Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
My introduction to Le Guin came at an early age from reading A Wizard of Earthsea. It was a great fantasy that was probably responsible for my foray into an entire decade of love for the genre (The Chronicles of Narnia also gets a serious nod here).
Largely forgotten until my University years, my professor assigned “The Dispossessed” for our course on science-fiction. It was then I not only appreciated her genius, but her literary prowess. I proceeded to read much of her collection that year.
As things go, this collection of essays peered out from the shelves of the public library, begging me to go back into her world. If I had to summarize what I read in just one sentence:
She’s a genius and a rockstar with words.
The depth of her thoughts and the way she articulates her strong arguments begs for people today to study and emulate her. I couldn’t help but smile every time she tore down the ivory towers of the literati who claim only certain genres (and authors) are “true” literature.
My favourite is her passing remark about Cormac McCarthy’s, “The Road,” gently reminding readers that science-fiction writers were writing about solitary individuals crossing barren wastelands for decades beforehand. It reminded me of the minor detail that Hemingway was a subscriber to the pulp fiction magazines and much of his style (and process) was modeled after the pulp writers.
Although she has passed away, she still might be happy to know the idea of genre itself is transforming (and almost disappearing)–still kept alive, however, by academics needing to justify their existence. Teachers, too.
Everything she has written about the state of the publishing industry, to whether people ever read as much as we think they did (they didn’t), to a message of assurance that writers will always find their audience, was spot on. It felt like she managed to take my thoughts and translate them into words I could never put together.
It’s sad to know our world will no longer hear from her.
The book reviews at the end, while nicely written, felt like padding demanded from the publisher. I skimmed and skipped most of it.