Book Review: The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin

Warning: Mild spoilers ahead

The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a retrospective — an exhibition of a representative selection of an artist's life work. There's however a caveat. It's not Ursula K. Le Guin's "life work." This collection of 17 stories rather provides readers with a rough chronological survey of her short stories of the first ten years after she broke into print. Readers should also note that this retrospective was first published in 1975. What's interesting about The Wind's Twelve Quarters (and Ursula Le Guin mentions this in her foreword to the book) is that the stories appear in the collection in more or less the same order in which they were written in her early days as a writer. Readers, who are fascinated with such things, will find that it is possible to trace and understand Le Guin's development as a writer.

It is of course possible to read and appreciate each of the stories as a self-contained unit in itself. But the foreword and the thought-provoking introductions to each of the stories invariably draw the reader to make an attempt at understanding the inspiration behind these stories and the development of Le Guin's oeuvre. For me it is this aspect of the collection that made it additionally absorbing. Le Guin's introductions also enable us to see the links between the stories and her other books. For instance, a minor character in the first story in the collection, Semley's Necklace, became the protagonist of her later novel Rocannon's World. And for me it was easy to see that The Word of Unbinding and The Rule of Names belong to The Earthsea Cycle.

The tales in this collection are an arresting and curious blend of fantasy and science fiction and taken to together a reader can engage with the major and the most common themes in Le Guin's world.

The first few stories are what Le Guin calls "genre pieces" — stories that are recognizably fantasy or science fiction. Semley's Necklace is in the romantic strain and tells the story of young Semley, the wife of the poor lord Durhal of Hallan, who undertakes a long journey to find and bring back a beautiful legendary necklace — the eye of the sea — that was lost long ago. In the course of journey Semley meets people from different cultures: the midmen or the Fiia, the clayfolk or the Gdemiar. A later Le Guin would probably have explored the cultures and lives and the impact of each people on the other. The story however is more concerned with the effects of time dilation in traveling across worlds and galaxies.

April in Paris is also about time travel though in a more playful and whimsical tone. A disgruntled scholar in the mediaeval era uses a summoning spell from one of his books and finds that he has managed to summon a dissatisfied professor who is living in the same garret in 1961. The two however get along famously till they realize that what they are missing in their lives is love. Both men then decide to use the summoning spell to find true love.

The Masters is a dark tale of a community of science and math luddites. Le Guin mentions in her introduction to the story that The Masters was her first published "genuine authentic real virgin-wool science fiction story." By this she means a story in which "the existence and accomplishments of science are, in some way, essential." The story opens with Ganil being appointed a master of the lodge. The appointment as a master confirms that Ganil knows all that there is to know about his craft. Any attempt to learn more, to further the boundaries of the knowledge that has been passed from generation to generation is considered a heresy and is a capital crime. Ganil, however, is fascinated with numbers and can't keep himself from thinking about them. He also wonders about other things like: What is the sun? What makes the sun traverse across the sky? He is befriended by Mede, another master, who covertly seeks to know more about things that have to be learned and who introduces Ganil to multiplication and a number that stands for nothing. Mede is finally found out by the powers that be, putting Ganil in danger too. It has one excellent sentence, probably the best in the book. Mede is arrested for trying to measure the distance of the sun from earth. His accusation reads: "He had been trying to measure the distance between the Earth and God." This is one of the most brilliant stories in the collection and the one that I liked the most.

Darkness Box is very eldritch in theme and tone. It is a good story but one of those that don't shine as brightly as the brilliant ones in the collection.

Two later stories in the collection also are more easily identified as genre pieces. In fact Le Guin coins a term: "wiring-diagram science fiction" to describe these two stories which are the most "hard-core" sci-fi tales in the collection. These stories are the "working out of a theme directly extrapolated from contemporary work in one of the quantitative sciences — a what-if story." The Field of Vision is one of the stories that considers alternative ways of looking at and perceiving things. The other tale, Nine Lives, is a fine, touching and thought-provoking delineation of cloning. Martin and Pugh arrive on the planet Libra, which is a seismic hotbed, to set up a mining operation. The working team that follows them consist of 10 people, five males and five females, all cloned from the same person - John Chow. Being clones of the same block the ten work, think and live like one. “Think of it,” Owen murmurs to Martin, “to be oneself ten times over. Nine seconds for every motion, nine ayes on every vote.” During a mining operation Libra experiences one of its most violent quakes. Owen and Martin are able to save only one of the clones. The survivor Kaph Chow is racked with horrible "nightmares" as he literally suffers the deaths of his nine clones. At the end of it and even bigger nightmare awaits Kaph — for the first time he has to learn how to be alone without nine similar selves around him. This is one of the most hard-hitting and thought-provoking stories in the collection.

The Word of Unbinding and The Rule of Names are reportedly Le Guin's first explorations of the magical world of Earthsea. In The Word of Unbinding the wizard Festin wakes up to find himself imprisoned in a cell by a evil wizard called Voll. Festin attempts numerous escapes by transforming himself, but is caught by Voll every time. Finally Festin decides to use the word of unbinding to end his life. He then summons Voll to the world of the dead and defeats him there. The Word of Unbinding augurs The Farthest Shore from the Earthsea stories which has Ged the Archmage and Prince Lebannen crossing into the world of dead to defeat the wizard Cob. The description of the dry land of the dead is also evoked again in the final book of Earthsea, The Other Wind.

The Rule of Names is perhaps the first story that explored the essential characteristic of how magic works and is controlled in Earthsea — through the knowledge of the "true name" of everything. The story is about the quest of the present Sealord of Pendor to find the wealth that was plundered and carried away by a dragon many years ago. During his quest he finds that somebody killed the dragon and made off with the treasure. The Sealord finally comes to Sattins Island suspecting that its bumbling wizard Mr. Underhill now has the treasure. The Sealord is confident of defeating Underhill as he knows the true name of the wizard who defeated the dragon and got away with the treasure. He uses the true name to summon and bind Underhill only to meet the most unpleasant surprise in his life. After April in Paris, The Rule of Names is the next most amusing story in the collection.

Winter's King is a remarkable exploration of a world that is populated by androgynous beings and tells the story of Argaven XVII, the king of Karhide on the cold world of Gethen. Argaven is kidnapped and her mind tampered with so that subconsciously, she will rule the Karhide in a manner that will favor those who had kidnapped her. Argaven cleverly manages to thwart her kidnappers and goes to the planet Ollul, to have her mind restored. She leaves her infant behind to eventually ascend the throne in her absence. 60 years later a still young Argaven (time dilation due to traveling at nearly the speed of light) returns to Gethen to find that her heir is an incompetent ruler who has lost most of the kingdom. She unites the Karhide and goes to war against her child. This is a tale with a strong feminist overtone. The story is also remarkable for the detailed anthropological background that Le Guin has created to allow her ideas to unfold.

The most notable stories in the collection are the ones that explore "psychomyths" as Le Guin calls them. For Le Guin, psychomyths are stories "outside of real time" (or in other words, stories with archetypal themes). These deal with themes, ideas, and concerns in a more "universal" way. Here the exploration of an idea or a theme assumes the prime importance and while the story is still science fiction or fantasy, these elements are stripped down to the bare essentials. The psychomyths thus are not bogged down by story specifics such as time and locale but are more fundamental, allegorical, and archetypal.

Direction of the Road is an enchanting and quaint monologue of an old oak tree maintain the "order of things." Being next to a road this means maintaining the illusion of a relativist world. This means steadily growing and looming as someone approaches and then diminishing again as the observer fades into the distance. With the coming of the motorized vehicle the life of Oak has become very frenetic. Now it often has vehicles and people passing in either directions at the same time and has to neatly manage both growing and diminishing at the same time. A Lovely story.

The finest of these psychomyths is The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas. It explores a very cruel dilemma: How should people act if they realize that their utopia is in existence because a single child suffers for them all and terribly. What would decent people do — let the child suffer for the good of the greater number or do something about it? Some people of Omelas however resolve this differently and quietly. These people walk away from Omelas for "a place even less imaginable to us than the city of happiness."

Le Guin's note on the genesis of The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas. offers a charming insight into how and where imaginative writers find their stories:
I sat down and started a story, just because I felt like it, with nothing but the word "Omelas" in mind. It came from a road sign: Salem (Oregon) backwards. Don't you read road signs backwards? POTS. WOLS nerdlihc. Ocsicnarf Nas . . . Salem equals schelomo equals salaa, equal Peace. Melas. O melas.

Le guin received the Hugo award for The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas.

The Day Before the Revolution is the other award-winning story in the collection. It picked up a Nebula award. This is a story about Laia Aseio Odo who is now very old but whose writings of many years ago are bringing about a revolution of ideas on her world. While a revolution is sweeping her world, the old Laia is trying her best to make sense of her past and to get through a very mundane day. It is conveyed to the readers that this is the last day of Laia's life. The story's greatness lies in the adept juxtaposition of a character's grand contribution in the past (with her world-changing ideas) to her present day preoccupations about her own personal infirmities and ordinariness. The Day Before the Revolution reads like a moving elegy in prose.

The characteristics that mark Le Guin's best known writing are seen in this collection of short stories as well. Le Guin particularly loves to explore the conflict and tension between various cultures that are "foreign" to each other. This fascination with other worlds and other cultures is seen in stories like Semley's Necklace, Winter's King, and Vaster Than Empires and More Slow (conflict between humans and a massive interconnected biosphere of vegetation).

Le Guin's writings, though apparently simple, are also very cerebral. It is her style that's simple, the ideas and the themes examined are always deep. Le Guin, in her writings, likes to explore different ideas and she loves to see what would happen when her tales follow an idea to its logical conclusion. Her psychomyths are stories that allow Le Guin to crack open and examine archetypes.

For me what marks Le Guin's writing is her skillful characterization. Strong and sympathetic characterization are seen in all her stories: be it the amusing April in Paris or the dark The Masters, from the anthropologically detailed Winter's king to Laia Odo in the psychomyth The Day Before the Revolution. I have often, while discussing Le Guin, with my friends said that one might forget the plot details of her stories, but her characters always leave a lasting impression. The Wind's Twelve Quarters serves to strengthen this thesis.

The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a collection of wondrous tales that will please every variety of reader. There's something in it for fans of science fiction and there's something in it for those who prefer fantasy. Many like me would love this collection for the unique insight it offers into a writer's mind and evolution of a writer's craft. Others who would rather not be bothered with classifications and who would simply prefer reading good stories will find many tales here that will be of delight to them. A good story is a good story notwithstanding which genre it happens to fall in or when it was written. The Wind's Twelve Quarters should appeal to anyone who loves a good read.

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You'll find my review of Le Guin's Tales From Earthsea here.
You can read my review of Le Guin's The Other Wind here.

technorati tag(s): book review: The Wind's Twelve Quarters by ursula le Guin.

Book Review: The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin

Warning: Mild plot spoilers ahead.

Fans of fantasy will remember how Tolkien ends his Lord of the Rings. Frodo along with the other ringbearers sets sail for "The Grey Havens" leaving behind a world he had helped save but cannot be a part of. A new age is born, the old way of life in Middle Earth is changing. A sorrowful Sam stays behind, for the moment, to usher in and experience this new world order. LOTR ends on a painfully poignant, yet hopeful note.

Ursula K. Le Guin's The Other Wind is a similar ending to the great Earthsea series. The entire novel is about the change of the old order in Earthsea. A new world is beginning to be born, one that leaves the various characters of Earthsea totally changed, an order that shakes the very fundamentals of the way of life and magic on Earthsea leaving nothing the same again. Like LOTR, it ends on a poignant note and like in LOTR, the people of Earthsea can now hope for a better world.

The Other Wind picks up a plot strand from The Farthest Shore and to it adds the story that needs to be told at the end of Tehanu and Dragonfly from the Tales From Earthsea. A word of caution: If you are not familiar with the mythology, history, and geography of Le Guin's Earthsea, don't touch this book. While it would be a good read, you would probably lose about 80% of the experience. Without the framework of the earlier books of Earthsea, it'll be tough to understand the state of Earthsea portrayed in this book and it might be virtually impossible to appreciate the numerous references to the earlier books.

As the novel begins, Alder, a humble village sorcerer, who specializes in the art of "mending" — the repairing and fixing of pots, pans, anything that is broken — comes to the Isle of Gont looking for the retired archmage Ged. Since the death of his wife Lily, Alder has troubled dreams of the dry land of the dead. In one of his very early dreams Alder dreamed that he had kissed Lily across the low stone wall that separates the afterworld of Earthsea from the land of the living. In Earthsea, this is not supposed to be possible, even in dreams. Soon Alder dreams not only of his wife, but of the other dead too, who gather at the wall and call out to him to set them free. Because of his disturbing dreams, Alder, can barely sleep for he fears that the dead somehow mean to use him to pass into the living world.

Ged is no longer a mage having used up all his power long ago (in The Farthest Shore) to heal the breach that had then been opened between the afterworld and the land of living by the wizard Cob. Ged, Earthsea's archmage had entered the dry land and defeated Cob. Ged has no magic to help Alder. But wisdom he has and he assists Alder in a more down-to-earth way. Ged is certain that the dreams of Alder bear on larger issues auguring a change in Earthsea and its equilibrium and that Alder possibly is the unwitting cause. He therefore sends Alder to Havnor to Earthsea's king.

In Havnor, Alder meets Tenar and Tehanu who had gone earlier from Gont to advise Lebannen, Earthsea's King. Alder finds himself from this point to involved in a world of kings and wizards, and dragons and politics. In the courts of King Lebannen, Alder hears of another troubling portent: the dragons of Earthsea, which for centuries have kept their promise to remain aloof in their western lands, have suddenly begun moving east, attacking humans and burning farmland.

Also present in Havnor is a Kargish princess Seserakh. The barbarian kargs have recently made a perturbing gesture of peace and have left behind their princess Seserakh, implying that Lebannen marry her as a "Confidence Building Measure." Importantly Seserakh knows Kargish legends that are now unfamiliar in Earthsea's more civilized worlds.

And there are stories that on the Island of Roke — The Isle of Wizards — one of the masters has been reduced to ashes by a dragon that had come to the island in human form. This is Orm Irian (The Irian in Dragonfly from Tales From Earthsea), a dragon who is also a woman. Orm Irian comes with news that the dragons are attacking humans because they believe that humans have encroached on a part of the dragons' domain.

Slowly all the pieces of the larger puzzle are pieced together. Putting together Orm Irian's warning, the dreams of Alder, the Kargish legends of Seserakh, King Lebannen, Tenar, Tehanu and the others realize that the unbalancing of Earthsea has its roots in the now lost and almost-forgotten compact by which dragons and humans, once a single people, divided themselves in two. Lebannen and the others journey to the Isle of Roke and there in the Immanent Grove that lies in the center of all things in Earthsea, they realize that the present divisions between humans and dragons and those between humans that have prevailed across Earthsea for ages are the result of the ancient agreement gone wrong. It is a truth that can change the fundamental nature of Earthsea for among all the other things it is also realized that the nature of magic of Earthsea itself is a result of the compact gone awry — that it is anti-life and an aberration. But something would have to be done or Earthsea will destroy itself. And to prevent that from happening, the various inhabitants of Earthsea, both dragon and human, must come together and use their collective knowledge to delve into the ancient myths and undo the error of the past. This is the central tale of The other Wind — the slow realization of an ancient mistake followed by the heroic resolve to redress the imbalance.

In all these grand happenings and in meetings with royalty and dragons, Alder wonders why he has to be present in virtually every frame of the story. But the wise king, Tenar, and the others know that in the end Alder will be the one to understand what must be done.

I had said earlier that The Other Wind picks up threads and continues the stories started in three earlier Earthsea books. The vision of the dry land, the afterworld and its impact on the world of living is a continuation of the idea first introduced in The Farthest Shore. In The Farthest Shore the dry land is simply presented as a bleak and dark land where the dead lead a very hollow and empty afterlife. Why the afterlife is so was never explained. The Other Wind provides the answer.

The Other Wind also continues the story of the burned and disfigured Tehanu. At the end of Tehanu readers realize that though she is in human form, Tehanu is the daughter of the dragon Kalessin and that she has been sent to the world of humans to fufill her destiny. The Other Wind is also Tehanu's tale, a story that follows her destiny.

The theme that humans and dragons were once one people appeared initially in Tehanu but wasn't explored. The theme was carried forward in Dragonfly from Tales From Earthsea. Dragonfly was intended by Le Guin to function as a link between Tehanu and The Other Wind. The theme of Dragonfly has now been made central to the life in Earthsea. In describing the discovery of the ancient mistake and the attempts made to rectify it, Le Guin also continues the story of Dragonfly/Irian who makes an appearance in The Other Wind as Orm Irian.

Of course, apart from these grand themes, Le Guin, the master storyteller, neatly weaves in the love story of Lebannen and Seserakh. Le Guin is a master storyteller. The Other Wind also neatly brings a closure to all the tales that were begun in the earlier books. Lebannen's story and his rule as Earthsea's king is told. So also is told the story of Tenar, once a high priestess of the Kargs and now a counsel to the king of Earthsea and a companion to Ged. And Le Guin never forgets Ged, the archmage who isn't a mage, the wizard who is "done with his doing" two volumes ago. Yet his wisdom helps shapes the new Earthsea. Ged might not be a mage now and he might be one of the many characters in the novel — all well fleshed out — but he is still Earthsea's star.

This is also a tale of how the small things, the common everyday life, is as meaningful, perhaps more important than magery. Le Guin is one author (read any of her other works) who I feel tackles the "ordinary" excellently, never neglecting it and weaving the small concerns intricately within the larger fantasy. Sitting in a garden, milking goats, and a meal of cheese, plums, and dry bread too are important in maintaining and restoring Earthsea's equilibrium. The reader is constantly made aware that while more sweeping and grand things are happening in the world, while ancient powers awaken and clash, the domestic details too matter. These smaller, personal threads help keep a grand fantasy, very down to earth and intimate.

For people unfamiliar with Le Guin's work it is very difficult to explain why she is so good. Her writing, like Earthsea, is simple, without any decoration and yet powerful to portray both deep sorrow and quiet happiness. Le Guin is a master of the muted, and the simple. Her compelling characterization also follows her writing style. Her story may be about magic and her characters take part in an epic fantasy, but they are never larger than life. They are undoubtedly heroic, but they come in human sizes. The Other Wind in keeping with Le Guin's style and the other books of Earthsea encourages contemplation, rather than exciting the reader. The Other Wind shows a writer who is at the peak of her craft.

The Other Wind is a very satisfying close to the Earthsea series. It very nicely extends the themes and concerns of the earlier books. It might not appeal to readers who prefer thrills and wizard duels and spells at the turn of every other page. But any one, who loves fantasy and wants to read the work of a master, should find The Other Wind worthwhile.

Note:
You'll find my review of Le Guin's Tales From Earthsea here.

technorati tag(s): book review: The Other Wind by ursula le Guin. Earthsea.