In even these miscellanies, composed in her off hours, the sentences are perfectly balanced and the language chosen with care. Despite her reservations with the hideous word 'blog'-which sounds like it should refer to 'an obstruction in the nasal passage'-she takes to the digressive form with ease, ruminating on the value of literary awards, the Great American Novel (her pick may surprise you), the 'existential situation' of old age and her outsize love for a newly adopted black-and-white cat called Pard. This delightful book, inquisitive and stroppily opinionated in equal measure, assembles stray pieces from her recent adventures in blogging. Few writers have been so conscientious of the ways that societies are defined by the nuances and omissions of their language. Le Guin’s brilliance lies beyond nomenclature. Hey Portland: Le Guin is local in the sense that Ken Kesey is local. Critic Harold Bloom classifies it as her masterpiece. I have reserved Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness at the Phoenix public library. I loved this book of essays they are combative, amusing and stimulating. LeGuin’s answer? Where is the great American novel by anybody? Who cares? She adds: Tell you true, I’ve never heard a woman writer say the phrase “the great American novel” without a sort of snort. “Where is the great American novel by a woman?” her interlocutor asks.

(TGAN standing for The Great American Novel, a designation Le Guin says is “coy” and “coercive.”) He is important.Īnd please read her essay written in November 2013, at which point she is 82 years old with more than 60 years of publishing behind her. No Time to Spare is subdivided into four parts, each of which is paused by considerations of Le Guin’s cat Pard. Perhaps you could use a sample of her skill as an essayist. My copy of No Time to Spare came with a list of 23 selected books of fiction, 11 books of poetry and two translation, all composed by Le Guin. Ursula Le Guin is what the French would call an eminence grise: “a person who exercises power or influence in a certain sphere without holding an official position.”

Particularly now, when the cultural uproar the world is undergoing requires us to rethinking what is Speculative Fiction and what is Reality. Yet this book of essays initiated me into taking Le Guin seriously.

Ursula le guin no time to spare