It's been years since I've read The Winds Twelve Quarters or The Compass Rose, so I could be mis-remembering, but I think I agree that her early work was very experimental. Or maybe it's that her short stories are always more experimental than her novels, and I associate her earlier work with her short stories and her middle and later work with novels? But I remember those two anthologies having things like the tiny critters mounting an expedition of the roof of a house (Ascent of the North Face, I think?), and the dancing ants, and Schrodingers Cat, and some really weird story about a train?
I recently repurchased these after a misguided Le Guin purge a few years ago. I'm thinking they're both on the reading list for 2018.
I tend to think of the arc of Le Guin's writing in four stages: the 1960's (ish), when she wrote adventures a la Rocannon's World and was kinda clueless about feminism (20 year-old me found this very boring); 1970's classic Le Guin when she was most interested in ideas (The Dispossessed, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, A Wizard of Earthsea -- to my mind The Left Hand of Darkness neatly straddles the first and second stages); 1980s feminist Le Guin when she wrote her most explicitly feminist books such as Tehanu; and 1990s forward, when her feminism became a bit more complex and she really zeroed in on "imagine a world where...how would that affect social structures etc" -- though of course that was always huge in her writing. But I'm sure that's oversimplifying in a lot of ways.
But that's more about the content of her writing than the prose. I think I remember her 1980s writing perhaps being the most lyrical. I don't think that's exactly what she means by romantic, though?
I read Four Ways to Forgiveness (and Old Music and the Slave Women) ages ago and found it really good, but also harrowing. The rape scenes in those stories have never left me, so I've never re-read it. I always hesitate to recommend it for that reason, even though it was so good. Also, those stories made me ache for more stories about/set on Hain.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2018-01-05 01:13 pm (UTC)I recently repurchased these after a misguided Le Guin purge a few years ago. I'm thinking they're both on the reading list for 2018.
I tend to think of the arc of Le Guin's writing in four stages: the 1960's (ish), when she wrote adventures a la Rocannon's World and was kinda clueless about feminism (20 year-old me found this very boring); 1970's classic Le Guin when she was most interested in ideas (The Dispossessed, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, A Wizard of Earthsea -- to my mind The Left Hand of Darkness neatly straddles the first and second stages); 1980s feminist Le Guin when she wrote her most explicitly feminist books such as Tehanu; and 1990s forward, when her feminism became a bit more complex and she really zeroed in on "imagine a world where...how would that affect social structures etc" -- though of course that was always huge in her writing. But I'm sure that's oversimplifying in a lot of ways.
But that's more about the content of her writing than the prose. I think I remember her 1980s writing perhaps being the most lyrical. I don't think that's exactly what she means by romantic, though?
I read Four Ways to Forgiveness (and Old Music and the Slave Women) ages ago and found it really good, but also harrowing. The rape scenes in those stories have never left me, so I've never re-read it. I always hesitate to recommend it for that reason, even though it was so good. Also, those stories made me ache for more stories about/set on Hain.