This web page is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
(Copied from an old review originally posted elsewhere.)
Ursula K. Le Guin is best known for her science fiction, and I generally like her science fiction. But if Orsinian Tales is representative of what she does when she steps outside of SF, I can only hope that she does it more often; this is some of the best prose I have read in a long, long time.
My tastes generally run to Borges, Kafka, Barthelme, Leyner; authors whose works, at a literal level, make little or no sense, and which connect with real life, if they do at all, on a rather obscure, formal and symbolic level. The stories in Orsinian Tales could hardly be farther from that: they are concrete stories about real people doing real things in real environments, and make perfect (and often beautiful) sense on the literal level. But I love them anyway.
So now I'll try to stop gushing, and give you some idea of whether or not you'll love them, too. The common theme of the stories is how people continue being people while living under tyranny. The stories are all set in (or from) an unnamed country somewhere in Central Europe (unless I missed it somewhere, "Orsinia" is a name that appears only on the book jacket, not in the stories). At the end of each story is a year, fixing the tale in time. The years range from 1150 ("the Barrow") to 1965 ("the House"); only "the Barrow" and "the Lady of Moge" (1640) are outside the XXth century.
These are by no means political tracts; we get no details of the political or economic arrangements of the nameless country. But we do see general oppression, searches and demands for papers more or less at random, citizens shot summarily for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, material ambitions aiming no higher than to be given a better apartment somewhere else. It is a country with a deep and wealthy history, so we also see what is left of large families living in comparative security in country houses ("A Week in the Country" and "Imaginary Countries"); we see this in contrast to the terrible insecurity of random police bullets and the grinding of time without hope.
Again, though, Le Guin is not writing about the State here; what is important to her is the people, and she writes about them lucidly and beautifully. I gave up trying to find the best gem of prose; instead, here's one at random:
She sat down on the floor beside him. After awhile she took his hand. They sat in silence; and the silence between them was heavy, was present, it had a long past, and a future. It was like a long road walked at evening.
People came heavy-footed into the room, switching on the lamp, speaking, staring: an ugly, innocent-looking couple in their twenties, he lank, she pregnant.
The prose runs through all the stories in a rich vein, unmistakable, unintrusive, and lovely. And the events will find resonance with any reader, survivor of oppression or not. "An die Musik", for instance, is especially recommended to anyone with a family, a job, and/or creative ambitions.
I see I'm unlikely to be able to convey much more of why I liked the book so much, so perhaps I'll stop, and avoid trying your patience. With any luck, what I've said will give you some hint. The book is not entirely perfect, of course (don't'cha hate critics?). "Brothers and Sisters", for instance, seemed to have a bit too large a cast, and I lost track a few times of who was who, who was whose sibling, who was courting whom, and so on. But any quibbles I have are minor, and completely redeemed by the beauty of the work as a whole.
Strongly recommended to SF lovers and haters alike, and to both fans of and newcomers to Le Guin's fiction.
%A Le Guin, Ursula K. %B Orsinian Tales %T The Fountains %T The Barrow %T Ile Forest %T Conversations at Night %T The Road East %T Brothers and Sisters %T A Week in the Country %T An die Musik %T The House %T The Lady of Moge %T Imaginary Countries %I Harper Collins / Harper Paperbacks %C New York %D 1976 %G ISBN 0-06-100182-1 %P 216 pp. %O paperback, US$4.50
This web page is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.