Book finished: "Gifts" by Ursula K. Le Guin

[viktor_haag]

I enjoyed "Gifts"; it's fashioned with care by a master craftsman. Those who have little time for Le Guin's later works (say, since "Tehanu") often deride them as "not as interesting or exciting" as her earlier works. I don't agree at all. It's just that she's older, wiser, and interested in telling different kinds of stories than when she was younger.

I like the post-Tehanu Le Guin. She's one of the few authors where I read and think "Good God, I wish I could write like that!" rather than the more common "Hmp. I could do that."

To be fair, I have no idea whether I could, in actual fact, write as well or better than most of the authors I have read in the past, but I certainly feel like I could. Where as the authors I really like give me the first of the two feelings: Borges, Le Guin, Vance, Wolfe, Crowley.

Gifts is a quiet tale about a young man's coming of age that touches on aspects of power, abuse, responsibility, self-discovery, the need to avoid delusion, the need to cope with loss, and other important things what teens should learn about. There was only one note in the whole book that rung a bit unfortunate to me (I was not entirely keen on the young man's reaction towards his father at the very end of the book, but it was, at least, understandable to me).

Please live long, Ms Le Guin. Please write more.

At some point I will read "Voices", the next book set in this new background of Le Guin's. It is available in hardcover, and I will likely read it when it arrives in trade paper back.

Next on the list of books I'm actively reading:

• "Storm Front" by Jim Butcher because I want to see what all the fuss is about. I'm not sure I'll finish it. So far it seems to be fairly standard, pedestrian, "cool magician solves supernatural crimes" kind of fare. Not necessarily "bad" you understand, but there are other things on my shelf that are looking at me askance and asking me "why aren't you reading me instead?"

• "The Darkness That Comes Before" by R. Scott Bakker. This is a re-read because the third book came out in December in mass-market, and I want to re-do the first, before heading further into the set.

• "Kingdom Of Shadows" by Alan Furst. Not exactly uplifting, but how could novels set in and around Paris during the height of the Age Of Fascism be uplifting? Fun so far, but not exactly tight. Furst's self-professed model is Eric Ambler, but Ambler was razor sharp in focus, and Furst is not.

• "The Goose Girl" by Shannon Hale. Another YA fantasy series; this one, based on Grimm's fairy tales. Pretty well written, so far.

Comments

[mylescorcoran]

I was delighted by Gifts too. It's a lovely, understated piece and I'm glad to have finally gotten round to reading it. (We've a house full of books, many unread.)

I'm not uncritical of her more recent work, though, and I wasn't particularly impressed with The Other Wind, for example. Changing Planes, however, was perfect.

I hope she writes more too. I keep meaning to write to her. She'll send you a signed book plate or two if you ask nicely, I believe, and I have some hardback editions of the Earthsea books that cry out for that sort of extra touch.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

I'm rather liked The Other Wind, but I think it benefitted enormously having read it right after Tales of Earthsea with all the other four being read right before that. This allowed me to notice lots of touches of the "coming round again" variety that I probably would have not noticed as acutely if lots of time had passed between the books.

I haven't read Changing Planes yet, but I have read The Telling and it was that, more than anything else, that prompted me to go back to reading Le Guin. I had stopped reading her after Always Coming Home which I found interesting in spots, but overall too unfocussed and a bit didactic. I should probably give that one another chance and see whether the years that have passed in my own life since reading it will make for a greater appreciation of it.

I got stuck into the "The Telling" by having it sitting in the loo at my parents' place. My mom's a big Le Guin fan, and so, there it was sitting, and I hadn't my own book, and so I picked it up and read a few pages. And was hooked back in. So, yay.

[mylescorcoran]

I haven't read The Telling yet. I must give it a try. I agree with you on Always Coming Home, though I did enjoy it overall.

Tales of Earthsea was excellent if a bit uneven. It really fired me up again and I re-read the quartet immediately afterwards. Somewhere in the mountains of paper in the house I have the notes for a role-playing game I worked on for an Earthsea game back in the 90's. It never really came to anything. I know Le Guin is not in favour of role-playing games, partly from ignorance I think, but she's definitely not going to license the IP for any game.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard that too. Although I always understood that it wasn't rolegames per se that she objected to, but the fact that often players wanted to play in other people's created worlds -- presumably, if you want to roleplay, that's cool, but at least you could be creative about it and come up with your own settings.

[mylescorcoran]

Okay, that's probably closer to her position, but I remember reading something in The Wave in the Mind, I think, that made it sound more like she objected to role-playing as somehow childish or adolescent. I'll have to look up the reference at home.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

That's entirely possible. Which would, in my opinion, be ignorant and short-sighted on her part especially given her profession.