DannyL

Wild Horses
You might wanna skip these notes if you're reading the Earthsea books to reduce their impact but.....

(spoiler space)







The second book is basically about sex. Sex from a women's POV in particular. Hard not to read the massive earthdquake at the end as some kind of orgasm.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
At the end, after she escapes the Tombs - IIRC.

I wrote some notes on Tehanu (the 4th book) on this site somewhere but the search function can't retrieve old posts, it looks like.
 

luka

Well-known member
i read the first couple of pages of Tehanu and hated it cos it had a girl protagonist and men were horrible. i just thought uh oh, feminism alert. put it down straight away.
 

luka

Well-known member
i read the first couple of pages of Tehanu and hated it cos it had a girl protagonist and men were horrible. i just thought uh oh, feminism alert. put it down straight away.

i had the full gamergate response "don't try and sneak that into my entertainment options!'
 

catalog

Well-known member
Not read any ursula le guin but I just read the Wikipedia entry on always coming home and it sounds really good
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
i read the first couple of pages of Tehanu and hated it cos it had a girl protagonist and men were horrible. i just thought uh oh, feminism alert. put it down straight away.
It's totally different tonally. I didn't like it at first, then I read it again, and was like this is the greatest book I've ever read.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Also, it's amazing. To rework a world that way, in light of new understandings and still make it hang together is incredible. I think I said something like it's much more grimy but more real. You get a real sense of how shitty and hard peasant life must've been. Stick that up your twee arse, Bilbo Baggins.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's totally different tonally. I didn't like it at first, then I read it again, and was like this is the greatest book I've ever read.

thats the real reason i put it down btw. im not really into gamergate, honest. i found it really jarring cos i was enjoying being in magic world and now im reading about men raping and burning a woman
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Fair enough. It definitely doesn't deliver the same pleasures. I think she wrote the two books either side of a poltical awakening.
 

droid

Well-known member
Huge fan. I think The dispossessed might be her finest work, though most of her stuff is great. There are times when it seems her heart wasnt quite in it though. The Word for World is Forest and Lathe of Heaven for example - both strong conceptually and narratively, but lacking in depth and characterisation. There was a good BBC radio dramatisation of The left hand of darkness a few years back. Not available anymore, but I ripped em at the time and tucked them safely away. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gHspLM1-xxuiMm9T6qxNdyWiarbyNiAa?usp=sharing
 

subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
i've been wanting to read her books, which should i get?

Try The Word for World is Forest. It's about (among other things) a non-violent society being changed by colonialist oppression. It's not absolutely her best but is pretty good – and also quite short, so you'll get what she's about without wasting much time (supposing you don't like it).

After that, well, The Dispossessed is my personal favourite (see padraig's post for that).
 

subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
There are times when it seems her heart wasnt quite in it though. The Word for World is Forest and Lathe of Heaven for example - both strong conceptually and narratively, but lacking in depth and characterisation.

Hmm, maybe. I suppose it's the ideas you remember from these books, rather than the characters. Which I suppose is uncharacteristic of Le Guin.
 
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