Hardcover, 890 pages
English language
Published Sept. 5, 2017 by Library of America.
The star-spanning story of humanity's colonization of other planets, Ursula K. Le Guin's visionary Hainish novels and stories redrew the map of modern science fiction. This second volume in a definitive two-volume edition gathers Le Guin's final two Hainish novels, The Word for World Is Forest, in which Earth enslaves another planet to strip its natural resources, and The Telling, the harrowing story of a society which has suppressed its own cultural heritage. Rounding out the volume are seven short stories and the story suite Five Ways to Forgiveness, published here in full for the first time as the author intended. The endpaper features a full-color chart of the known worlds of Hainish descent.
"Genre cannot contain Ursula Le Guin: she is a genre in herself." —Zadie Smith
I had difficulty reading parts of this book (I blame me, not the author) and rage read other parts. However, the themes and lessons to be learned are valuable and relevant today.
this book left me speechless. i felt the aftershock of my emotions a day after i finished reading this. i suddenly remembered everything that happened with Selver and his wife and his people, with Lyubov's compassion and drive for justice, with all the Athsheans, with what's left of the Earth (Terran) and cried on a random morning. this book explores the NECESSITY and COST of resistance-- how the corrupting aspect of the (necessary) violence from the oppressed, how it hardens their hearts, how it makes monsters out of them too-- that is part of the damage done. in the end, it is always the oppressors, the colonizers, and the imperialists who are to blame for this. there are things that the oppressed will - and must - do. and it is always heartbreaking. but what won't you break for liberation? what would you not destroy for freedom?
-- some thoughts …
this book left me speechless. i felt the aftershock of my emotions a day after i finished reading this. i suddenly remembered everything that happened with Selver and his wife and his people, with Lyubov's compassion and drive for justice, with all the Athsheans, with what's left of the Earth (Terran) and cried on a random morning. this book explores the NECESSITY and COST of resistance-- how the corrupting aspect of the (necessary) violence from the oppressed, how it hardens their hearts, how it makes monsters out of them too-- that is part of the damage done. in the end, it is always the oppressors, the colonizers, and the imperialists who are to blame for this. there are things that the oppressed will - and must - do. and it is always heartbreaking. but what won't you break for liberation? what would you not destroy for freedom?
-- some thoughts from my journal:
lately i keep remembering my dreams vividly as soon as i wake up, but they are strange and beyond my understanding. they scare me and i don’t know why. i keep willing myself to forget them so i won’t have to think about them.
but maybe i should try recording my dreams again. to learn from them. to look through the veil between worlds. to remember my lives outside of this.
i have just finished reading the world for world is forest, and the athsheans have the gift of mastering lucid dreaming— they can navigate world time and dream time. this has been likened to the Senoi people of the Orang Asli tribe in Malaysia, who “have solved the problem of violent crime and destructive economic conflict, and largely eliminated insanity, neurosis, and psychogenic illness” through the mastery of their dreams. there are debates about this, but i digress.
dreams have always been an interest of mine, and i think it’s time i go back to it slowly— to replace fear with curiosity and amazement. to find the meaning in my otherworldly experiences, in the magic of my mind.
Selver and the Athsheans would be proud, as would Lyubov. Maybe I'll see them there. Or maybe I'll see my ancestors (I've seen them before, in another lucid dream). I hope we're all dancing in the forest.
Le Guin doesn't pull any punches in this short novel that turns out to be a version of the environmentalist, anti-colonialist story of which there are many iterations of in media, but is also one of the better ones, with Le Guin's usual transparency of intention and thoughtfulness behind it. She doesn't hold back or confuse the message one bit. I thought the PoV being split between 3 characters and the length of the book makes them a little one-note and doesn't let them be more than what they represent (including one of the most hateable, loathsome characters I've read) but they do the job fine.
Well, this was horrible to listen to in all the right and predictable ways. I'm not sure if it just gives me the righteous indignation feels, or those and then some more thoughtfulness. Anyway, I much prefer to be righteously indignant at fiction to being "righteously indignant" at reality where it doesn't help, and is often missing like 99% of the actual complexity. Honestly, a bit harsher book than I expected in terms of the violence that happened during this book. Made me think of books like [b:A Clockwork Orange|41817486|A Clockwork Orange|Anthony Burgess|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1549260060l/41817486.SX50.jpg|23596] or [b:American Psycho|28676|American Psycho|Bret Easton Ellis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436934349l/28676.SY75.jpg|2270060] (though not similar in any sense). Yeah, I'm great at picking books to listen to while there's a war on in a nearby country.
Short, sharp, shock. Startling shift in tone from Le Guin, going inside the head of a bigot. Shows range and skill.
Still great. Maybe better this time?
This is a short book with a simple premise and story. It's told very well through 3 separate viewpoints. The characters, though clearly defined, appear somewhat two-dimensional. Perhaps, though, this is just a limitation of the short nature of the story, at just barely 200 pages. Still, I enjoyed it for its simplicity. The similarity to so many other stories (humans conquering natives, which rise up against them) made it feel a tad derivative, though bear in mind that this was written in the 1970s so perhaps it was seen as fresh and new among the science fiction community back then?
For a full review, see my blog: strakul.blogspot.com/2013/09/book-review-word-for-world-is-forest-by.html
