2010 Reading #106: The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin

[snurri]

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
Books 91-100.
101. Old Fort Snelling: 1819-1858 by Marcus L. Hansen.
102. Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Volume 1 by Roger Landgridge, Chris Samnee, and Matthew Wilson.
103. Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith.
104. Darkness Calls by Marjorie M. Liu.
105. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

106. The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. Much of this collection consists of revisitations of settings Le Guin has used before--Gethen ("Coming of Age in Karhide"), O ("Unchosen Love" and "Mountain Ways"), Werel and Yeowe ("Old Music and the Slave Women"). I enjoyed those stories, but I enjoyed more the ones that introduced new settings and ways of being human, even unpleasant ones. I've read "The Matter of Seggri" at least twice before, but it's a story that feels new every time I read it. It's something of a dark story, but a hopeful one, which I think is something you could say of much of Le Guin's work; it has no illusions about the dark side of human nature, but it sees that there are a lot of people trying to do better, and tells us to focus on that. "Solitude" is a story that made me deeply uncomfortable, and I'm not sure if I enjoyed it exactly, but I suspect I'll be remembering it and thinking about it for a long while. And the longest story here, "Paradises Lost," is a seriously engaging generation-ship story; I have some reservations about the religious dynamic that Le Guin uses, but as an anthropological examination of the middle generations who never saw the home planet and never expect to see the destination, it's like nothing I've yet read. So, more Le Guin, more great work; pretty unsurprising, really.

Comments

[czakbar.livejournal.com]

"Solitude" is my favorite Le Guin story in general, but I think only because it reminds me of the social breakdown I've witnessed after economic catastrophe here in my corner of Ohio. The world she describes is one that has imploded as well, and what the anthropologist mother explores is a society of distrust and fear of developed technology and social control systems. Which, minus the fear of developed technology, is a world that is familiar to me. The boys warring in gangs. The girls and women taking care of children independently. It's a horrible vision, but I identified in my own way, especially with the daughter who chose to stay, because it was her world regardless of its quality compared to other worlds.

[snurri.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting take I hadn't considered, Chris; I think my reaction to it was also based on something pretty personal. I think what I most reacted to in the story was how it seemed to be a society of introverts, and that I kept finding myself feeling like the story was critiquing that way of living in uncomfortable ways, while simultaneously being aware that this was almost certainly something I was bringing to the story rather than something that Le Guin had really put into it. I was frustrated with the mother and the daughter both (which I think was Le Guin's intent) and also with myself for reacting to the story the way I did. I'm still thinking about all that now, days after I read it.

[czakbar.livejournal.com]

I think it's open to multiple interpretations, which is the hallmark of a good story, right? I think it's why it won the Nebula for novella (or novelette?) the year it came out. It's really rich, even if it's also sort of bleak and, in your reading, a critique of introversion. Which to me seemed linked to introversion (personal self) as a response to extraversion (societal self) that has gone awry in the past. But the introversion does seem like it becomes a problem in terms of rebuilding a large-scale society after the apocalypse. On the other hand, is introversion a problem what humans living in large societal structures do is mainly consume life beyond the breaking point?

Yes, the mother was frustrating as well. The son, too, though he seemed to have the fairest outcome in terms of character evolution.

[unnamed-horror.livejournal.com]

Reading your LeGuin reviews makes me want to go back and re-read all of the LeGuin stories and novels you mentioned. I had a LeGuin obsession for a while, in the late 90s, so your posts are fun to read. My memory is hazy of many of the particulars, so I'll have to dig the books out.