lindcherry's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
3.0
beardybot's review against another edition
3.0
I struggled with Malafrena. It lacked that individual substance that makes a story its own. At times it read so close to Middlemarch I had to check which book I was reading. At others, it was just words. Many beautiful, but without the spirit I'd expect from Le Guin.
Orsinia is a fictional Central European country, and Malafrena covers the early 1800s and occupation by the Austrian empire. The trials of landed country families provide a backdrop to fomenting rebellion in the city. There's not much more to say, except that it took a long old time to get through.
After Malafrena, the Orsinian Tales were a breath of fresh air. Character, time, and place were impeccable, throughout the centuries. These small stories were solid, and grounded, and so much bigger than they were. The loss that pervades through many of them feels almost personal. Brilliant, and immensely satisfying.
Orsinia is a fictional Central European country, and Malafrena covers the early 1800s and occupation by the Austrian empire. The trials of landed country families provide a backdrop to fomenting rebellion in the city. There's not much more to say, except that it took a long old time to get through.
After Malafrena, the Orsinian Tales were a breath of fresh air. Character, time, and place were impeccable, throughout the centuries. These small stories were solid, and grounded, and so much bigger than they were. The loss that pervades through many of them feels almost personal. Brilliant, and immensely satisfying.
loonyboi's review against another edition
3.0
I have already reviewed [b:Malafrena|118017|Malafrena|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1202353428s/118017.jpg|1642576] separately, so this review applies to the other contents of this volume. I didn't love Malafrena, but I admired the crap out of it. That basically applies to the rest of the book. You get songs, stories and what amounts to a coda to the country of Orsinia. It's not my favorite Le Guin work, but I'm very glad I read it.
nearit's review against another edition
4.0
The novel, Malafrena, reads more like pastiche than Le Guin's other work but like everything else in this collection it's a work of astonishing clarity and few contemporary authors could create a simulacrum of a 19th century realist novel this convincing.
adtidi's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
arbieroo's review
3.0
UKL said she wanted to write about Europe but felt that as an American, she wouldn't be taken seriously if she did so - so she invented a central European country (Orsinia) in the hope that would allow her to get away with it. She set her first novel, Malafrena, there and talked about love and freedom and revolution, but it didn't work; the novel was re-hashed several times before publication and she had already established herself as an SF novelist by that time. Superficially, a historical novel about trying to escape foreign control and gain self-determination doesn't seem to fit with the space adventures and magical worlds of the familiar later UKL - but I've already revealed the actual close connections; made up places, similar thematic concerns. Despite all the re-working it never really attains the greatness UKL was capable of and remains a quirky early book that only completists will probably want to read.
The following Orsinian Tales, which range across the entire history of the country from tenuous early Christian conversion to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, however are on average greatly superior and I recommend them. Unfortunately to get the most from them, Malafrena is a pre-requisite, slight slog that it is. The stories are set not only at key points in European history but also just wherever they might need to be to tell the story UKL had in mind. The end of Summer in the countryside, 1935, particularly redound through history, for instance, but the story captures a mood exceptionally and delightfully.
The book ends in 1989, the most optimistic year in Europe since the start of WWI. The Iron Curtain fell and a great, meancing Russian shadow over Europe was removed. Shocking and scary to note, in 2018, the extent to which that shadow is regrowing and spreading over America, too. Ukraine, and Georgia strategically nibbled at. America that defined itself as standing against the Soviets, now a client state of a resurgent Imperialist Russia.
The following Orsinian Tales, which range across the entire history of the country from tenuous early Christian conversion to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, however are on average greatly superior and I recommend them. Unfortunately to get the most from them, Malafrena is a pre-requisite, slight slog that it is. The stories are set not only at key points in European history but also just wherever they might need to be to tell the story UKL had in mind. The end of Summer in the countryside, 1935, particularly redound through history, for instance, but the story captures a mood exceptionally and delightfully.
The book ends in 1989, the most optimistic year in Europe since the start of WWI. The Iron Curtain fell and a great, meancing Russian shadow over Europe was removed. Shocking and scary to note, in 2018, the extent to which that shadow is regrowing and spreading over America, too. Ukraine, and Georgia strategically nibbled at. America that defined itself as standing against the Soviets, now a client state of a resurgent Imperialist Russia.
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