It’s my pleasure this year to join in the readalong of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish fiction hosted by Calmgrove, focusing on the works that I have never read or can’t remember reading.
So far, that means I’ve read four novellas published in the 1960s and 70s: Rocannon’s World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, and The World for World Is Forest. The titles were not always the author’s choices (the last one, she wanted to call The Little Green Men), and although they are set on exotic otherworlds or a transformed future Earth, the emphasis on place belies Le Guin’s real and constant preoccupation, which is people, humanity — even when encountered in the guise of aliens. Who are we, strange, contradictory creatures that we are? Why do we often behave so bizarrely, as weird in our own way as any four-headed monster from outer space? These stories explore the evil and darkness of the human (or humanoid) heart, but also its nobility and strength.
Le Guin has been criticized, and has criticized herself, for not being feminist enough in these early works because they are all about male protagonists, and altogether mostly about men. I think that is a bit short-sighted. Feminism means nothing if it has only to do with women. It must, to be a true healing impulse, have to do with the feminine side that all of us possess. Men urgently need encouragement to embody that side, just as much as people with wombs need to be empowered and given autonomy and recognized as intelligent beings. One-sidedness may rule our bodies, but for our souls it is fatal.
What, then, is the feminine? I think it has to do with a capacity of bearing, of giving one’s life for the sake of another, not annihilating oneself, but acknowledging the greater whole of which our fragmented, genderized selves are a part, and offering oneself in joyful service to it. Trust in the greater whole, and the ability to endure its cycles with patience, is what brings about the everyday miracle of birth. Men are just as able to give birth, in this sense, as women, and have the advantage that it is not imposed on them by their biology. Only what is consented to in freedom can really bring us forward.
The men in these works all demonstrate some kind of “bearing” or “birthing”, carrying a beloved comrade through an arduous journey; bearing a second, buried self until it can break through illusions and defy an oppressive regime; bringing a dream of a new way of self-defense to his people. One of them even has to literally change the entrenched cultural norms of his planet to enable birth to take place, where sterility had set in.
And what of men’s traditional role, that of killers and fighters? These characters do plenty of that, too, and maybe this is what the critics are objecting to. But there is killing and killing. Violence is another of Le Guin’s preoccupations, and she explores it in many directions through these stories. Is the harm it does to the killer’s own soul justified, when it saves others’ lives? What is the difference between those who take pleasure in hurting others, and those who do it only as a last resort? There are no pat answers, only ways of considering the question, through characters who must make difficult choices.
Survival, in various kinds of challenging environments, is the basic goal of each story. Sometimes you have to fight, or be killed, or see your loved ones or your entire planet killed. But fighting for physical survival sometimes does damage to our spirit, perhaps irreparable damage. Is there a way out of this dilemma, or a path of healing? In these stories I see Le Guin struggling with this question, one that will continue to thread through all her work. And maybe in the later works, when female characters do acquire more of a role and a voice, wholeness will become more possible.
I am very glad to have had the impulse to read these books, and look forward to the rest of the readalong. Do you know these books, or others in set in the Hainish universe? What do they say to you?
A wonderful, insightful overview, Lory, in which you rightly point out UKLG’s focus on Le Guin’s humans’ capacity for humanity regardless of their otherworld settings (even the Terran novel feels otherworldly). I particularly liked your consideration that “feminism means nothing if it has only to do with women,” and the clear indications that her thoughtful male protagonists are looking to connect with their complementary sides rather than indulge in macho displays of virility.
Her premise that the human race originated in Hain-Davenant, spreading to Terra and other worlds, also allows her to consider not only the anthropology but also the physiology and psychology of all these peoples. Rereading The Dispossessed has proved to be like reading a completely new novel, especially after going through the previous four novellas. I’m so glad, nay privileged, to have informed sensitive readers like you join in this read-along, so thank you.
So glad this rings true to you, Chris. I love The Dispossessed, but I am preoccupied with other things this month, so thought of skipping it … but I might get pulled into a reread anyway. Yes, I am sure it will appear in a different light after having read all these earlier works, and that will be fascinating to discuss. Onward to new worlds!
What a wonderful review! I really like the way you looked for feminist ideas or a value being placed on traditionally female roles even in these books that mostly feature make characters. It definitely gave me a new way to think about what it means for something to be a feminist text.
Giving women access to traditionally male roles and traits was an important step, but maybe it should better be called “masculinism.” Valuing the traditionally feminine, when it is associated with being weak, vulnerable, and powerless, has been a much harder sell. The world today is full of men who are terrified of their feminine side and are projecting that onto women and other vulnerable people, with disastrous results. This has got to be the next area of change, in my opinion.