Review - The Eye of the Heron
May. 1st, 2009 02:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wilderthanUrsula Le Guin's The Eye of the Heron looks like an easy, short book. My copy is quite slim, the writing is a reasonable size, and the prose is as polished as hers always is, and it's easy to read. There are some absolutely amazing quotes, that I loved to read just for the perspective she always brings to the discussion. These are the ones that struck me the most (in parts of them, description has been taken out to make them more universal).
a. "You know, if we sit in the back room, with babies or without babies, and leave all the rest of the world to the men, then of course the men will do everything and be everything. Why should they? They're only half the human race. It's not fair to leave them all the work to do. Not fair to them or us. Besides," and she smiled more broadly, "I like men very much, but sometimes... they're so stupid, so stuffed with theories... They go in straight lines only, and won't stop. It's dangerous to do that. It's dangerous to leave everything up to the men, you know. [...] I get worried they'll go too fast and too straight and get us into a place we can't get out of, a trap. You see it seems to me that where men are weak and dangerous is in their vanity. A woman has a center, is a center. But a man isn't, he's a reaching out. So he reaches out and grabs things and piles them up around him and says, I'm this, I'm that, this is me, that's me, I'll prove that I'm me! And he can wreck a lot of things, trying to prove it."
b. "If you marry a man like that and live his life, then I agree. You may not really want to hurt people, but you will."
"That is hateful. Hateful! To say it that way. That I haven't any choice, that I have to hurt people, that it doesn't even matter what I want."
"Of course it matters, what you want."
"It doesn't. That's the whole point."
"It does. And that's the whole point. You choose. You choose whether or not to make choices."
c. "If I don't speak truth I can't seek truth."
d. "It takes courage to really be a woman, just as much as to be a man. It takes courage to really be married, and to bear children, and to bring them up."
What I also find interesting is Ursula Le Guin's sympathy and understanding of all her characters. It would be easy to dismiss "Boss Falco", not intentionally being unsympathetic to that side of the divide, but not feeling that he has anything valid to say and so just letting him be a cypher. He isn't, there are some bits of his characterisation which break my heart a little.
It's interesting that I found what would happen quite hard to predict. Not that it didn't make sense, but that one has certain expectations from a book like this: that the People of Peace will simply prevail right away, like because their way is right it is the only possibly outcome; that Lev and Luz will prevail and get together; that Boss Falco will be irredeemable... And it doesn't always happen the way you expect.
The worldbuilding in itself is lovely. I liked the "wotsits", and the ringtrees. It is also easy to just make other worlds other earths, and this doesn't happen in The Eye of the Heron.
This in no way covers all my feelings about this book. I think Ursula Le Guin has said some lovely things in it, and I may have to reread it. It isn't as easy as it would seem, either. Sometimes I had to put it down to think through what a certain part is trying to say. It's a good thing.
A warning, though, that this is not so much a novel in which things happen, as a novel in which things are thought. There are actions and consequences and all of that, but I don't think that is the most important thing.
a. "You know, if we sit in the back room, with babies or without babies, and leave all the rest of the world to the men, then of course the men will do everything and be everything. Why should they? They're only half the human race. It's not fair to leave them all the work to do. Not fair to them or us. Besides," and she smiled more broadly, "I like men very much, but sometimes... they're so stupid, so stuffed with theories... They go in straight lines only, and won't stop. It's dangerous to do that. It's dangerous to leave everything up to the men, you know. [...] I get worried they'll go too fast and too straight and get us into a place we can't get out of, a trap. You see it seems to me that where men are weak and dangerous is in their vanity. A woman has a center, is a center. But a man isn't, he's a reaching out. So he reaches out and grabs things and piles them up around him and says, I'm this, I'm that, this is me, that's me, I'll prove that I'm me! And he can wreck a lot of things, trying to prove it."
b. "If you marry a man like that and live his life, then I agree. You may not really want to hurt people, but you will."
"That is hateful. Hateful! To say it that way. That I haven't any choice, that I have to hurt people, that it doesn't even matter what I want."
"Of course it matters, what you want."
"It doesn't. That's the whole point."
"It does. And that's the whole point. You choose. You choose whether or not to make choices."
c. "If I don't speak truth I can't seek truth."
d. "It takes courage to really be a woman, just as much as to be a man. It takes courage to really be married, and to bear children, and to bring them up."
What I also find interesting is Ursula Le Guin's sympathy and understanding of all her characters. It would be easy to dismiss "Boss Falco", not intentionally being unsympathetic to that side of the divide, but not feeling that he has anything valid to say and so just letting him be a cypher. He isn't, there are some bits of his characterisation which break my heart a little.
It's interesting that I found what would happen quite hard to predict. Not that it didn't make sense, but that one has certain expectations from a book like this: that the People of Peace will simply prevail right away, like because their way is right it is the only possibly outcome; that Lev and Luz will prevail and get together; that Boss Falco will be irredeemable... And it doesn't always happen the way you expect.
The worldbuilding in itself is lovely. I liked the "wotsits", and the ringtrees. It is also easy to just make other worlds other earths, and this doesn't happen in The Eye of the Heron.
This in no way covers all my feelings about this book. I think Ursula Le Guin has said some lovely things in it, and I may have to reread it. It isn't as easy as it would seem, either. Sometimes I had to put it down to think through what a certain part is trying to say. It's a good thing.
A warning, though, that this is not so much a novel in which things happen, as a novel in which things are thought. There are actions and consequences and all of that, but I don't think that is the most important thing.
