
Ursula Le Guin has died - sampo
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/obituaries/ursula-k-le-guin-acclaimed-for-her-fantasy-fiction-is-dead-at-88.html
======
macrael
_I am not trying to say that I was happy, during those weeks of hauling a
sledge across an ice-sheet in the dead of winter. I was hungry, overstrained,
and often anxious, and it all got worse the longer it went on. I certainly
wasn 't happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What
I was given was the thing you can't earn, and can't keep, and often don't even
recognize at the time; I mean joy._

—The Left Hand Of Darkness

~~~
labster
There's a lot in _The Left Hand of Darkness_ , but the thing I got out of it
is there are some things that can't be learned by being told the answer. I
could tell you what the left hand of darkness is right now, but if you didn't
read the book, you'd be none the wiser. Some things can only be taught through
experiencing it yourself, or through the proxy of storytelling.

Storytelling is the greatest tool we have for passing down wisdom to the next
generation. Ursula LeGuin, we celebrate what you have taught us and will
continue to teach us, and we mourn your passing.

~~~
f_allwein
"nothing worth knowing can be taught" \- Oscar Wilde

------
pavlov
I first read “The Dispossessed” in a hospital delivery room while waiting for
my first child to be born. The way Le Guin paints an entire life’s dreams and
hopes and their external bounds left an indelible impression. There is a birth
scene in the book that I remember with as much emotion as the actual birth the
same night.

On a more general level, “The Dispossessed” is a good example of the paradigm
shift that Le Guin (and some other writers of her generation) introduced to
science fiction writing, because the book compares so directly to Heinlein’s
“The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress” written less than ten years earlier. Both are
about experimental societies on a moon, but there’s a huge difference in
approach.

Heinlein’s book is basically the last hurrah of the pulpy, swashbuckling post-
war style of sci-fi novels. It’s an enormously entertaining book, but the
characters have practically negative depth — they just do whatever the plot
requires at any given point — and the future society is a charmingly naïve
macho fantasy of a resourceless American West where nobody has anything, yet
everybody behaves their best because that’s just what people do (and when a
couple of black thugs show up, they get thrown out of the airlock — crime
problem solved forever).

Although it’s easy to misread “The Dispossessed” as singing the praises of a
particular style of anarchic communism, Le Guin avoids Heinlein’s stilted
political prescriptiveness by focusing on people — they get mistreated by the
system as often as they get lifted up by it. In the end she makes the explicit
point that this is just one possible way of organizing human societies among a
nearly infinite set of possibilities. Le Guin’s sci-fi is almost as soft as it
gets, and the genre has been so much better for it.

~~~
wz1000
> they get mistreated by the system as often as they get lifted up by it. In
> the end she makes the explicit point that this is just one possible way of
> organizing human societies among a nearly infinite set of possibilities

Well, the book is subtitled "An Ambiguous Utopia"

~~~
pavlov
Interesting — I don’t think my copy had that.

~~~
auxbuss
I have the Avon paperback from 1975 and on the cover it says: The magnificent
epic of an ambiguous utopia – Winner of the Nebula Award!

I don't believe this phrase was a subtitle so much as part of the cover blurb.
It's not mentioned again.

~~~
jrochkind1
Wikipedia says 'When first published, the book included the tagline: "The
magnificent epic of an ambiguous utopia!" which was shortened by fans to "An
ambiguous utopia" and adopted as a subtitle in certain editions', with
footnotes that I haven't bothered to follow.

------
nkoren
My favourite living author is now my favourite dead author. It has been such a
privilege to read her works.

Ursula Le Guin conjured new worlds and and lay them out before my mind's eye
-- but that's not what made her special. Many writers have done that. What she
could do -- almost uniquely -- was to conjure _a new mind 's eye_. She
understood that the world exists at the point of perception, so she built her
worlds out of perception itself.

In her 1994 short story, "Solitude" (collected in "The Birthday of the
World"), she tells the story of a culture whose world-view is virtually as
opposite to my own as it is possible to be. And she made me _believe_ it. To
this day, I can feel the pull of that world-view. It's like being haunted by
an alien soul. It's still not _my_ world-view -- not remotely -- but being
able to cohabitate with such a foreign consciousness feels... valuable. It
gives me awareness that my own way of perception is just of many possible ways
of perception -- not as a intellectual conceit, but as a visceral, lived
understanding.

Thank you for this, Ursula. I am infinitely grateful.

~~~
frostwhale
Pretty big sci-fi reader and have never read her (to my shame), can you
recommend where to start?

~~~
muricula
Her most well known sci-fi novels are probably the Left Hand of Darkness,
Winter, and The Dispossessed. They are well summarized in the obituary. If you
prefer fantasy, she wrote The Wizards of Earthsea series as well.

Le Guinn explores social and political questions overlooked by those who came
before, and has had a profound impact on those who came after. The recent Hugo
winner Ancillary Justice was heavily inspired by Winter, for instance.

~~~
nkoren
_Winter_? That's not a novel of hers... do you mean the short story _Winter 's
King_?

Anyhow, the Left Hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed are great books. I
actually didn't get into the Wizard of Earthsea for some reason, but this was
probably a problem with my teenage brain; I need to go back and give it
another chance. I'm also very partial to her short stories, with _The Birthday
of the World_ containing several of my favourites.

~~~
muricula
I was thinking of the Lathe of Heaven, sorry!

------
viburnum
"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the
divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human
beings. Resistance and change often begin in art."

~~~
kiliantics
Ursula Le Guin was an ardent socialist and it comes through in all her
writing. I don't understand why the only comments and quotes about her
politics are all downvoted in this thread. But I guess that's the average
Hackernews reader for you...

EDIT: the quote is from a speech, which you can hear/see in this video:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-
rsALk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk)

~~~
dmitriid
She also warns how socialism can be easily turned into the power of the few.
See _The Dispossessed_.

~~~
mmustapic
No, she warns about the creation of hierarchies even in a purely anarchist
society.

~~~
ghostcluster
Hierarchies are necessary for complex systems to function. The way that it is
used as a boogeyword by ideologues is exhausting.

~~~
MaysonL
True, but not hierarchies of control over people's lives.

~~~
ghostcluster
So you don't believe in the legal system?

------
alannallama
_We will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we
live now, and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive
technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for
hope. We will need writers who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries, the
realists of a larger reality._

― Ursula K. Le Guin, accepting the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to
American Letters at the National Book Awards

------
mmustapic
“A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic
competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity
for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of
the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good
cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well –
this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of
sociability as a whole.” \-- The Dispossessed

~~~
MaysonL
Over the years I've done a fair amount of good work as a programmer. These
days, I get as much joy as I ever got programming by cooking some vegetable
soup and sharing it with friends. (And it's cheap: $10 makes about 2 gallons
[~7 liters]).

------
ghostbrainalpha
“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary,
do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we
ourselves are and may become.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin

------
icebraining
The introduction to one of the versions of _Left Hand of Darkness_ is one of
my favorite texts about Science Fiction:
[http://theliterarylink.com/leguinintro.html](http://theliterarylink.com/leguinintro.html)

~~~
tunesmith
Anyone remember the source of the essay about the town where everyone was
happy, and how it feels unbelievable until you find it has a horrible secret,
which somehow makes it more believable? I think that is her writing.

~~~
d_j_b
That is a short story called "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas"

~~~
emmelaich
Yes, a story that has haunted me ever since I read it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Om...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas)

The EarthSea Trilogy has stuck with me too.

~~~
kej
Earthsea was a trilogy from '72 to '90, but it's now five novels and a bunch
of short stories. They're all good.

------
Barrin92
_The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than
the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not
exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from
Omelas._

I'm not usually affected by authors passing away but damn this stings a
little. One of my favourite authors.

~~~
jonahx
It's such a fine last paragraph it's worth quoting in full:

 _At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does
not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also
a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home.
These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep
walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful
gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone,
youth or girl man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass down village
streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the
darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the
mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness,
and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less
imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at
all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they
are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas._

------
efm
She started blogging[1] at 81. This is an interview with her, around the time
of the publication of her book which came out of that.

She will be missed.

[1] [https://newrepublic.com/article/144719/happens-science-
ficti...](https://newrepublic.com/article/144719/happens-science-fiction-
genius-starts-blogging)

------
danharaj
Every time I've read an Ursula Le Guin book, it's changed the course of my
life. Both fiction and non-fiction. Her writing always felt like it could
weave between all the complications of life to get at the Truth of things.

~~~
e40
Loved those books.

------
davedx
"If you can see a thing whole, it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets,
lives. . . . But close up, a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day,
life's a hard job, you get tired, you loose the pattern."

\--The Dispossessed

Incredible author. R.I.P.

------
celim307
The dispossessed. Changed my life. RIP Ursula. You will be missed

~~~
autarch
I've read most of her books but The Dispossessed was the one that had the
greatest influence on me from a philosophical standpoint. Such a great book!

------
jtmcmc
She was a fantastic author. I read her earthsea books as a child and I read
much of her adult fiction later on. She has always remained one of my favorite
authors. However, it seems that she had a long life that was good so I can't
be too upset.

------
Filligree
I read Earthsea as a ten-year-old, and I loved it. Then I re-read it as a
thirty-year-old... and I loved it, though I understood it far better. Ursula
Le Guin was one of the true greats, and the world will be worse off without
her.

~~~
drderidder
I read A Wizard of Earthsea around age 12... it opened the world of
fantasy/sci-fi. Sad for her passing and reminded that I always wanted to read
more of her books... RIP.

------
ilamont
Coincidentally, I purchased the Earthsea series for my son a few days ago, who
I think is the right age.

I also read some of her work from the 1990s, a short story collection whose
name I cannot recall, but was very powerful and thoughtful. I think in many
respects she was able to take science fiction and fantasy in emotional and
social realms where few authors were willing to tread.

~~~
schrectacular
My parents read them to me when I was seven. Etched in my memory. I've been
back to read them a few times since and always found more to enjoy.

------
newen
RIP. The Dispossessed is one of my favorite books.

~~~
stcredzero
I enjoyed reading _The Dispossessed_ , though I have also been known to
characterize it as, "A Sci-Fi universe where communism actually works, hence
the 'Fi' part." However, I've recently read Thomas Sowell's book about the
original formulation of Marxian economics and philosophy, and I've come to the
conclusion that the technology of the late 21st century might possibly enable
a viable communal society through the replacement of the distributed
optimization of the market with AI, as Ursula K. LeGuin presaged in _The
Dispossessed._

~~~
autarch
But the whole point of the novel is that neither system really works very
well! I think you're doing it a disservice to characterize it in that way.

She did her best to imagine a communist system that was nearly ideally
designed and it still fails in so many ways.

~~~
sampo
> neither system

People often miss it, but the planet Urras has many countries and actually two
superpowers: A-Io (conservative capitalist parliamentary democracy) but also
Thu (a totalitarian socialist regime). A very cold war like setting.

A-Io allowed the Odonian rebels (anarchists) to exile to the moon, but their
counterparts in Thu we never hear much about. Possibly their fate was more
gruesome.

~~~
stcredzero
There should be a sequel where there is a Project where A-Io gives rise to a
successor society A-Jo, which doesn't work out, but then gives rise to another
successor using the same iterative naming scheme. Then that successor should
then switch to a successor naming scheme advancing only the 1st letter, and
the whole story series should be directed by Katsuhiko Nishijima.

~~~
labster
For this terrible pun, I am sending Akagiyama missiles your way.

------
_ZeD_

        Only in silence the word,
        only in dark the light,
        only in dying life:
        bright the hawk's flight
        on the empty sky.
    

RIP

------
JepZ
> [...], I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the
> river.

When I read that, I thought of Amazon (book selling river) but wasn't sure if
'sold down the river' was some idiom. Searching for it brought me to:

> journalist Lee Sandlin said "the threat of being 'sold down the river' was
> seen as tantamount to a death sentence." [1]

What an impressive choice of words!

[1]
[https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/27/265421504...](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/01/27/265421504/what-
does-sold-down-the-river-really-mean-the-answer-isnt-pretty)

------
zumu
I've always been interested in Le Guin, but never read much, outside of an
Earthsea book or two as a child.

From the contents of the thread I seem to be gathering The Dispossessed might
be the best place to start. Is this correct?

Are there any other must reads?

~~~
loudmax
The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness are seminal works. As you've
gathered from this thread, The Dispossessed can be understood as a critique of
capitalism. It is not uncritical of the alternatives. Likewise, the Left Hand
of Darkness can be understood as a feminist critique of patriarchy, but it
isn't uncritical of feminist ideology. On a deeper level, both novels are
nuanced ruminations on society and human nature.

~~~
taejo
I'd like to add _The Lathe of Heaven_ to those two.

------
_Codemonkeyism
The book that changed me most of all books is possibly "The Dispossessed".

 _But he had not brought anything. His hands were empty, as they had always
been._

------
ExploitsforFun
I just finished re-reading A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan last
week. It was enjoyable because I picked up some of the themes that teenage me
missed when reading the series all those years ago. A gifted writer RIP

------
whowouldathunk
RIP Ursula. I just finished The Left Hand of Darkness and am in the middle of
the Earthsea series and it's absolutely fantastic. Love her writing.

------
nosequel
R.I.P. a true loss

If you aren't familiar with her work, "Left Hand of Darkness" right now is on
sale at Audible for $4 and the narrator is George Guidall. I didn't add a link
because I'm not looking for some kickback, just a rare combination of two all-
time greats on one book and for very cheap.

------
zem
RIP :( i love every single thing she has written, particularly the earthsea
books.

------
sciurus
See also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16218391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16218391)

That has more votes at the moment. This looks like a better source, though.

~~~
CandidlyFake
locusmag is a decades old magazine dedicated to scifi. It is a far better
source than the nytimes on this matter.

~~~
sciurus
All I mean is that the obituary linked to at the NY Times contains much more
information than the one linked to at Locus. I'm not judging the quality of
either source more broadly.

------
jonnycomputer
I read The Wizard of Earthsea in the 3rd grade. Literally. I would have it at
my desk and try to read it by holding it under my desk.

Ursula Le Guin's is daughter of Alfred and Theodora Kroeber. Alfred Kroeber is
a preeminent figure in the history of American anthropology and archeology,
along with his PhD adviser Franz Boas. The influence of anthropology on Le
Guin's writing and thought are easily seen in the Left Hand of Darkness, one
of my favorite sci-fi novels.

~~~
SubiculumCode
I probably read these, and recognize the titles, but I cannot recall them.
Time to revisit.

------
andrei_says_
What a loss. A creator of worlds and unimaginable before experiences and
understanding through knowing myself in her characters.

An activist and mentor for many writers. This is a sad day.

------
sjclemmy
I read “The Lathe of Heaven” when I was younger. I remember being fascinated
by it, as only a young person can be.

I hadn’t really thought to look at her other books since then (which is
probably about 35 years). I’ll definintely be reading “The Left Hand of
Darkness” and “The Dispossessed” due to the comments on here. Thanks HN! And
thank you U.K. LeGuin for introducing me to a world of ideas and
possibilities.

~~~
JoeDaDude
"The Lathe of Heaven" has been made into film - twice! Both were made-for-TV
movies [1]. Most people (and I agree) believe the earlier version made by PBS
to be the better one.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven#Adaptation...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven#Adaptations)

------
rgrieselhuber
I love everything I've read by her, but one of her short stories "Buffalo
Gals" was such a cool and unique story that I still think about it often:

[https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Gals-Other-Animal-
Presences/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Gals-Other-Animal-
Presences/dp/0451450493)

------
cicero
Her National Book Award speech is short but very good. I like her expression
"realists of a larger reality," but she also talks a lot about publishing.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2TFeL_aPiA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2TFeL_aPiA)

------
ainiriand
People like Le Guin are immortals in their legacy. Her work is going to
remembered for a thousand years.

------
mjn
Another obituary: [https://www.opb.org/news/article/celebrated-oregon-
fantasy-a...](https://www.opb.org/news/article/celebrated-oregon-fantasy-
author-ursula-k-le-guin-dies-at-88/)

------
takk309
The Lathe of Heaven is one of my favorite novels.

------
pmoriarty
One of the things this NYT obituary does not mention is the influence of
Jungian psychology on Le Guin. In the Wizard of Earthsea, for instance, the
protagonist is figuratively and literally searching for his own shadow.

------
DaniFong
What a beautiful soul. You will live on in me, dear Ursula. Take my knee. I
will be the dark knight of your soul. <*3 forever; in the stars.

------
kenbolton
I've been reading N.K. Jemison's works intermittently for the past year and
perceive her as the literary successor to Le Guin.

------
danaliv
One of the greats. Always Coming Home is one of my all-time favorites of hers.
Required reading if you’re in California.

~~~
davidgould
“Always Coming Home” is unique and powerful. I struggled with it many years
ago, and could not quite tell if I liked it. All the chants and digressions
bothered me and I don’t really remember much of the story. What I do remember
is finding myself thinking about it and humming or sub vocalizing the damn
chants for about a year and feeling like some thing had changed in me or in
the world, a different emotional tone, or perhaps the light had changed color.
The only other book that had that effect on me was “Gravity’s Rainbow”
although in an entirely different way.

------
watersb
I am just in the flow of re-reading her novels, and now this news. :-( Such a
writer! And one from whom it has been easy -- well, never easy, but accessible
and immensely rewarding-- to learn the craft of storytelling on a human, epic
scale.

God bless you and family, Teacher, and your voice still sings.

------
dwb
I'm not a massive fiction person (though I was as a kid), but "The Lathe of
Heaven" is one of my very favourite works, in any medium or genre. Near-on
perfect. RIP.

------
tilt_error
The music of my childhood. I read and re-read those novels.

------
bolasanibk
R.I.P She is one of the authors whose books have always made a long lasting
impact on me.

------
YZF
I remember the Earthsea series as some of the best reading I've ever enjoyed.
RIP

------
fibo
I was 12 years old and fell in love with "A Wizard of Earthsea"

------
tpae
R.I.P. :(

------
Karrot_Kream
Truly the passing of a legend. RIP.

------
gbrunacci
So sad! I loved all Earthsea book.

------
SolaceQuantum
She was truly one of my heroes.

------
wavefunction
K

It was always there in the middle of things.

------
peter_retief
Feels like I lost a friend

------
saganus
Wow.

So sad.

I hoped that she would revisit Earthsea again.

------
jholman
R.I.P.

------
crimsonalucard
I liked her anthology World's of exile and illusion.

------
zokier
This might not be the best time to put this comment, but quite some years ago
I attempted reading Dispossessed, because it is such highly rated novel and Le
Guin even more highly respected author. But I didn't get very far, the whole
Communism vs Capitalism aspect felt so hamfisted and overbearing that I lost
interest. That cold war did end, as such the context of modern reader is quite
different. The political nature left kinda bad taste in my mouth when I was
expecting more of fancy futuristic/scifi stuff.

~~~
slartibardfast0
Why do this?

It's not like Ursula K. Le Guin's work was directly focused on allegory.

Feeling absent from _two_ systems was a major point of The Dispossessed, not
the content of either systems.

