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Earthling Sutty has been living a solitary, well-protected life in Dovza City on the planet Aka as an official Observer for the interstellar Ekumen. Insisting on all citizens being pure "producer-consumers," the tightly controlled capitalist government of Aka--the Corporation--is systematically destroying all vestiges of the ancient ways: "The Time of Cleansing" is the chilling term used to describe this era. Books are burned, the old language and calligraphy are outlawed, and those caught trying to keep any part of the past alive are punished and then reeducated. Frustrated in her attempts to study the linguistics and literature of Aka's cultural past, Sutty is sent upriver to the backwoods town of Okzat-Ozkat. Here she is slowly charmed by the old-world mountain people, whose still waters, she gradually realizes, run very deep. But whether their ways constitute a religion, ancient traditions, philosophy, or passive, political resistance, Sutty is not sure. Delving ever deeper into her hosts' culture, Sutty finds herself on a parallel spiritual quest, as well.… (meer)
I first started this book many years ago after picking it up from a library sale. I thought it was a standalone tale, and it largely is, but it takes place in a universe I knew little about, where other novels and stories had been written that introduced these concepts, peoples, and stories. I was very confused when I tried to read it back then and figured I needed to read the other books that came before it. I was a little like Sutty in this book, trying to figure out a story but not having the right context, so I stopped reading it. But now, I've read the first 4 or 5 Hainish cycle novels and have a feel for the universe now so it was time to tackle this book from the bottom of my TBR pile. In many respects it is very similar to the other Hainish cycle novels in that first contact always changes the two cultures involved, even if the aliens try to be as uninvolved as possible. Simply being there to observe changes what is being observed. And the native culture now knows that there are whole other worlds beyond their own which changes the trajectory of their development. In this case, the native culture places value on fair compensation for fair goods or services. When an alien culture arrives and starts giving the native culture information, the natives expect to pay for it, even if it doesn't happen right away. This changes the way their society develops and reacts to their previous ways. I enjoy the way that Le Guin wrote characters in the middle of conflicts that they might be ignorant of, and how they learn to adapt to the situation to resolve it. She was a master at the anthropological ramifications of certain types of societies. I really enjoy the Hainish cycle, although it can be a bit too cerebral at times. ( )
While Le Guin's writing is solid and beautiful, this storyline left me feeling like I missed something, there was not the right tension that I expect from this author and the story felt much much longer then it needed to be. There was a solid Taoist/Asian theme that was lovely and felt nostalgic and hopeful, but did not feel authentic as the counterpoint to a story of a fascist government, it seemed to leave me with a lot more social questions. ( )
A quiet successor to The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. The ideas, the analogies, and the gentle people held me more than the plot, but that was just fine. ( )
An inriguing and well written story from LeGuin's Hainish Universe. A bit too much of background but the idea of a philosophy-religion from the stories we tell that in turn bind us rings true. She backed it up by demographics and geology as well. An easy and thoughtful read. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
The day I was born I made my first mistake,
and by that path have I sought wisdom ever since.
The Mahabharata
Opdracht
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
When Sutty went back to Earth in the daytime, it was always to the village. At night, it was the Pale.
Citaten
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
These people are not picturesque relics of a time gone by. They are not harmless. They are vicious. They are the dregs of a deadly poison--the drug that stupefied my people for ten thousand years.
On Aka, god is a word without referent. No capital letters. No creator, only creation. No eternal father to reward and punish, justify injustice, ordain cruelty, offer salvation. Eternity is not an endpoint but a continuity. Primal division of being into material and spiritual only as two-as-one, or one in two aspects. No hierarchy of Nature and Supernatural. No binary Dark/Light, Evil/Good, or Body/Soul. No afterlife, no rebirth, no immortal disembodied or reincarnated soul. No heavens, no hells.
The people she had lived with this year honored self-restraint but did not admire self-deprivation. They had no strenuous notions of fasting, and saw no virtue whatever in discomfort, hunger, poverty.
Belief is the wound that knowledge heals.
Animals have no language. They have their nature...But we're animals with no nature...We have to talk about how to go and what to do, think about it, study it, learn it. Eh? We're born to be reasonable, so we're born ignorant. You see? If nobody teaches us the words, the thoughts, we stay ignorant... The rest of the world knows its business. Knows the One and the Myriad, the Tree and the Leaves. But all we know is how to learn. How to study, how to listen, how to talk, how to tell. If we don't tell the world, we don't know the world. We're lost in it, we die. But we have to tell it right, tell it truly. Eh? (pp 134-5)
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Earthling Sutty has been living a solitary, well-protected life in Dovza City on the planet Aka as an official Observer for the interstellar Ekumen. Insisting on all citizens being pure "producer-consumers," the tightly controlled capitalist government of Aka--the Corporation--is systematically destroying all vestiges of the ancient ways: "The Time of Cleansing" is the chilling term used to describe this era. Books are burned, the old language and calligraphy are outlawed, and those caught trying to keep any part of the past alive are punished and then reeducated. Frustrated in her attempts to study the linguistics and literature of Aka's cultural past, Sutty is sent upriver to the backwoods town of Okzat-Ozkat. Here she is slowly charmed by the old-world mountain people, whose still waters, she gradually realizes, run very deep. But whether their ways constitute a religion, ancient traditions, philosophy, or passive, political resistance, Sutty is not sure. Delving ever deeper into her hosts' culture, Sutty finds herself on a parallel spiritual quest, as well.
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