This omnibus contains the first three published novels of Ursula K. Le Guin. Before it, only her short stories and poetry had been published. The novels are the first entries in Le Guin’s somewhat unofficial Hainish Cycle, a collection of often philosophical and anthropological science fiction stories set in a loosely connected universe.
I have read The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, the fourth and fifth novels in the series, respectively. Both, I wish to re-read and write about in the future to accompany this post and my previous writing on The Lathe of Heaven (explicitly not in the cycle, by the way1). With this, I suppose, I am creating a tradition of writing about my favorite author.
The three novels in succession grow in scope. The first, Rocannon’s World, is concerned primarily with the business of a single, almost fantastical world inhabited by Tolkienesque creatures. The vast history that Le Guin has yet to establish when writing the novel is a foggy backround. Even the foreign protagonist is assimilated by the end of his journey. In Planet of Exile, the culture and politics of The League take a stronger role, despite the actual League contact being centuries lost. The abandoned Terran colony of Landin still holds to its culture, at least until the events of the story force the native and colonial peoples together. In any case, the second book is my least favorite for its weak love story, although the way it sets up the events of the last is genius. In this third book, City of Illusions, we see the sprouting seed of Le Guin’s earlier world-building. Thrown into a tale that may shape the future of all the old League worlds, the scale is suddenly immense. No contest, the last novel is the best and most interesting, so I will say the least.
Even in its most lofty moments, the entire volume never drops focus on the people. Each culture is vivid and believably foreign. The way that Le Guin weaves something of fantasy and mythology into her science fiction is truly enchanting.
“You come from very, very long ago. I am old but you are much older; you should have died a century ago. Will you remember a century from now that in the desert you met a king?”
— City of Illusions
The rest of this post contains some of my thoughts and favorite quotes, the unpolished highlights of my reading notes—spoilers ahead.
Rocannon’s World
The League of Worlds is scouting for intelligent life to rapidly civilize, develop, and recruit into their war. On Fomalhaut II, two known species are considered, but ultimately one subspecies, the Gdemiar, “fully hominoid nocturnal troglodytes,” are chosen. They are short, industrially-minded, and pale-skinned with dark hair. Their sister-race, the Fiia, are physically similar, though with lighter hair, and live above ground in small nomadic villages. Both have semi-telepathic powers. The second race, the Liuar, are essentially Nordic heroes as if from a bronze age beowulf. Their society is divided into two classes: the tall Angyar lords, “dark-skinned, yellow-haired,” and the Olgyior, shorter, “light-skinned and dark-haired.”
Am I the only one reminded of Middle-Earth? Cave-dwelling industrial type? Telepathic, naturally-minded nomads? Feudal kingdoms and heroes?. Here are Le Guin’s dwarves, elves, and men. Even the names sound like Tolkien. The world-building and culture-building is still fortunately Le Guin. If that wasn’t enough, we actually get a brief look at three more (mostly intelligent) species near the end of the story. Don’t forget flying cat-horses. The physical world is just as rich as the characters. We get mountains and forests, the high and not-so-high halls of the Liuar, and the caves of the Gdemiar.
Rocannon’s World is a strong start to an iconic series. I found powerful themes of loss, servant-lord companionship and love, myth, and culture. So much greatness in barely over one hundred pages.
Planet of Exile
Le Guin builds this narrative around a taboo romance: Rolery, the daughter of the Teveran chief, born alone in the Summer, and Jakob Agat, the leader of the Men at Landin. The romance is somewhat shallow. Her alienation from her tribe and later, rare aptitude at mindspeech, are just too convenient in the absence of any deeper emotional development. It isn’t bad, just feels contrived.
It is in the infirmary/archives where we get one of the most interesting ideas of the novel. We hear a theory from the old doctor Wattock that perhaps the alien environment is causing some kind of genetic or chemical evolution. It could explain the way some of the Earth Men’s injuries are healing abnormally, even though they should have complete resistance to Werel’s pathogens. Though 600 years seems rapid for what we know of evolution, what do we know about an alien planet? Their adaptation could mean a loss of bacterial resistance, but also the potential to bear children with the hilfs (A Landin term for the Tevarans, based on the League term “High Intelligence Life Form”).
For some, like Rolery, it is a new hope. However, we know not all the natives or the Earth men are for assimilation. The Tevarans almost killed Agat for loving Rolery. The Landin councilman Pilotson, sick and raving in the infirmary, is vehemently against a mixing of the species, for “if we can breed with the hilfs, the drop of our human blood will be lost.” The alternative though, is that they slowly die out alone. It seems we’re meant to accept and approve of the Terran-Tevaran cross-breeding, despite the story’s motivating relationship falling a bit flat.
I can’t help but wonder what will happen to these species on Werel. Interbreeding and education of the hilfs? Or will the Men’s culture die out as they become more Tevaran? Should it? What about the Gaal? Is there a place for them? It’s hard to believe that men from Earth will return to Landin, so what weight remains in the League’s policy of technological castration?
The most impressive part of this story is the culture-building. I found it richer than that of Rocannon’s World. My favorite element is the tradition that the Tevarans have to organize a discussion. The men gather in a large circle, each beating rocks together in rhythm, but independent of each other. When the chief completes the circle, he beats a rhythm that is the loudest and the clearest, and those around him fall into it. This is a phenomenal image of discussion in a community. It brings voices together, strengthens and unifies them. In Tevar, political resonance begins with a literal exercise in resonance.
Now others across the circle were beating it, pounding together. It came clear of the noise, conquered it, forced each conflicting voice into its own single ceaseless rhythm, the concord, the hard heartbeat of the Men of Askatevar, pounding on, and on, and on.
City of Illusions
Leaving Zove’s house: Of his past, he has only a ring and fragments of memories. Zove assumes he is an alien and believes he has a destiny and is the hope for men.
You’re not childish. You are an inexperienced man. You are a cripple, because there is no child in you, Falk; you are cut off from your roots, from your source. Can you say that this is your home?
You’ll find those who know. And then you’ll do it. I don’t fear it. If you serve the Enemy, so do we all: all’s lost and nothing’s to lose. If not, then you have what we men have lost: a destiny; and in following it you may bring hope to us all.
Travelling:
There were two evil dreams that followed him each day and always caught up with him by midnight. One was of being stealthily pursued in the darkness by a person he could never see. The other was worse. He dreamed that he had forgotten to bring something with him, something important, essential, without which he would be lost. From this dream he woke and knew that it was true: he was lost; it was himself he had forgotten.
He knew himself so little that all his acts were also acts of self-discovery, like those of a boy, and knowing that he lacked so much he was glad to learn that at least he was not without courage.
Falk travels along an inlet of a river. He reaches a cabin on the shore, and an old man senses him and invites him in. The man is a listener with telepathic empathy and senses. He talks endlessly, is content in his loneliness, even calls himself All-Alonio. He seems to know of Falk’s mission, knows he is not human and knows he is going to Es Toch. Despite being a listener, he does not listen to Falk, but asks that he would listen to him. He gives him advice: there are few Shing, and he should be careful of their laws, like those the animals spout, in Es Toch. He calls Falk “messenger.”
The section at All-Alonio’s cabin is maybe the most compelling part of this entire book so far. So much weight of myth and symbol. Alonio seems almost a kind of Tom Bombadil of this world. Not that they share many characteristics but the sense of immortality, infinite knowledge, distance. The more I consider it, the less it makes sense, but that was my first impression.
Estrel loses the amulet around her neck that she prays to, and falls sick. Falk carries her to a settlement in the distance, where she is taken away and Falk speaks to the leader: the Prince of Kansas. He rules over these people, but seems to have no rule. He claims to know the history of man, the Canon in its original language, keeps dogs, rare species of the past. He calls Falk Opalstone and plays a game of fortune and prophecy with gems and beads on a patterning frame.
Can you read the frame? Vastness. Ebony and diamond and crystal, all the jewels of fire: and the Opalstone among them, going on, going out. Farther than the King’s House, farther than the Wall-window Prison, farther than the hills and hollows of Kopernik, the stone flies among the stars. Will you break the frame, time’s frame?
The Prince distrusts Estrel, believes she is not a wanderer as she says. Why does he keep her? Estrel claims the Prince is mad and his people are foolish.
You come from very, very long ago. I am old but you are much older; you should have died a century ago. Will you remember a century from now that in the desert you met a king?