2 more by LeGuin
Malafrena - 369 pages, 19th-century historical novel set in an imaginary Europe, &&
Based on this book, I've decided that LeGuin's Orsinian stories don't work for me. They're not imaginary enough to qualify as fantastic, but Orsinia is too hard to pin down as a nation, while too typically evocative of west-central Europe in its general folkways, culture, and politics, to stand convincingly as its own country. This novel was a disappointment to me, and the first time a very personal vision of LeGuin's just didn't resonate with me.
Powers - 502 pages, fantasy and fictional social anthropology - &&&&& - A longer and more subtle successor to Gifts, this tale from the Western Shore cycle gives us Gavir, stolen from his "primitive" marsh-dwelling people as an infant and enslaved by a more powerful and urban society along with his older sister Sallo, who is bound both by her slave status and by a broader sexism. Gavir, who has the power of "remembering" the future, or foresight, gradually realizes that his relatively privileged position as a rich family's tutor-in-training and playmate to their children is nevertheless a gilded cage, a realization that is cemented by his sister's cruel fate as a helpless plaything for the household's favored son. Feeling betrayed by the family he thought of as his and Sallo's protectors and not merely their owners, and bereft at the loss of Sallo - the only blood family he'd ever known - Gavir strikes out to find others with whom he can identify.
In the process of seeking and rejecting the dangerous society of other runaways, and family bonds that no longer exist among his tribe of marsh people, Gavir evolves from compliant, obedient child to revolutionary young man, and also learns to claim and use his foresight instead of concealing it from masters and peers alike. Gavir's quest for self-rule and justice, for himself and those he considers his family, mirrors the decay and corruptness of the slave-holding society around him, and also highlights the power struggles and class wars among the small, seemingly idealistic groups of freedmen he encounters in his journeys. In setting up their new "free" societies the former slaves, having knowledge of no social dynamic other than that between slave and slave-holder, ruled and ruler, predictably fall back into these old patterns, and so in a theoretical society of "equals' some take a "more-equal" leadership role that spawns abuse of power. But Gavir, his preternatural foresight always giving him a vision of a different, more authentically powerful way - the free and self-sufficient way of his marsh forebears - is able to hold fast to his own egalitarian desires for himself and the small family group that forms around him.
Totals for the year: 14 books reviewed, 4334 pages in those, and there's a backlog of at least a dozen titles. *sigh*
Based on this book, I've decided that LeGuin's Orsinian stories don't work for me. They're not imaginary enough to qualify as fantastic, but Orsinia is too hard to pin down as a nation, while too typically evocative of west-central Europe in its general folkways, culture, and politics, to stand convincingly as its own country. This novel was a disappointment to me, and the first time a very personal vision of LeGuin's just didn't resonate with me.
Powers - 502 pages, fantasy and fictional social anthropology - &&&&& - A longer and more subtle successor to Gifts, this tale from the Western Shore cycle gives us Gavir, stolen from his "primitive" marsh-dwelling people as an infant and enslaved by a more powerful and urban society along with his older sister Sallo, who is bound both by her slave status and by a broader sexism. Gavir, who has the power of "remembering" the future, or foresight, gradually realizes that his relatively privileged position as a rich family's tutor-in-training and playmate to their children is nevertheless a gilded cage, a realization that is cemented by his sister's cruel fate as a helpless plaything for the household's favored son. Feeling betrayed by the family he thought of as his and Sallo's protectors and not merely their owners, and bereft at the loss of Sallo - the only blood family he'd ever known - Gavir strikes out to find others with whom he can identify.
In the process of seeking and rejecting the dangerous society of other runaways, and family bonds that no longer exist among his tribe of marsh people, Gavir evolves from compliant, obedient child to revolutionary young man, and also learns to claim and use his foresight instead of concealing it from masters and peers alike. Gavir's quest for self-rule and justice, for himself and those he considers his family, mirrors the decay and corruptness of the slave-holding society around him, and also highlights the power struggles and class wars among the small, seemingly idealistic groups of freedmen he encounters in his journeys. In setting up their new "free" societies the former slaves, having knowledge of no social dynamic other than that between slave and slave-holder, ruled and ruler, predictably fall back into these old patterns, and so in a theoretical society of "equals' some take a "more-equal" leadership role that spawns abuse of power. But Gavir, his preternatural foresight always giving him a vision of a different, more authentically powerful way - the free and self-sufficient way of his marsh forebears - is able to hold fast to his own egalitarian desires for himself and the small family group that forms around him.
Totals for the year: 14 books reviewed, 4334 pages in those, and there's a backlog of at least a dozen titles. *sigh*