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Summary
Summary
The Left Hand of DarknessSutty, an Observer from Earth for the interstellar Ekumen, has been assigned to a new world-a world in the grips of a stern monolithic state, the Corporation. Embracing the sophisticated technology brought by other worlds and desiring to advance even faster into the future, the Akans recently outlawed the past, the old calligraphy, certain words, all ancient beliefs and ways; every citizen must now be a producer-consumer. Their state, not unlike the China of the Cultural Revolution, is one of secular terrorism. Traveling from city to small town, from loudspeakers to bleating cattle, Sutty discovers the remnants of a banned religion, a hidden culture. As she moves deeper into the countryside and the desolate mountains, she learns more about the Telling-the old faith of the Akans-and more about herself. With her intricate creation of an alien world, Ursula K. Le Guin compels us to reflect on our own recent history.
Summary
From award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a highly anticipated addition to her acclaimed Hainish cycle, "a social anthropology of the future, fascinating and utterly believable." (Peter S. Beagle)
Once a culturally rich world, the planet Aka has been utterly transformed by technology. Records of the past have been destroyed, and citizens are strictly monitored. But an official observer from Earth named Sutty has learned of a group of outcasts who live in the wilderness. They still believe in the ancient ways and still practice its lost religion #151; the Telling. Intrigued by their beliefs, Sutty joins them on a sacred pilgrimage into the mountains...and into the dangerous terrain of her own heart, mind, and soul.
Author Notes
Ursula K. Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California on October 21, 1929. She received a bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College in 1951 and a master's degree in romance literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance from Columbia University in 1952. She won a Fulbright fellowship in 1953 to study in Paris, where she met and married Charles Le Guin.
Her first science-fiction novel, Rocannon's World, was published in 1966. Her other books included the Earthsea series, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, The Lathe of Heaven, Four Ways to Forgiveness, and The Telling. A Wizard of Earthsea received an American Library Association Notable Book citation, a Horn Book Honor List citation, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1979. She received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014. She also received the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. She also wrote books of poetry, short stories collections, collections of essays, children's books, a guide for writers, and volumes of translation including the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and selected poems by Gabriela Mistral. She died on January 22, 2018 at the age of 88.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Ursula K. Le Guin was born Ursula Kroeber in Berkeley, California on October 21, 1929. She received a bachelor's degree from Radcliffe College in 1951 and a master's degree in romance literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance from Columbia University in 1952. She won a Fulbright fellowship in 1953 to study in Paris, where she met and married Charles Le Guin.
Her first science-fiction novel, Rocannon's World, was published in 1966. Her other books included the Earthsea series, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, The Lathe of Heaven, Four Ways to Forgiveness, and The Telling. A Wizard of Earthsea received an American Library Association Notable Book citation, a Horn Book Honor List citation, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1979. She received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2014. She also received the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. She also wrote books of poetry, short stories collections, collections of essays, children's books, a guide for writers, and volumes of translation including the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu and selected poems by Gabriela Mistral. She died on January 22, 2018 at the age of 88.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (8)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this virtually flawless new tale set in her Hainish universe, Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness; Four Ways to Forgiveness) sends a young woman from Earth on her first mission, to the planet Aka as an Observer for the Ekumen. Although well prepared for her role, Sutty has been horribly scarred by her past. She grew up gay in a North America badly damaged by ecological stupidity and the excesses of a fundamentalist state religion called Unism. Traveling to Aka, she expected (and had been trained) to deal with a peaceful, essentially static culture based on an ancient, all-encompassing belief system akin to Taoism and known as the Telling. When she arrived, however, she discovered that during the decades it took her to reach the planet, Aka's culture has been radically transformed. The Telling has been all but banned, replaced by a soulless form of corporate communism. It becomes Sutty's task to take a harrowing journey into the high mountains, searching for the last, priceless depository of Akan traditional culture before it can be destroyed. As Le Guin notes in her preface, similarities to China during the Great Leap Forward are not entirely coincidental. Although this is a political and philosophical novel of the purest sort, it is anything but dry. With an anthropologist's eye, Le Guin develops her Akan culture in great detail, as she does her characters. Sutty is an entirely successful viewpoint character, a quirky mixture of competence and intense emotion. The Monitor, her primary nemesis on Aka, is nearly as compelling. This is a novel that aficionados of morally serious SF won't want to miss. (Sept.) FYI: Le Guin is the winner of several Nebula and Hugo awards for outstanding SF, as well as of a National Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Newbery Honor and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Le Guin's latest ( Unlocking the Air , 1996, etc.) belongs to her Hainish cycleHain being the planet that originally seeded Earth, and many other worlds, with the human species; now the Hainish are revisiting lost worlds and drawing them into the benevolent Ekumene. Sutty, the envoy to planet Aka, grew up on an Earth ruled by a repressive religious dictatorship. Aka is run by a capitalist dictatorship, the Corporation. Sutty lives in Dovza City, full of good corporate citizens, but is not allowed to visit anywhere else. In its zeal to become a star-traveling civilization, the Corporation burns books and destroys vestiges of the planet's pastbefore unauthorized fanatics from Earth wrenched Aka's development onto its present path. Finally, Sutty receives permission to visit a remote mountain region, though she's dogged by a Monitor, a true believer and Corporation informer. From the mountain folk, who passively resist the Corporation, Sutty learns about the extraordinarily diverse, vital, integrated culture that once existed on Aka. Fascinated, she joins a spiritual pilgrimage to the sacred mountain, Silong, the secret repository of saved books and historical treasures. But can Sutty use her knowledge of the old and new Akan cultures to broker a deal to save Aka's treasures and moderate the worst excesses of its corporate state? The usual mesmerizing Le Guin narrative and intensity of concept, but too one-sided to provoke resonance or plumb the depths. First printing of 75,000; author tour
Booklist Review
Le Guin has long been a master of literary science fiction that is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. This novel in her Hainish cycle, which includes The Word for World Is Forest (1976), The Left Hand of Darkness (1997), and The Dispossessed (1999), is no exception. The protagonist is the introspective Sutty, who grew up on Earth during the time of social unrest under the Unists, who insisted on one God, one Truth, one Earth--until the Ekumen, the League of All Worlds, ended their rule. Now trained as a linguist and in literature, Sutty is on the planet Aka, in the "information-restricted, controlled environment" of Dovza City, whose society strongly resembles that during the Cultural Revolution in China. There as an official Observer of Aka's cultural past, before it received technological knowledge from the Ekumen, she is totally frustrated, until she is allowed to go upriver to the small town of Okzat-Ozkat, where she finds the old way is still practiced in secret. However, was it a religion, a system, a philosophy, or what? She ends up calling it the Telling because of the storytelling, the handing down of descriptions of a place, an act or event, or a person, all interconnected, all affecting daily life, with a spiritual dimension that precluded religion as an institution. Aka and its society, past and present, are impressively visualized, as are Sutty's internalization and slow grasp of what she is seeking. The narrative is easy to read but not quickly read, because it invites constant re-reading in order to ponder the philosophical, political, and personal points Le Guin, despite her faraway setting, is making about life in the twentieth century on Earth. --Sally Estes
Library Journal Review
As a member of the Ekumen!s embassy on the planet Aka, Sutty undertakes a delicate mission that leads her to a mountain village reported to contain the last remnants of a dying culture. Following a trail of subtle clues concealed in stories and folk sayings, Sutty discovers the suppressed history of a planet willing to abandon its old ways in the name of progress. Le Guin!s latest addition to her Hainish cycle (e.g., Rocannon!s World) continues her exploration of human culture and society through the filter of the far future. (Le Guin was inspired by Chairman Mao!s brutal suppression of Taoism in China.) This parable of the modern world!s headlong rush toward monocultural sterility exemplifies the author!s elegant simplicity and keen insight. A priority purchase for libraries. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this virtually flawless new tale set in her Hainish universe, Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness; Four Ways to Forgiveness) sends a young woman from Earth on her first mission, to the planet Aka as an Observer for the Ekumen. Although well prepared for her role, Sutty has been horribly scarred by her past. She grew up gay in a North America badly damaged by ecological stupidity and the excesses of a fundamentalist state religion called Unism. Traveling to Aka, she expected (and had been trained) to deal with a peaceful, essentially static culture based on an ancient, all-encompassing belief system akin to Taoism and known as the Telling. When she arrived, however, she discovered that during the decades it took her to reach the planet, Aka's culture has been radically transformed. The Telling has been all but banned, replaced by a soulless form of corporate communism. It becomes Sutty's task to take a harrowing journey into the high mountains, searching for the last, priceless depository of Akan traditional culture before it can be destroyed. As Le Guin notes in her preface, similarities to China during the Great Leap Forward are not entirely coincidental. Although this is a political and philosophical novel of the purest sort, it is anything but dry. With an anthropologist's eye, Le Guin develops her Akan culture in great detail, as she does her characters. Sutty is an entirely successful viewpoint character, a quirky mixture of competence and intense emotion. The Monitor, her primary nemesis on Aka, is nearly as compelling. This is a novel that aficionados of morally serious SF won't want to miss. (Sept.) FYI: Le Guin is the winner of several Nebula and Hugo awards for outstanding SF, as well as of a National Book Award, a Pushcart Prize, a Newbery Honor and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Le Guin's latest ( Unlocking the Air , 1996, etc.) belongs to her Hainish cycleHain being the planet that originally seeded Earth, and many other worlds, with the human species; now the Hainish are revisiting lost worlds and drawing them into the benevolent Ekumene. Sutty, the envoy to planet Aka, grew up on an Earth ruled by a repressive religious dictatorship. Aka is run by a capitalist dictatorship, the Corporation. Sutty lives in Dovza City, full of good corporate citizens, but is not allowed to visit anywhere else. In its zeal to become a star-traveling civilization, the Corporation burns books and destroys vestiges of the planet's pastbefore unauthorized fanatics from Earth wrenched Aka's development onto its present path. Finally, Sutty receives permission to visit a remote mountain region, though she's dogged by a Monitor, a true believer and Corporation informer. From the mountain folk, who passively resist the Corporation, Sutty learns about the extraordinarily diverse, vital, integrated culture that once existed on Aka. Fascinated, she joins a spiritual pilgrimage to the sacred mountain, Silong, the secret repository of saved books and historical treasures. But can Sutty use her knowledge of the old and new Akan cultures to broker a deal to save Aka's treasures and moderate the worst excesses of its corporate state? The usual mesmerizing Le Guin narrative and intensity of concept, but too one-sided to provoke resonance or plumb the depths. First printing of 75,000; author tour
Booklist Review
Le Guin has long been a master of literary science fiction that is both thoughtful and thought-provoking. This novel in her Hainish cycle, which includes The Word for World Is Forest (1976), The Left Hand of Darkness (1997), and The Dispossessed (1999), is no exception. The protagonist is the introspective Sutty, who grew up on Earth during the time of social unrest under the Unists, who insisted on one God, one Truth, one Earth--until the Ekumen, the League of All Worlds, ended their rule. Now trained as a linguist and in literature, Sutty is on the planet Aka, in the "information-restricted, controlled environment" of Dovza City, whose society strongly resembles that during the Cultural Revolution in China. There as an official Observer of Aka's cultural past, before it received technological knowledge from the Ekumen, she is totally frustrated, until she is allowed to go upriver to the small town of Okzat-Ozkat, where she finds the old way is still practiced in secret. However, was it a religion, a system, a philosophy, or what? She ends up calling it the Telling because of the storytelling, the handing down of descriptions of a place, an act or event, or a person, all interconnected, all affecting daily life, with a spiritual dimension that precluded religion as an institution. Aka and its society, past and present, are impressively visualized, as are Sutty's internalization and slow grasp of what she is seeking. The narrative is easy to read but not quickly read, because it invites constant re-reading in order to ponder the philosophical, political, and personal points Le Guin, despite her faraway setting, is making about life in the twentieth century on Earth. --Sally Estes
Library Journal Review
As a member of the Ekumen!s embassy on the planet Aka, Sutty undertakes a delicate mission that leads her to a mountain village reported to contain the last remnants of a dying culture. Following a trail of subtle clues concealed in stories and folk sayings, Sutty discovers the suppressed history of a planet willing to abandon its old ways in the name of progress. Le Guin!s latest addition to her Hainish cycle (e.g., Rocannon!s World) continues her exploration of human culture and society through the filter of the far future. (Le Guin was inspired by Chairman Mao!s brutal suppression of Taoism in China.) This parable of the modern world!s headlong rush toward monocultural sterility exemplifies the author!s elegant simplicity and keen insight. A priority purchase for libraries. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.