Ursula Le Guin

[subvert47]

also The Dark is Rising trilogy (or however many there were) by Susan Cooper

Five. Though the first one (Over Sea Under Stone) is only really part of the series because she uses some of the same characters later on. It's more of a children's adventure story than fantasy.

 

[subvert47]

Also that so far at least not much has happened.

Yes and no. In actuality a lot has happened. It's just that she's changed what's important. The "great heroic deeds of men" no longer are.

Incidentally, if you read Earthsea to the end, make sure to include the short stories Tales From Earthsea before the last novel. Because they lead into where she's going. In particular The Finder and Dragonfly.

 

[yyaldrin]

corpsey what is your preferred way of reading? do you sit in a soft big chair? or do you read in bed? or do you read while commuting?

 

[Corpsey]

Mostly in bed, which is an issue cos I tend to put off reading all day and only get about an hour in.

Keep thinking I should get an armchair

 

[Benny Bunter]

Look at the poetic quality of the writing:

"But Ged went on, falcon-winged, falcon-mad, like an unfalling arrow, like an unforgotten thought, over the Oskill Sea and eastward into the wind of winter and the night."

 

[droid]

At what point did you realise Ged was black? I didnt at all on my first read.

 

[Benny Bunter]

At what point did you realise Ged was black? I didnt at all on my first read.

Yeah that's funny, skin colour gets mentioned a few times (I'm only on chapter 7 of the first book) but it hasn't really registered in my imagination yet and I'm not sure how significant it really is. When he's on the ship to Oskill the others call him Kelub or "red skin"

 

[droid]

She's amazingly deft at that, similarly to how she treats gender. I had the omnibus trilogy as a kid with a very whiteish looking Ged on the front and I didnt cop it until I re-read it, but everyone in earthsea is black bar the Kargish/vikings. A total inversion of fantasy tropes, completely under the radar and Light years ahead of her time.

 

[droid]

Look at the poetic quality of the writing:

"But Ged went on, falcon-winged, falcon-mad, like an unfalling arrow, like an unforgotten thought, over the Oskill Sea and eastward into the wind of winter and the night."

She is a wonder. I think only KSR comes close in sci fi in terms of that poetic quality and the wonderful tone of his work.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Yeah, she's registering difference in a very subtle way but you can read it colourblind, I don't think it matters that much. I don't want to read too much into it tbh. She deals with it really well, unlike a lot of sci-fi/fantasy authors

 

[Corpsey]

Look at the poetic quality of the writing:

"But Ged went on, falcon-winged, falcon-mad, like an unfalling arrow, like an unforgotten thought, over the Oskill Sea and eastward into the wind of winter and the night."

This tone is kept up in Tehanu but also slips so there's a crack about an onion-filled field being "goat heaven" which seems completely incongruous.

 

[Corpsey]

At what point did you realise Ged was black? I didnt at all on my first read.

It's interesting this cos I have to admit I struggle to automatically picture all the characters as not being white. I dunno if that's just because I expect white characters or if it's that the culture/mileu she depicts seems pretty European in many respects?

And of course she inverts the expected racial characteristics of the desert people so Tenar is white.

 

[droid]

Yeah, she's registering difference in a very subtle way but you can read it colourblind, I don't think it matters that much. I don't want to read too much into it tbh. She deals with it really well, unlike a lot of sci-fi/fantasy authors

Sure, but it matters because this was written in 1968 in a genre and time when black representation was non-existent if not actively discouraged.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Maybe if it was written nowadays she'd have done it too heavy handed. Like you say it's deftly handled, and you don't have to map it onto contemporary real world politics - it's for all time.

 

[Benny Bunter]

Who is KSR?

 

[droid]

Maybe if it was written nowadays she'd have done it too heavy handed. Like you say it's deftly handled, and you don't have to map it onto contemporary real world politics - it's for all time.

Sorry, I guess my point is that her handling of race and genre was revolutionary for the time, and is probably revolutionary even now. There was a major shitfit just recently about the new tolkien thing having just a few black characters.

 

[droid]

Who is KSR?

Kim Stanley Robinson

 

[droid]

From the Mars trilogy

 

[droid]

I love this as well, from years of rice and salt.

 

[Benny Bunter]

I just appreciate how she handles the race issue so subtly and naturally that you don't even really think about it or notice it. I might be wrong, but I doubt she was trying to make any sort of political point, which would after all detract from the story she was trying to tell. I haven't read a lot of sci fi and fantasy really but I'm well aware of a lot of dodgy stuff, but she manages to bypass all of that without being in-your-face I must be representative about it.