Celebrated beloved author, American
literary legend and visionary Ursula K. Le Guin who wrote science fiction, fantasy,
essays and poetry, who we lost a year ago today. A quote of hers is pemanently embedded
on this blog. Have written about her before, this is a vastly updated post based on previous ones.
Her body of work encompasses novels, including the famous and beloved Earthsea novels, a series of epic fantasy novels that set the blueprint for the genre. novellas, short stories, poetry, criticism and more (including speculative anthropology). She published her first short story at thirty-two, and while perhaps the chief characteristic of her early work was, as she says, an "open romanticism," Le Guin's work gradually became, again in her own words, "something harder, stronger, and more complex." It also became the site of radical emancipatory visions, courageous and profound reimaginings of the way life is, and a beautiful yet clear-eyed utopianism. It became, in other words, extraordinary.
Her body of work encompasses novels, including the famous and beloved Earthsea novels, a series of epic fantasy novels that set the blueprint for the genre. novellas, short stories, poetry, criticism and more (including speculative anthropology). She published her first short story at thirty-two, and while perhaps the chief characteristic of her early work was, as she says, an "open romanticism," Le Guin's work gradually became, again in her own words, "something harder, stronger, and more complex." It also became the site of radical emancipatory visions, courageous and profound reimaginings of the way life is, and a beautiful yet clear-eyed utopianism. It became, in other words, extraordinary.
She was a giant of 20th century literature. On her shoulders stand not
just classics of genre fiction but everything from Salman Rushdie’s
postcolonial magical realism to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter
mega-franchise.
Le Guin used science fiction and fantasy not as a genre but a “method”. Future societies, distant planets and magical realms provided “a safe, sterile laboratory for trying out ideas”.
Le Guin used science fiction and fantasy not as a genre but a “method”. Future societies, distant planets and magical realms provided “a safe, sterile laboratory for trying out ideas”.
Ursula K. Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley California, on October 21, 1929.
Le Guin’s parents were anthropologists, their summer home “a gathering place for scientists, writers, students and California Indians”. Their interactions with Native Americans seem to have laid the basis for much of her “Hainish cycle” of novels, which explore a variety of planets through the culture shock of the ambassadors sent to meet them.
One of the visitors was Robert Oppenheimer. Le Guin would later use Oppenheimer as the model for her protagonist in The Dispossessed.
Ursula had three older brothers,Karl, Theodore, and Clifton.The family had a large book collection, and the siblings all became interested in reading while they were young
She might be best-known nowadays for the groundbreaking book ' The Left Hand of Darkness' a science fiction novel published in 1969 set in the Hainish universe, Le Guin often used science fiction to transgress normalised conceptions of gender and sexuality.Not content to limit her incisive examinations of society to fiction and allegory, Le Guin spoke and wrote frequently about contemporary politics. She often described fantasy and fiction as a tool for social change, a way of imagining the world not as it but as it should be. Her criticisms in both fiction and beyond it , often focused on social inequality and the unsustainability of capitalism .
Le Guin’s parents were anthropologists, their summer home “a gathering place for scientists, writers, students and California Indians”. Their interactions with Native Americans seem to have laid the basis for much of her “Hainish cycle” of novels, which explore a variety of planets through the culture shock of the ambassadors sent to meet them.
One of the visitors was Robert Oppenheimer. Le Guin would later use Oppenheimer as the model for her protagonist in The Dispossessed.
Ursula had three older brothers,Karl, Theodore, and Clifton.The family had a large book collection, and the siblings all became interested in reading while they were young
She might be best-known nowadays for the groundbreaking book ' The Left Hand of Darkness' a science fiction novel published in 1969 set in the Hainish universe, Le Guin often used science fiction to transgress normalised conceptions of gender and sexuality.Not content to limit her incisive examinations of society to fiction and allegory, Le Guin spoke and wrote frequently about contemporary politics. She often described fantasy and fiction as a tool for social change, a way of imagining the world not as it but as it should be. Her criticisms in both fiction and beyond it , often focused on social inequality and the unsustainability of capitalism .
Her novel ' The Dispossessed' was a thought experiment on how an
anarchist society would work. The novel begins with the journey of the
physicist Shevek from the planet Anarres, which was settled by
anarchists a century and a half previously, to the planet Urras, a
caricature of our own world in the 1970's.
In alternating chapters, it tells the story of Shevek's life on Anarres
and its discontents, leading up to his decision to leave, and his
adventures on Urras and how grotesque a society based on power and
profit seems in his eyes.
A truly mesmerising read, given us an idea of how a possible anarchist
society could function and, more importantly, the moral foundations of
such a society. Anarres is flawed and falls short of its ideas of
individual freedom, mutual aid and voluntary coperation, but is still
infinitely preferable to the money- hungry, power-hungry nation of
Urreas.
In short my sort of Utopia. It is a society without government, laws,
police, courts, corporations,.money, salaries, profit, organised
religion or private property. Its people speak an artificial language, a
kind of benign Orwellian Newspeak, which lacks words for concepts such
as 'debt or 'winner,'
“We have nothing but our freedom. We have nothing to give you but your own freedom. We have no law but the single principle of mutual aid between individuals. We have no government but the single principle of free association. We have no states, no nations, no presidents, no premiers, no chiefs, no generals, no bosses, no bankers, no landlords, no wages, no charity, no police, no soldiers, no wars. Nor do we have much else. We are sharers, not owners. We are not prosperous. None of us is rich. None of us is powerful. If it is Anarres you want, it is the future you seek, then I tell you that you must come to it with epty hands. You must come to it alone, and naked, as the child comes into the world, into his future, without any past, without any property, wholly dependent on other people for his life. You canot take what you have not bee given, and you must give yourself. You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere,"
―
“We have nothing but our freedom. We have nothing to give you but your own freedom. We have no law but the single principle of mutual aid between individuals. We have no government but the single principle of free association. We have no states, no nations, no presidents, no premiers, no chiefs, no generals, no bosses, no bankers, no landlords, no wages, no charity, no police, no soldiers, no wars. Nor do we have much else. We are sharers, not owners. We are not prosperous. None of us is rich. None of us is powerful. If it is Anarres you want, it is the future you seek, then I tell you that you must come to it with epty hands. You must come to it alone, and naked, as the child comes into the world, into his future, without any past, without any property, wholly dependent on other people for his life. You canot take what you have not bee given, and you must give yourself. You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere,"
―
Le Guin would write more than 20 novels, 100 short stories, seven essay
collections and more than a dozen books of poetry. Despite many of her
protaganists being men, she always considered herself a feminist, but
was always confident in questioning societal conditioning and how it
impacted the human perspective on gender and sexuality.
Le Guin used a 1986 speech to young women that
today sounds made for the #MeToo movement. She said, “In this barbaric
society, when women speak truly they speak subversively. They can’t help
it: if you’re underneath, if you’re kept down, you break out, you
subvert. We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our
truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.
That’s what I want — to hear you erupting.”
In 2010 at the age of 81 she arrived in the digital age and started a blog
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Blog2017.html
and in December 2017 published a collection of essays based on her posts called ' No time to spare.'
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Index-NoTimeToSpare.html
It included everything from moving reflections on her cat to wry observations about coming to terms with her advancing age, " If I'm ninety and believe I'm forty five, I'm headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub."
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Blog2017.html
and in December 2017 published a collection of essays based on her posts called ' No time to spare.'
http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Index-NoTimeToSpare.html
It included everything from moving reflections on her cat to wry observations about coming to terms with her advancing age, " If I'm ninety and believe I'm forty five, I'm headed for a very bad time trying to get out of the bathtub."
Le Guin combined hostility to all oppression and war with extreme
scepticism towards collective action, tinged with both anarchism and
Taoism. Le Guin was closely aligned with anarchist politics. In the 1960s,
she was involved in activism, including opposition to the Vietnam War,
and began to identify with pacifism and anarchism. She immersed herself
in a broad range of writing, including work by Gandhi, Martin Luther
King and even Peter Kropotkin.
While her work often celebrates anarchism, Le Guin dodged labeling herself as such in a 2016 interview, somewhat halfheartedly describing herself as a "bourgeois housewife." Regardless of how she viewed her own politics, she was certainly sympathetic toward anarchism as a set of ideals and practices.
For her, freedom is a responsibility of the individual, not a battle between classes. But if that makes her writings hardly a roadmap to the revolution, as a reminder to look up to that horizon they are irreplaceable.
While her work often celebrates anarchism, Le Guin dodged labeling herself as such in a 2016 interview, somewhat halfheartedly describing herself as a "bourgeois housewife." Regardless of how she viewed her own politics, she was certainly sympathetic toward anarchism as a set of ideals and practices.
For her, freedom is a responsibility of the individual, not a battle between classes. But if that makes her writings hardly a roadmap to the revolution, as a reminder to look up to that horizon they are irreplaceable.
Le Guin's appreciation for the natural world, her interest in
environmental issues, and her questioning of capitalist exploitation are
evident throughout her work. One can find in most of Le Guin’s fiction
and nonfiction hard-won wisdom about living a balanced life.
Published in 1975, "The New Atlantis" offers an early,
short-story-length warning about climate change. In a near future of
climatic and geological upheaval, a man on a bus announces to the
narrator, Belle, that a new continent is rising from the depths of the
sea. “Manhattan Island is now under 11 feet of water at low tide, and
there are oyster beds in Ghirardelli Square,” she confirms. The oceans
are rising due to polar melt, and Antarctica may soon be habitable,
because of greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, a polluted Portland, Oregon, has
no electric power in the wake of earthquakes.The story not only
presents a vision of environmental decline and authoritarian dystopia,
but it also offers a glimpse of utopia. Belle, Simon, and their
compatriots still have enough spirit to imagine a better day, when
humankind might exist in harmony with what rises up out of the
transformed ocean.
The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Neebulas, seven Hugos and SFWA'S Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards.
The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Neebulas, seven Hugos and SFWA'S Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards.
Author and Marxist China Mieville observed that Le Guin had a
"slow-burning fury at injustices" and" a very sharp and unremitting
diagnosis of things in the social world."
This slow burning fury was on display in 2014 when Le Guin was awarded
the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters by the
National Book Foundation.This is one of literature's most prestigious honors, recognizing
individuals who have made an exceptional impact on the United States'
literary heritage. http://www.nationalbook.org/amerletters_2014_uleguin.html#.Wmfeh6hl_IU
Her speech quickly went viral and was turned
into memes on social media:
“Books
aren’t just commodities,” she said in that speech. “The profit motive is
often in conflict with the aims of art. 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. Very often in our art, the art of words."
The National Book Award speech wasn't the first or last time Le Guin
used her voice and position to challenge those in power. She refused to
support sci-fi/fantasy anthologies that only published male authors.
After the 2016 election, she wrote about the despair and frustration felt by so many in that moment. She defended Standing Rock protesters, comparing that struggle to the civil rights struggle in Selma, Alabama.
As we braced ourselves for the beginning of the Trump presidency, Le Guin wrote, "I know what I want. I want to live with courage, with compassion, in patience, in peace." And she did.
After the 2016 election, she wrote about the despair and frustration felt by so many in that moment. She defended Standing Rock protesters, comparing that struggle to the civil rights struggle in Selma, Alabama.
As we braced ourselves for the beginning of the Trump presidency, Le Guin wrote, "I know what I want. I want to live with courage, with compassion, in patience, in peace." And she did.
The story that sums up her philosophy borrows a thought experiment
from Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Henry James. The Ones Who Walk Away From
Omelas imagines a society peaceful, happy, equal and free — except for
one child, condemned to perpetual torment as the price of Utopia.
For some, not even Utopia justifies that oppression. “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.”
Like the people at the end of this story the people who make the revolution will decide that a better world is possible and set out to find it.
Her legacy is clear, it's for us, as writers and readers, to think deeply, work with love and discipline, and to have the courage to believe in the transformative power of fiction, and of imagining other realities, free of capitalism another world can be possible. She was simply brilliant: as a writer, as a thinker, and as a human being. She is greaty missed. Thank you Ursula K. Le Guin
How It Seems To Me - Ursula K. Le Guin
In the vast abyss before time, self
is not, and soul commingles
with mist, and rock, and light. In time,
soul brings the misty self to be.
Then slow time hardens self to stone
while ever lightening the soul,
till soul can loose its hold of self
and both are free and can return
to vastness and dissolve in light,
the long light after time.
For some, not even Utopia justifies that oppression. “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.”
Like the people at the end of this story the people who make the revolution will decide that a better world is possible and set out to find it.
Her legacy is clear, it's for us, as writers and readers, to think deeply, work with love and discipline, and to have the courage to believe in the transformative power of fiction, and of imagining other realities, free of capitalism another world can be possible. She was simply brilliant: as a writer, as a thinker, and as a human being. She is greaty missed. Thank you Ursula K. Le Guin
How It Seems To Me - Ursula K. Le Guin
In the vast abyss before time, self
is not, and soul commingles
with mist, and rock, and light. In time,
soul brings the misty self to be.
Then slow time hardens self to stone
while ever lightening the soul,
till soul can loose its hold of self
and both are free and can return
to vastness and dissolve in light,
the long light after time.
From So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014-2018. Courtesy of Copper Canyon Press. Copyright 2018 by the Ursula K. LeGuin Estate.
