Talk: Ursula K. Le Guin
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Thanks for adding the pronunciation blurb! I always wondered too. I guess she does as the Romans do (depending on which Romans she's hanging out with)!divadiane 16:20, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
- A useful addition I was glad I could contribute. Even so, a lifetime of saying "Le Goo-in" (after reading "Wizard of Earthsea" at the age of 11 or so) makes for a hard habit to break. –Hajor
Does anyone know precisely how her name is pronounced? Is it Le Geen, Le Gwin, Le Goo-in, or something else? If anyone knows for sure I'd really like to see it in the article.
I added an article on The Wind's Twelve Quarters and another on Four Ways to Forgiveness.
I am going to add a few of her books, and also a section, like the Earthsea section, about the Hainish Cycle. I don't know exactly which books fit into it, so please help me with the list.
Le Guin definitely spells her name with a space. This is the way it appears on all her books, on her letterhead stationery, etc. // Always Coming Home HAS a story. It also has inset material on the civilization. The same thing is true of The Left Hand of Darkness.
Is Always Coming Home a novel???? I'm not sure what it is, but a novel is supposed to have a story, doesn't it?
I kind of got the anarchist (or at least socialist) stuff, but taoist? Which works and what themes in them? I'm curious!
At a guess, the Earthsea novels seem taoist...being one with nature, preserving the balance etc.
- The Telling was inspired by the eradication of most of Chinese Taoist culture. Also, Le Guin has published a version of the Tao te ching. Vicki Rosenzweig
"The Left hand of Darkness" has Taoist themes including ideas of wholeness and dualism. At one point Genly Ai says that the people of Gethen emphasize wholeness is the same way people on Earth emphasize opposites. The book also explores tension and interaction between opposites such as male/female, light/dark, Handdara/Yomeshta. In "City of Illusions" Falk brings a Taoist book with him on his journey.
Note: This author's name is properly spelled with a space, thus: Ursula K. Le Guin.
If I remember correctly from a letter from her, she spelled without the space. With the space seems more common on books, though. Oh well. --Pinkunicorn
-- due to uncertainty about the correct spelling of her last name, a Wikipedia page on her also exists at Ursula K. Le Guin
I suggest that this confusion be resolved and the pages merged, with the "wrong" page left as a pointer to the correct one.
- The United States Library of Congress catalog shows her name as Le Guin with the space, therefore making that the main page with "LeGuin" redirecting to it. (28 September 2001) ***
I confess that I haven't read it fully yet, but "The Other Wind" is part of the Earthsea series, isn't it? It appears to include characters from Tehanu, along with at least one appearance of Ged. Does this make it the next book in the Earthsea "pentology"?
The Other Wind is definitely an Earthsea novel. It follows on from "Tehanu."
Also, "Le Guin", with a space, according to her Web page: http://www.ursulakleguin.com/
Thanks. It would be an interesting battle royale if the Library of Congress and author disagreed on the correct spelling of the name. :-)
"She has written that her goal was to write about a society that had never had a war."
-- I recall this as being something she speculated would be an secondary effect of genderlessness rather than the initial motive for the book. Anybody have a source one way or the other?
From my memory of the short story "Winter's King" which was UKlG's first story about the world of Gethen, the Gethenians did have wars; or at least, civil war. I'll have to dig out and re-read the originals... -- The Anome
-- Winter's King is (in the stories' timeline though perhaps not in order of writing) a sequel to Left Hand of Darkness (The protagonist is Argaven XVII, grandchild of that Argaven XV with whom Genly Ai deals in LHoD).
One of the motifs of LHoD -- and problems Ai encounters -- is that though they have a long tradition of small "forays" or "raids" between Domains (to settle points of honor or steal goods) the Gethenians (specifically the countries of Karhide and Orgoreyn) are *just beginning* to develop the activity of "war" after some thousands of years of civilization. (Le Guin has a lovely quote in Chapter 5 on the Gethenians' lack of "the capacity to mobilize").
By the time of Winter's King, the Gethenians have "advanced" ("as it is said" -- from Tolkien) a little further along this road.
I am curious about the quote saying that Le Guin's works show the need for a "true king" to save the world. Where does this come from? I don't see this in her books. In LHoD there is no one character who can change the world by themselves. Genly Ai says that the Ekumen works by coordination and trade of ideas, rather than having a centralized government. Many of her works also seem to focus on anarchism, and the leaders of these movements, such as Odo in "The Day before the Revolution," don't seem to resemble Aragorn like characters.
- In the Ekumen Universe works, I do not recall a "true king" either, however in Earthsea trilogy and the additional works in that universe there is a theme of a very important single person. In "The Farthest Shore", the whole story (in one level at least) revolves around bringing the true king back. at0 21:24, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- (William M. Connolley 18:16, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)) Earthsea was what I was thinking of when I wrote it. I'm fairly sure the idea occurs elsehwhere though, but can't bring it to mind.
