Swords Against Boredom

What follows is a review I wrote at the request of “Black Gate,” who kindly sent me the book. Alas, my review never made it into Black Gate, so I am offering it here:

——————–

Powers
Ursula K. Le Guin
Harcourt [512 pages, September 2007, $17]
Reviewed by Steve Goble

Ursula K. Le Guin’s reputation is built primarily upon rich characterizations and fully realized imaginary settings. She does that reputation justice in her latest novel, “Powers.”

The novel is marketed as young adult fiction, but there is no cuteness to it. “Powers” is a complex, gripping story told in a realistic manner, in elegantly controlled prose that never calls attention to itself.

The book follows Gavir, a young slave trying to make sense of the world after terrible events shatter his previous understandings. He undertakes two journeys; an arduous, physical trek and an intellectual, spiritual quest. Dangers lurk on both paths.

Le Guin’s plots are seldom easily linear and never wrapped up neatly with a bow; they grow out of character and setting and often end at an interim point of arrival rather than at some climax that magically resolves everything — in that, her stories echo reality. “Powers” is no different, but the solid prose and swift movement from one set of circumstances to the next propel the story forward. You like Gavir, and want him to succeed, so you keep reading and wondering what he’ll find next.

Gavir’s story offers a deep look at the evils of bondage, and not just slavery to masters with whips and cages: slavery to ignorance, slavery to tradition, slavery to self-delusion, slavery to fear.

Trust — broken, misplaced, forged by necessity — is another powerful theme. And so is the strength of story itself; “Powers” revolves, in part, on the role of legend and poetry in giving shape and life to slippery ideals such as freedom, justice and cultural identity. Gavir’s love of learning and stories is as much a driving force in his life as the invading armies and harsh laws of slavery. Gavir’s love of knowledge at times becomes burden, at other times armor and solace, and in the end becomes his guide to solving the riddle of trust.

The characters, even those appearing only briefly, are utterly human and well-wrought, so much so that as Gavir’s teacher explains the lofty idealism upon which the boy’s slavery is based, the reader can understand how the man came to believe that way and why Gavir might accept such thinking, even as the idea of owning another human being violates modern sensibilities. When Gavir looks upon his masters as kind benefactors, his attitude is easily comprehended. The reader can plainly see the evil, and yet fully understand how Gavir fails to see it.

Gavir ignores the darker implications of events around him, resisting the things life is showing him, because he does not want to believe them — something we’ve all done many times ourselves. In a sense, “Powers” isn’t so much fantasy as it is reality with the names and places changed so that we can see ourselves reflected without the haze of our own preconceptions.

Le Guin’s approach in “Powers” is similar to that of her science fiction novel, “The Dispossessed.” She starts with her protagonist quite young, unfolds the world he knows and follows him over several years through a variety of brushes with cultures he does not know at all. Gavir’s wishes and expectations constantly clash with reality, and as he progresses, the lessons of youth color everything he learns and experiences. And sometimes the lessons of boyhood prove to be wrong.

Unlike “The Dispossessed,” though, Le Guin dispenses with experimental narrative structure and lays out a straightforward, chronological tale.

The story, while standing completely on its own, is part of Le Guin’s “Annals of the Western Shore” cycle. It weaves its way through several cultures, each masterfully depicted without a trace of dissertation on the author’s part. Le Guin creates full cultures complete with history, tradition, rituals and class structure, but never lets the world-building get in the way of her story. She teaches us about her created world by simply showing us her characters fully immersed in it. She never explains how it all works — she just shows you.

In “Powers,” Le Guin flirts with fantasy tropes and yet never gives into them. Gavir encounters forest thieves, sex slaves, a crazed hermit, wilderness treks, slave takers, a vengeful boyhood foe, invading armies, rustic mysticism, taciturn fisherfolk, city sieges, village priests, stout hunters and more. Gavir himself possesses an odd clairvoyance he cannot control or fully understand.

It’s all stuff fantasy readers have encountered many times, but in each case, the realism with which they are depicted sets them far apart from the same elements as used by other writers. Le Guin ignores many other stock elements of fantasy; there are no hurled lightning bolts, no magical solutions, no swashbuckling rescues of the innocent. The heroism is of the quiet, determined variety; the magic is the type that inspires or intimidates people invisibly.

“Powers” takes place in a world perhaps more richly portrayed than that of Le Guin’s venerated Earthsea stories. It is the third offering in this series of novels; the others are “Gifts” and “Voices.” One hopes there will be more. “Powers” creates a strong urge to further travel the Western Shore.

I recently read “Powers,” the newest novel from Ursula K. Le Guin.

This is the third installment of her “Annals of the Western Shore,” and was published in September. I have not read the other two books in the series, “Gifts” and “Voices,” but I sure as heck will be reading them soon.

“Powers” really demonstrates Le Guin’s mastery of character and setting.

“Powers” is a fantasy novel, and in one sense reminiscent of the Earthsea books. But I think the Western Shore might be an even more fully realized setting than Earthsea, and this one has a more realistic vibe.

The Western Shore books are linked by theme and geography, but each stands on its own — so don’t think of them as “part one” and “part two,” etc. Just snag them when you find them.

If you haven’t read Le Guin in a while, don’t you think it’s about time?

– Steve

I hope your holiday went well, and any hangovers were minimal …

To kick off the new year, I thought I’d tout my favorite novel from among those I read in 2007. There were many contenders, some more technically brilliant and innovative than others (”The Dispossessed” by Ursula K. LeGuin), some more literarily refined (”Lord Jim” by Joseph Conrad).

In the end, I decided to tout the book that was the most fun.

The Companions of Jehu, a novel by Alexandre Dumas.

This one has everything I love about Dumas, including his ideosyncrasies: Action, romance, adventure, chivalrous heroes, haunted ruins, conspiracies, military maneuvers, that goofy Dumas-style dialogue, occasional meanderings to focus on Bonaparte’s political and military games at the expense of the main plot, authorial asides to the reader that few modern writers could pull off.

Reading Dumas is a trip back in time; not a real past, but a colorful and chivalrous past that should have existed. Thanks to Dumas, it does exist.

Here’s a link to the complete text, online, of The Companions of Jehu.

OK: What was your best read of 2007?

– Steve

• Story sharing: Say I’ve been bugging someone to read a particular author. I could pop over to Anthology Builder, assemble a collection of that author’s work, and hand my friend with one book to enjoy at leisure.
• Gifts for fussy readers: If you know someone well enough, you could assemble an anthology with hand-selected stories, just for them.
• A book for me: I could assemble one book of my favorites, and dispense with trying to remember which anthology or magazine of the many, many, many on our shelves contains the particular story I am seeking.
• A collection of my own stuff: This one assumes, of course, that I could convince Anthology Builder to add my stuff to their catalogue of available stories. But if I could do that, I could assemble a collection of my sword-and-sorcery and order a few copies … not necessarily to sell, but to show at conventions and to curious folk who ask “what kind of stuff do you write.” I could hand them a book and say, “This kind of stuff.” And then they could read it and say, “Oooooookay … that’s nice” before scurrying back to safety.

There probably are other useful ways to use this Anthology Builder idea, too. It’s in beta testing now, but it seems an exciting idea to me.

– Steve

OK, so I’m reading “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen.

Austen is an author I’ve never read, so I’m playing catchup with the classics. I’m about a third of the way into it, and enjoying it quite a bit. That surprises me, because I found the recent film adaptation fairly boring. But I wanted a big change from the usual pulpy fare I consume, so I picked this one up.

In print, Austen’s gift for dialogue really comes through. And a book can get into a character’s head deeper than a camera can; while staring at Keira Knightley is far from unpleasant, it does not always reveal the subtleties of what her character is thinking. The book manages that quite well.

And even though Austen’s plot hangs less on events than on character growth, things are proceeding briskly and I find myself eager to get to the next page.

Any Austen fans here? Feel free to weigh in.

– Steve

This time of year, my tastes in reading material undergo a bit of a change, a werewolfish transformation, if you will …

The approach of Halloween is one reason, of course. And the number of spooky old movies that show up on cable, reminding me how fun a shuddery old Gothic literary ramble can be, also start my brain turning in that direction.

So I search the shelves for something wicked, something nasty. Last year, I re-read Stroker’s Dracula, much better than any of the films it inspired. The year before that, I browsed Edgar Allen Poe and soaked up some of his more horrific offerings. This year, I found some H.P. Lovecraft and a volume of stories by Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho. First up for my Halloween reading was a little gem called Enoch, Bloch’s tale of swamp witchery and serial murder. Good fun.

It’s got me thinking a bit about horror as a story genre. I enjoyed Bloch’s tale, but for all the killings and the eery creepiness of brain-eating Enoch, I can’t say the story scared me. It won’t prompt me to peek over my shoulder, or wonder if the wind sounds outside conceal the approach of some fiend.

I love Dracula — I read it again every three or four years. But it doesn’t scare me or creep me out. Well, the scene in which the Count feeds a squirming baby to his Undead brides did give me shivers way back in the day. But on the whole, I can’t say these things scare me.

I think this is for two primary reasons:

A) I know vampires and ghosts and werewolves are just made-up things, there for fun and without substance. I write about superstitions all the time, but I’m only superstitious myself when it comes to baseball and such.

B) The real world is plenty scary enough, if you ask me.

To me, a genuinely horrific story needs plausibility. Your vampire tale, no matter how gory, isn’t going to scare me because I know vampires aren’t real. A story about genetically altered vampire bats, on the other hand, or mutant bats, might do the trick — because I know scientists are doing weird things with genetics and sometimes scientists do dumb things. And I know the global climate is changing and we are just beginning to understand how that is affecting all sorts of creatures and plants. Suppose changing climates alter food sources and prompt vampire bats to move from their natural habitat Far Far From Us and they decide we are the perfect snack food? That could be a scary story. You could do similar things with mosquitoes, or locusts, or large predatory cats.

I’m more likely to find genuine shivers in a science fiction story or a good mystery than in what usually is called “horror.” A good science fiction writer can make the most gruesome, efficient predators seem perfectly believeable (although probably on some distant planet). She can make up some cool virus that turns people into flesh eaters. He can unleash some bio-engineered monstrosity. Enough scientific mumbo-jumbo, and I might well spend a few disquieting moments wondering what all those bright young people in the white lab coats are really doing.

A good mystery writer also can give me the willies, because mystery writers write about things that could possibly actually happen. Jack the Ripper was a real person, and his victims were real people. And a lot of real people have killed other real people in even more gruesome ways — often for no real reason any of us can comprehend. I’ve seen actual minds snap; seemingly fine people suddenly show up one day and they’re totally different because they skipped their medications. That’s scary, because maybe it could happen to anyone. Maybe even me.

If a story actually gets under my skin, it’s because it seems like it could really happen. Mummies? Zombies? Vampires? Probably not. A harmless geek turns out to have people parts in his fridge? Happens every day.

What sort of stories scare you, if any? Feel free to share.

– Steve

P.S. If you are looking for DVDs for Halloween viewing pleasure, I recommend “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” with Vincent Price. It’s not scary, but it is full of campy characters, bizarre murders, clockwork robots and Vincent Price at his weird best. How can you not like that?

Got a better Halloween movie to suggest? Feel free to do so below.

I excerpted the following from an Associated Press report:

WASHINGTON (AP) — One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn’t read any, the usual number read was seven.

The numbers are reflected in book sales, which have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way indefinitely. Analysts attribute the listlessness to competition from the Internet and other media, the unsteady economy and a well-established industry with limited opportunities for expansion.

In 2004, a National Endowment for the Arts report titled “Reading at Risk” found only 57 percent of American adults had read a book in 2002, a four percentage point drop in a decade. The study faulted television, movies and the Internet.
Who are the 27 percent of people the AP-Ipsos poll found hadn’t read a single book this year? Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women fit that category. They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious.

Some observations:

• Maybe someone should write a book on the importance of reading, so these people would realize … oh. Damn. That won’t work.
• If you’re reading only four or five books a year, can you possibly justify making one of them a book by Ann Coulter? (No. Of course you can’t.)
• Do you suppose maybe some people have given up on reading just so they can avoid being so devastated when a long-treasured book, say, oh, “The Wizard of Earthsea,” gets turned into a god-awful, dreck-drenched, muck-infested piece of putrid petrified donkey pus by the Science Fiction Channel?
• Does reading comic books count? I don’t read them anymore because of the cost, but I think comic books should count.
• Can I just point out that, in a nation and world facing such challenges as this one, the news that a quarter of adult Americans didn’t crack a single frickin’ book all year is sort of mind numbing. Books are such a great way to learn; fiction is such a splendid way to relax.
• As for journalism, some of the best in recent years has been in book form. A book can provide depth that documentaries, even good ones, can’t match and that newspapers and magazines are unable to parallel because of space limitations.
• How will children get the idea that reading is good for them if they never see their adult role models doing it? Or if adults never read with them?
• That makes me wonder how much the poll is skewed by people who read books because they have to read books — reviewers, librarians, teachers, etc. If we correct the poll to weed that factor out, are the results even more bleak?
• How many books do you suppose President Bush reads in a year?
• By my own count, I’ve read 31 books so far this year — and that doesn’t count short stories or magazine articles, both of which I tend to ingest at a high rate. What am I, a freak?

OK, enough of my whining. Go read something, damn it!

– Steve