Ursula Le Guin

droid

droid

Well-known member
Benny B said:
That's nice, no one is saying it isn't, but it's far from the most interesting thing about the book. Literally everyone here on the thread didn't notice it on first read.
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lol, yeah, and she gives a pretty good reason why in that quote.

But anyway, who said it was the most interesting or best thing about the book? Absolutely nobody here.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I think there's a knee jerk reaction from both sides (those that think this really matters and those who think it's totally irrelevant) when it comes to things like this.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Was interesting to learn today that Harold Bloom, arch-aesthete and anti "school of resentment" was well into Le Guin, corresponded with her and even wrote a book about her I think. Pretty much everyone likes her stuff.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Not read this yet but I agree with him when he writes "Le Guin had a special genius for endings", based on the three I've read.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
It's good and I like Bloom, but it is quite funny how he manages to crowbar Hamlet and Freud into absolutely everything
 
D

DannyL

Wild Horses
droid said:
lol, yeah, and she gives a pretty good reason why in that quote.

But anyway, who said it was the most interesting or best thing about the book? Absolutely nobody here.
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I take it as a sign of what a fantastic writer she was. Just gonna tuck this thoughtful detail in and let it go and then move onto all this other, amazing stuff.
 
HMGovt’s Glorious Return!

HMGovt’s Glorious Return!

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Such as the part where he's schlepping through a frozen waste with a sketchy shipmate, who turns out to be possessed by the shadow, and is then closely pursued by a figure that is nothing more than flapping cloth and horror, only to fall in with a witch and her sugar daddy in their cursed tower, a witch who turned two of her own servants' bone marrow to molten lead during a botched escape... That was an astonishing episode.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
HMGovt said:
Such as the part where he's schlepping through a frozen waste with a sketchy shipmate, who turns out to be possessed by the shadow, and is then closely pursued by a figure that is nothing more than flapping cloth and horror, only to fall in with a witch and her sugar daddy in their cursed tower, a witch who turned two of her own servants' bone marrow to molten lead during a botched escape... That was an astonishing episode.
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Really hit me as a child... the bone marrow bit.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
There's a bit in Tehanu where Tenar thinks to herself "I've got to get me a dog" and it made me think am I supposed to have been reading this as if they're all speaking in American accents?

My Anglocentrism at fault, perhaps (ditto habitually imagining everybody is white european until I'm reminded that Tenar is the only white person in Gont), but I feel like it was another one of those little slips in tone I keep coming across in Tehanu. Whereas the tone in the first and second books in particular is perfectly sustained.

I've been thinking that the first book is like a legend retold, and from then on they become less distanced until in 'Tehanu' you're basically seeing everything through Tenar's eyes.

Don't want to spoil anything again but I really love how being cursed is depicted in Tehanu, as the derangement of thought and the onset of depressive self destructive thinking.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Corpsey said:
I was reading Tehanu last night (I can see why some people don't like it, but I do, other than some frankly weird changes in tone from time to time) and becoming increasingly convinced that Le Guin must have been a fan of Yeats.
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(Tehanu) "Life danced me. I know the dances. But I don't know the dancer."
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Finished Tehanu just now. I was *slightly* disappointed with the ending but everything leading up to it was brilliant, brilliant. And perhaps I'm wrong to be disappointed.

SPOILER: I thought the villain that emerged in this was disturbing and I actually wish she'd explored the concept of a dark mage at greater length.

With a weary but grateful sigh I must admit that I'm now duty bound to read the last two books. It feels nice to have "completed" the first four, but I'm certainly looking forward to finishing them off.

Reading these books has made me much more open to reading fantasy stuff in general. Not sure how much there is on this level, though.
 
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