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A review by torts
The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories, Volume One: Where on Earth by Ursula K. Le Guin
challenging
funny
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.25
Most of one star off because the first two stories failed to grab my attention and felt like interminable bores (especially compared to the rest of the stories, which were almost invariably beautiful). (These are the most explicitly Orsinian ones, and probably appeal to people who love The Silmarillion and Dune and Game of Thrones. I just don't like world-building and lore for its own sake...)
-"Brothers and Sisters" didn't really grab me... too much mundane detail about too many characters and not enough to dig into, plot-wise.
-"A Week in the Country." MORE LIKE A *BLEAK* IN THE COUNTRY.
-"Unlocking the Air" is prettier and less linear than the previous two stories, but still feeling pretty mundane. At first I thought this was what Le Guin had meant in her intro about reusing names, since it seemed to pick up names/relationships from the previous story.
-"Imaginary Countries" has more of a fairy-tale feel than "Unlocking the Air" but still left me feeling like this book of short stories was a bit dreary... maybe this one would have been improved if the unicorn trap had gotten more use?
-"The Diary of the Rose" is five-star dystopia storytelling.
-"Direction of the Road" is another standout. Loved the way thetree's perception of space and time was not human. Highlights: "Eternity is none of my business." and the entire final paragraph.
-"The White Donkey" is cute. Calling a unicorn "a kind of god donkey" made me see unicorns in a new way, much like howthe tree's perspective in "Direction of the Road" made me think about movement/4th-dimensional-existence in a new way.
-"Gwilan's Harp" is the lovely sort of pastoral story I wanted the first few stories in this collection to be. A simple tale about love and music and aging and perseverance, desolate but hopeful.
-"May's Lion" is another one (like "Direction of the Road") with a beautiful final paragraph. The metanarrative of telling one storyteller's version of a story and then honoring her by telling another version made me kind of sad, but in a life-is-sad-and-art-is-a-beautiful-paradox kind of way.
-Reading "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight" was bizarre, like being lost in a dream with fairytale animals.
-"Horse Camp"twists the meaning of the term "horse girl" and made me immediately flip back and reread it to see the pivot.
-"The Water Is Wide" is pretty, but too sad/morbid for me to want to dwell on it... this time the pivoting perspectives were confusing, which felt like the point. Reminded me slightly of "The Diary of the Rose" though, which makes me think maybe I should go back and dwell on it more, just in case there's more dystopia and less tragic-loss to pick apart.
-"The Lost Children" is a short and simple retelling of the Pied Piper story, with some poetic descriptions of the feeling of being pulled to the piper and the ultimate fate of the children.
-Reading "Texts" was the first time I caught explicit mention of Portland, which was kind of exciting because I was partly inspired to seek out some Le Guin to read after hearing someone talk about how he was reading her work while in Portland, down the street from specific places she was mentioning in her writing. Puzzling poetry. (The story itself, not the me-noticing-Portland.)
-"Sleepwalkers" is a devastating chain of narratives. More Portland, too.
-"Hand, Cup, Shell" is very To the Lighthouse-y: free indirect discourse, waves of perspective in a beachy setting, Woolfish meditations on aging and death and meaning.
-"Ether, OR" is another serial (Portland-reference-laden) chain of stories with some horrific details about children and serial killing thrown in near the end (like in"Sleepwalkers" ). Less of a chain and more of an interconnected weaving of voices of the titular town (a chain-link-fence?).
-"Half Past Four" was feeling even more To the Lighthouse-y, but then the way the names were popping up was disorienting me in a way that was The Sound and the Fury-y. Even having read the introduction it still took me most of the way through the set of mini-stories to accept that the characters were just picking up the same names and similar identities, and weren't actually (intended to be) interrelated anecdotes about one family.
-"Brothers and Sisters" didn't really grab me... too much mundane detail about too many characters and not enough to dig into, plot-wise.
-"A Week in the Country." MORE LIKE A *BLEAK* IN THE COUNTRY.
-"Unlocking the Air" is prettier and less linear than the previous two stories, but still feeling pretty mundane. At first I thought this was what Le Guin had meant in her intro about reusing names, since it seemed to pick up names/relationships from the previous story.
-"Imaginary Countries" has more of a fairy-tale feel than "Unlocking the Air" but still left me feeling like this book of short stories was a bit dreary... maybe this one would have been improved if the unicorn trap had gotten more use?
-"The Diary of the Rose" is five-star dystopia storytelling.
-"Direction of the Road" is another standout. Loved the way the
-"The White Donkey" is cute. Calling a unicorn "a kind of god donkey" made me see unicorns in a new way, much like how
-"Gwilan's Harp" is the lovely sort of pastoral story I wanted the first few stories in this collection to be. A simple tale about love and music and aging and perseverance, desolate but hopeful.
-"May's Lion" is another one (like "Direction of the Road") with a beautiful final paragraph. The metanarrative of telling one storyteller's version of a story and then honoring her by telling another version made me kind of sad, but in a life-is-sad-and-art-is-a-beautiful-paradox kind of way.
-Reading "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight" was bizarre, like being lost in a dream with fairytale animals.
-"Horse Camp"
-"The Water Is Wide" is pretty, but too sad/morbid for me to want to dwell on it... this time the pivoting perspectives were confusing, which felt like the point. Reminded me slightly of "The Diary of the Rose" though, which makes me think maybe I should go back and dwell on it more, just in case there's more dystopia and less tragic-loss to pick apart.
-"The Lost Children" is a short and simple retelling of the Pied Piper story, with some poetic descriptions of the feeling of being pulled to the piper and the ultimate fate of the children.
-Reading "Texts" was the first time I caught explicit mention of Portland, which was kind of exciting because I was partly inspired to seek out some Le Guin to read after hearing someone talk about how he was reading her work while in Portland, down the street from specific places she was mentioning in her writing. Puzzling poetry. (The story itself, not the me-noticing-Portland.)
-"Sleepwalkers" is a devastating chain of narratives. More Portland, too.
-"Hand, Cup, Shell" is very To the Lighthouse-y: free indirect discourse, waves of perspective in a beachy setting, Woolfish meditations on aging and death and meaning.
-"Ether, OR" is another serial (Portland-reference-laden) chain of stories with some horrific details about children and serial killing thrown in near the end (like in
-"Half Past Four" was feeling even more To the Lighthouse-y, but then the way the names were popping up was disorienting me in a way that was The Sound and the Fury-y. Even having read the introduction it still took me most of the way through the set of mini-stories to accept that the characters were just picking up the same names and similar identities, and weren't actually (intended to be) interrelated anecdotes about one family.