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myhomextheroad's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
I want to assign this as reading in creative writing classes. Not because Le Guin lays out Rules You Must Follow as a writer, but the opposite—these essays are fiercely questioning, and often challenge the reader to throw out the rules and write something true. These essays range over a wide area in the realm of SFF—from reflecting on her own books, to introducing the works of other writers, to analyses of censorship and artistic freedom. There's a certain curmudgeonly quality to Le Guin's writing that I admire—the feeling of someone you could have a really enjoyable argument with. (I especially enjoyed seeing Le Guin argue with herself in the footnotes to an essay on The Left Hand of Darkness, tracing the ways her thinking about gender in Gethen has changed.)
Content Warnings
Minor: Ableism
I don't remember when Le Guin updated the texts of these essays, but I do hope that—at some point in her life, or if she had lived longer—she would have revisited the ways these essays sometimes use autism & schizophrenia as negative descriptions, which struck me as rooted in attitudes of the 70's and 80's in ways that Le Guin pushed against for so many other marginalized identities. It's not a major thread in these essays by any means, but I found it jarring when it occurred.novella42's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
Fascinating, passionate, and engaging. I love her humor, her stubborn streak, her hint of pettiness, and above all her belief in the capacity of writers to really, truly, create art. There are many quotable moments here, and many thoughts to ponder. The self-censorship of capitalism is going to stay with me. I'm not sure anyone else on the planet could have convinced me to try Yevegeny Zamyatin, but here I am, adding We to my library hold list on the strength of her admiration for him.
I find myself inspired as a writer, slightly disappointed as a feminist — though grateful to her and other second wave feminists for their groundbreaking work, her 1975/1989 visions of gender were very much a white, middle-class, able-bodied feminism.
I still admire her and plan to quote her. I took so many photos of the pages I practically scanned half the book.
But I'd be lying if I said her cavalier use of "ghetto" (does this count as antisemitism? racist? I cringe but cannot articulate why at the moment) and multiple uses of the word "cripple" as a devastating and shaming insult didn't break my heart a little. Took the wind right out of my sails, to go from imagining sitting by her side at the Clarion workshops she describes with such wit and hilarity, to imagine the way she might look right through me as a cripple in a wheelchair. I think my own lived experience and insight as a disabled person gives me a unique perspective on her ruminations on escapism. And honestly? I think she's wrong in some ways and right in others. If I have energy maybe I'll come back and argue for the human nervous system's very reasonable evolved strategy to dissociate beyond suffering and trauma. But that's an essay for another day.
It makes me want to read some of her later essays to see if she'd grown any, from those earlier views. She seems a person who thought deeply and seriously about ethics.
It's good to see she wasn't the perfect role model I believed she was, when I taped a photo of her above my computer as a teenager. Maybe that means there's hope for all the rest of us humans, too.
I find myself inspired as a writer, slightly disappointed as a feminist — though grateful to her and other second wave feminists for their groundbreaking work, her 1975/1989 visions of gender were very much a white, middle-class, able-bodied feminism.
I still admire her and plan to quote her. I took so many photos of the pages I practically scanned half the book.
But I'd be lying if I said her cavalier use of "ghetto" (does this count as antisemitism? racist? I cringe but cannot articulate why at the moment) and multiple uses of the word "cripple" as a devastating and shaming insult didn't break my heart a little. Took the wind right out of my sails, to go from imagining sitting by her side at the Clarion workshops she describes with such wit and hilarity, to imagine the way she might look right through me as a cripple in a wheelchair. I think my own lived experience and insight as a disabled person gives me a unique perspective on her ruminations on escapism. And honestly? I think she's wrong in some ways and right in others. If I have energy maybe I'll come back and argue for the human nervous system's very reasonable evolved strategy to dissociate beyond suffering and trauma. But that's an essay for another day.
It makes me want to read some of her later essays to see if she'd grown any, from those earlier views. She seems a person who thought deeply and seriously about ethics.
It's good to see she wasn't the perfect role model I believed she was, when I taped a photo of her above my computer as a teenager. Maybe that means there's hope for all the rest of us humans, too.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Antisemitism