The Farthest Shore

“For a word to be spoken, there must be silence. Before, and after.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

I was saddened to learn from my friend Chris on Tuesday that veteran science fiction and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin had passed away.  Not surprised - when someone has reached the age of 88, the news of their death is unlikely to be surprising - but certainly sad.  Ursula K. Le Guin was a remarkable presence in the world, and her departure is an enormous loss.

I've given a lot of thought about what to say in regards to Le Guin's passing, and it all seems clichéd and banal in the light of her personality and her work.  She was a powerful, brilliant, imaginative, thoughtful, witty, evocative author whose writing was both moving and literally thought-provoking. Much of her work fell under the umbrella of fantasy or science fiction, which is why I had the good fortune to discover her, but so much of it defied definition.  Regardless of genre, her skill and craft as a writer was extraordinary, with not a word wasted or misused, and the world of letters - and the world in general - is diminished by her departure.

If you have not had the pleasure of reading anything by Ursula K. Le Guin, I strongly recommend that you do.  It doesn't matter what.  A quick search through Google™ will give you a list representing her more popular pieces, but that's just a guideline, reading anything that she wrote will be equally rewarding.  I suspect that her shopping lists were probably more entertaining and absorbing - and better written - than a lot of books by better known authors.  The only introduction I will give her is from her own words as used in introducing another author:

Here are
Some real stories.

  - Sid

Seriously, can you imagine?

"Aliens, I would be, like, the best person ever with the aliens, unless they were illegal
aliens from Mexico, or Haitians..."

  - Sid

(I generally don't just repost things from the internet, but, again, seriously, how in the world would this scenario play out?)

Credit to: The Gentleman's Armchair.

Or Vanilla Coke and Barbecue Lays.

 

Sigh...

As we get into the dark and the wet that characterizes winter in British Columbia, after a challenging year of work, with another challenging year looming in the future, there are days when I just want to stay home, drink tea, eat cookies, and read comic books.

  - Sid