street roots
Aug. 1, 2014
LE GUIN, fro m page 4
Kroeber, was a writer. . A friend of the Kroeber
family, and a Native American who had lived
most of his life out of contact with modem
culture, Ishi, lived out the end of his life in
civilization and presumably spent a lot of time
with your family. What influence did his
presence in your world have on you as a young
girl and writer if any?
U.K.L.: Ishi died in 1913; I was bom in
1929. Ishi was part of my father’s world, not
mine. But two Native American friends of
my father, Juan Dolores of the O’odham
people and Robert Spott of the Yurok
people, stayed with us in the country when
I was a child. I was a lucky white kid with
“Indian uncles.” I learned a lot from them.
Particularly about good manners, dignity,
loyalty and patience. And very, very dry
jokes.
•
S.Z.: You have a curiosity about the social
sciences as much as the biological sciences.
What steered you toward writing as a young
girl? What kept you moving forward through
your career and what drives you to write
today?
U.K.L.: My fiction is about the
relationships of people within a certain
society or culture — which is what most
novels are about. Science fiction, in my
definition, naturally includes the social
sciences like anthro(pology), psych(ology),
sociology, and the whole ecological outlook,
so it has widened the whole scope of fiction.
I grew up in a family full of readers and
writers and books, which helps a whole lot;
but nobody steered me toward writing as a
kid. I just always wrote and always wanted
to write and always knew I’d go on doing it.
I think an artistic vocation usually starts
with a gift, plus a sense that your gift is an
o b lig a tio n . Q p u tiit bluntly, y o u o w e it your
MHBS*
S.Z.: I have heard you speak about digital
publishers, specifically Amazon.com. Tell me
about thefa.ce of publishing: How it has
changed, and how it affects writers? And you
personally? f
U.K.L.: Oh, golly. Do we have to go
there? Now Amazon has bought the U.S.
Post Office so that they can deliver what
they choose to deliver to their enslaved
customers even on Sundays. Well, hot
zowie.
I buy books from Powell’s and other
independent booksellers who don’t control
what the publishers publish and pay, and
who don’t punish “disobedient” publishers
and authors and readers by delaying
delivery for weeks and months or refusing
to sell their books at all.
Publishing has changed in the last
20-plus years because international
corporations bought out all the major
publishers and began handling books as
commodities, like potatoes or corn. Amazon
is just the big super bully in the
commodities m arket Well, you know what’s
happened with potatoes and corn. Toxicity,
obesity, tastelessness. Who cares, so long as
it sells?
How has all this affected me? It makes
me sad and angry. How does it affect
younger writers? Well, it gives them a
ehoice: climb onto the corporate juggernaut,
quickly produce whateververbal commodity
is selling at the moment, and hope to grab a
lot-a-profit real fast. Or, go on doing what
writers do: write books, find an independent
press or self-publish on line, hope for some
readers, hope for some luck.
S.Z.: Gender. You dissolved gender
boundaries by creating a genderless society in
Í1 1
5
xa 1 vzm
“The Left Hand of Darkness” in 1969. Have
gender roles evolved, in your experience? What
are the benefits and advantages of being a
woman?
U.K.L.: Now those questions are just too
big. I have to cut them down.
In my lifetime, our society has gone from
believing that there are two genders
absolutely determined by features of the
body, to understanding that gender is
complex and is determined by many factors,
physical, social, cultural and personal. A big,
good change.
A benefit of being a woman: You get to
have kids, if you want to, and write books if
you want to.
S.Z.: Your writing spans many genres. You
are known for your science fiction novels, but
which style of writing, in your opinion, best
exemplifies your work in its purest form?
U.K.L.: In its purest form? Poetry.
S.Z.: Yes, I guess that would be the case.
And not in its purest form?
Italy, and the whole Trojan War story, which
is so fundamental to our literature. Things
are always coming back to the Trojan War!
And Aeneas is a survivor of that war, from
the losing side.
S.Z.: I can only imagine. I ’ve never written
a novel. Who knows? Maybe I should start
with a short story?
U.K.L.: Probably, although they’re really
different things. Storytelling takes all forms.
Your writing is a form of storytelling and
that may be your way of doing it. I couldn’t
do what you do. There is a kind of arrogance
to writing fiction: “I’m going to make the
world my way.”
U.K.L.: “Lavinia” is partly what they call
a meta-text. Which is a text about a text.
Lavinia is a character from Virgil’s epic,
“The Aeneid.” She has no speaking part and
is really, she’s kind of a major p art of his
story because he and she are destined to be
married. They really don’t have much
choice. Destiny says these two have to
marry and found the people who will be the
Roman people.
The love story in “The Aeneid” is Dido
and Aeneas — that’s the famous one, That’s
all in the pastwhen we come to Lavinia’s
part. She is this little Italian princess. I just
became fascinated: Who was Lavinia? What
did she think about all of this? And it was
just like she started telling me. (Laughter).
It was an utterly amazing experience. I
distrusted it at first, because Lavinia is
another author’s character. She has her part
to playin the Aeneid, and who am I to tell
Virgil how to do it? -
I love Virgil. I felt at home in his poem. I
wasn’t invading or setting him straight I
just thought, Well, he couldn’t do Lavinia
justice, it wouldn’t have fitted into his story.
But I can.
So I got to play around with Bronze Age
(from In the Red Zone, 1983)
By Ursula K> Le Guin
To walk in here is to stop pretending.
S.Z.: You’ve created many worlds...
U.K.L.: It’s a lot of fun. It is. I think that
is one reason that people like science fiction
and fantasy. It is a slightly new7world. You
discover that things are a little different
than you thought théÿ were. We all like that.
U.K.L.: I really can’t answer. I’ve been
S.Z.: What are your thoughts on the
writing ever since I was five and publishing
Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby
ever since I was 30 years old. I was
base?
publishing poetry before that. There’s so
much. And I do so many kinds of things that
U.K.L.: I want to see five members of the
I really don’t want to say, “This is the
U.S. Supreme Court
ultimate,” because
impeached.
there isn’t one.
Actually, I have
Name any work and
fantasies
of several of
I can say something
" I n m y life tim e , our society
them going to their
about it. Like
“Lavinia” which is my has gone from believing that Catholic Christian
Judgment Seat and
last published novel. I there are two genders
their god judging
did something in
absolutely determ ined by
them as they
“Lavinia” that I had
never done anywhere features of the body, to
deserve, which would
understanding that gender is involve t h e ir e n d in g
else. It was very
up w ay, w ay d ow n in
different from,
complex and Is determ ined
anything I have ever
Dante’s
Hell. But we
by m any factors, physical,
done.
can’t wait for th at
I’m amazed by it. It social, c u ltu ra l and
We need a change
personal« A big, good
was just like it came
now.
.
to me. “What am I
change/*
doing? Oh look at
S;Z.: Are there any
that! It’s a novel.”
limits to the science
This sounds like I
fiction or fantasy .
am not in control of
genres? I f so, what are
what I do. Of Course, I am.
they?
S.Z.: You said that you’d done something in
writing “Lavinia” that you had not done
before. What was it that you did that was so
impressive to you?
To Walk In Here
U.K.L.: Aré there any limits to the
universe? Or the imagination?
S.Z.: What would you say to fledgling
writers who are trying to navigate the ever-
changing writer’s market?
U.K.L.: I knew you’d ask that. Times are
hard, kids.
The chief hope I have at this point is that
the situation is changing all the time.
Everybody is staggering around in the wake
of the invention of the e-book etc,, trying to
figure out what publishing actually is going
to Consist of. The corporations aren’t going
to get us out of this mess. Corporations are
deeply stupid. But many writers are not.
Writers, for instance, can stop thinking of
writing as a way to get rich.
Corporate capitalism at this stage of its
death agony can only control, deform and
stupidify everything it touches. We have t o 7
operate within capitalism, because at this
point it’s all there is. But if our minds aren’t
controlled by it, if we think like free people,
writers will figure out how to do our job: To
write, get our writing to our readers, and
maybe make a living from i t
So what I say to younger writers is: Hang
in there! Remember, you’re the ones who
get the last word.
What’s real? Grey dust,
a dead forest
Entropy moves quickly to its end.
0 desolation!
What’s real?
says tile fireweed lightly casting
its words upon the wind.
To walk in here is to stop pretending
that what we do matters
all that much. Less in the long run
than the fireweed, to the others.
To ourselves'we matter
terribly.
That there will be summer
ever
is the responsibility of others
more careful than ourselves.
T h e y d o n o t lo o k u s in th e fa c e.
The gulfs of air
are-full of blowing rain
between us and the crater,
the small, cold rain of autumn.