Ursula Le Guin
I'm really going to miss Ursula Le Guin. In the past ten years or so I had come to cherish wholeheartedly her trenchant, take-no-prisoners comments on the state of everything, her calls to hope and action, and her sharp, nourishing sense of humor.
I read the Earthsea books as a teenager, and fell into them wholeheartedly and read them over and over and over, and still revisit both the original three and the additional ones. But for the bulk of Le Guin's career, her other work was something I admired deeply for its craft and feeling, but couldn't enter into for whatever reason. I always felt that it had much to tell me, but I was, I don't know, in the wrong class somehow and lacked the pre-requisite knowledge I needed to appreciate it. The exception was The Language of the Night. That, too, I read over and over and over, and was overjoyed when, many years later, Dancing at the Edge of the World joined it. Best of all, though, was Steering the Craft. When Le Guin talked about writing and reading, I understood her as deeply as if she were writing my favorite kind of fiction. She reminded me of the basics, gave me wild ideas about advanced areas of writing, buoyed me up when I lost hope, scolded me when I was whiny, described frankly her own struggles with the terrifying, entrancing, boring slog that is writing.
I figure someday I'll be able to viscerally appreciate more of her fiction. When I have more knowledge and have let go of more preconceptions. But her thoughts about writing will have been more than enough, if that never happens.
Pamela
This entry was originally posted at https://pameladean.dreamwidth.org/190615.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
I read the Earthsea books as a teenager, and fell into them wholeheartedly and read them over and over and over, and still revisit both the original three and the additional ones. But for the bulk of Le Guin's career, her other work was something I admired deeply for its craft and feeling, but couldn't enter into for whatever reason. I always felt that it had much to tell me, but I was, I don't know, in the wrong class somehow and lacked the pre-requisite knowledge I needed to appreciate it. The exception was The Language of the Night. That, too, I read over and over and over, and was overjoyed when, many years later, Dancing at the Edge of the World joined it. Best of all, though, was Steering the Craft. When Le Guin talked about writing and reading, I understood her as deeply as if she were writing my favorite kind of fiction. She reminded me of the basics, gave me wild ideas about advanced areas of writing, buoyed me up when I lost hope, scolded me when I was whiny, described frankly her own struggles with the terrifying, entrancing, boring slog that is writing.
I figure someday I'll be able to viscerally appreciate more of her fiction. When I have more knowledge and have let go of more preconceptions. But her thoughts about writing will have been more than enough, if that never happens.
Pamela
This entry was originally posted at https://pameladean.dreamwidth.org/190615.html. Please comment there using OpenID.