkey (also in Compass Rose)
-May’s Lion
-Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight
-Horse Camp
-Mazes (also in Compass Rose)
-The Author of the Acacia Seeds (also in Compass Rose)
-The Wife’s Story (also in Compass Rose)
-She Unnames Them

A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
-The First Contact with the Gorgonids
-The Shobies’ Story
-The Ascent of the North Face

Four Ways to Forgiveness
-Betrayals

The Birthday of the World and Other Stories
-The Matter of Seggri
-Solitude

The Wild Girls
-The Wild Girls

To read:
Orsinian Tales
-Brothers and Sisters
-A Week in the Country
-Imaginary Countries

Unlocking the Air and Other Stories
-Unlocking the Air
-Ether, OR
-Half Past Four
-The Poacher

The Compass Rose
-The Diary of the Rose
-Gwilan’s Harp
-The Water Is Wide
-Small Change
-Sur

Searoad
-Texts
-Sleepwalkers
-Hand, Cup, Shell

Changing Planes
-The Flyers of Gy
-The Silence of the Asonu

Not in any other collections (I probably won't read unless I can find them elsewhere)
-The Lost Children
-The Jar of Water

[Silvana]

Cool, I will let you know when I finally get to read it - just bought a deadtree copy in a sale.

[Rachel]

I’ve got a copy of A wizard of Earthsea on deck teady ti go