© MPJ, August 4, 2008: The sky above Glen Cruitten, Oban.On what is a rather rainy, cold (driech) day, I want to share with you some thoughts about what must be my all-time favourite book.
It is Ursula K. LeGuin's fantastic novel (in every sense of the word), Always Coming Home (first published in 1985). A book full of wisdom and humanity, it is wonderful for me to re-visit this important work in her oeuvre. I first read it back in 1992 and am amazed to find how much I had forgotten, yet how much of it must have filtered into my brain cells, my heart cells, my body cells -- that is the only way in which I can explain why so much of it feels so familiar that I thought some of UKLG's ideas were actually mine.
An "archaeology of the future", it is a deeply prophetic book: so many facts that sounded way-out incredible at the time have come true and are now part of our sorry lives. For example, UKLG describes beaches that are covered in tiny grains of a substance that is neither sand nor organic matter. Quite recently, I read an article about the plastic waste that has ended up on beaches all around the world's oceans: plastic pellets dispersed into the sea by shipwrecked cargo boats whose containers spilled open. (Of course that's only part of the waste we humans have infested the seas with, but that's another story.)
LeGuin's book is not, however, a pessimistic book, quite the contrary. I find it hugely inspiring and full of beauty, warmth, poetry and wisdom.
One of the aspects that I really like about it is its vast range of genres: there's poetry, prose, drama, essay, scientific reportage -- then there are the beautiful, quirky, original, engaging line drawings, maps and diagrammes (most by Margaret Chodos). For someone like me who always feels restricted by the medium, by the two-dimensionality of paper or the computer screen, this is a wonderful example of how one can break out of the (self-imposed?) mould.
© MPJ, Aug. 4, 2008: Monday Morning Still Life.But you can always click on the title line to this post -- it will take you straight to the Always-Coming-Home part of UKLG's own website.
Enjoy the journey, enjoy the coming home, as I enjoy the sharing of this -- with gratitude to UKLG: "Heya, hey, heya!"
PS: Here's what the New York Times Book Review had to say about this book:
"URSULA LE GUIN is among the half-dozen most respected American writers who regularly set their narrative in the future to force a dialogue with the here and now, a dialogue generally called science fiction. She is also a much-loved writer.
"Always Coming Home is a slow, rich read, full of what one loves most in her work: a liberal utopian vision, rendered far more complex than the term 'utopian' usually allows for by a sense of human suffering.
"This is her most satisfying text among a set of texts that have provided much imaginative pleasure in her 23 years as an author."
(from the inside front cover of the 1986 Bantam paperback edition)
Nuff said. Peace!
© MPJ, 4 August 2008: The sky above Oban, the Island of Lismore, and Ardnamurchan Peninsula.
1 comment:
I was happy to see your post about this book - it's been sitting in my "to be read" pile for quite a while. I'll have to start reading it now :-)
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