Maybe its the mood I'm in, that needs cheering, that needs clarity and hope and mystery; maybe I've just read so many shitty books recently. Maybe I've been thinking of Gifts lately too.

But I finished this book with a deep sigh, like the crowd after Orrec finished his stories. I think this is the first time I've wished I could give a book 6 stars.

Such a lucid, radiant, marvellous book, full of anguish, and pain, and light.

I love a well written fantasy story that ever so gently breaks with the tradition of what you expect from 20th century fantasy. There's no final battle between good and evil, no heroes in shining armor slaying the dragon, not even a rightful king restoring his kingdom.
It's just about the people in this world and their relationships with each other and perseverance and hope in spite of all.

Yet another lovely story from Ms. UKL, that reminds us her dad was an anthropologist.

It's about a peaceful people who are conquered and occupied by a patriarchal people who have banned books and literacy, thinking them the work of demons. It about goes how you'd expect, but takes an interesting way to get there. I dunno. Like Vonnegut, I love Le Guin SO MUCH and how she THINKS about things, that every story she writes is magic to me. I just agree with her personal philosophy so thoroughly, you know? It's another perfect little story.

I'm not sure if it's science fiction though, I mean it could be on another planet, you know? It probably is. Unless it's the Pacific coast again, I didn't study the map too hard.

This is the first UKL I've read since we lost her. I miss her, you guys. I miss knowing she was out there.

Voices’ by Ursula K. Le Guin is book two in the Western Shores trilogy, but I think it can be read as a standalone despite a couple of the characters having been in the previous novel in the series. For those interested, start here with book one in the series: [b:Gifts|13648|Gifts (Annals of the Western Shore, #1)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1441129920l/13648._SY75_.jpg|1257800].

I have copied the book blurb:

”Ansul was once a peaceful town filled with libraries, schools, and temples. But that was long ago, and the conquerors of this coastal city consider reading and writing to be acts punishable by death. And they believe the Oracle House, where the last few undestroyed books are hidden, is seething with demons. But to seventeen-year-old Memer, the house is a refuge, a place of family and learning, ritual and memory--the only place where she feels truly safe. Then an Uplands poet named Orrec and his wife, Gry, arrive, and everything in Memer's life begins to change. Will she and the people of Ansul at last be brave enough to rebel against their oppressors?

A haunting and gripping coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violence, intolerance, and magic, Voices is a novel that readers will not soon forget.”

Orrec and Gry were children in ‘Gifts’. The book described their coming of age just as in this book Memer Galva’s coming of age is described. All of these characters are part of the same world, although in different geographic areas. Orrec and Gry were raised in the hills in the North, in small villages. Memer is raised in the port city Ansul south of the hills where Orrec and Gry were raised. However, Orrec and Gry’s childhood had a lot of violence and horrendously patriarchical rules built into their culture. Memer’s childhood, which occurs years after Orrec and Gry’s, was affected by the destructive annexation of the defenseless city Ansul by the Alds, an overly-religious warrior culture of the desert, seventeen years previously.

The Alds are determined to find the Night Mouth which they believe is situated somewhere in Ansul. The Alds believe books and writing are infested with demon magic, and the Night Mouth is where the demons live. They think Ansul is swarming with demons and witches and wizards because Ansul has libraries. In Ald culture, women are all slaves, but in Ansul women are free to be anything they want to be. At least, they were until the Alds invaded. Especially offensive to the Alds is everyone in Ansul knows how to read and write. When the Alds are finished killing half of Ansul’s population, raping, burning buildings, and destroying all of their gods’ shrines, art, and statues, the next thing they do is ban the teaching of reading and writing, as well as all dancing, and the worshiping of the hundreds of Ansel’s gods. The Ald believe in a single god, Atth, the burning god. They do not permit the people of Ansul near where they are bivouacked nor do they enter many of Ansul’s buildings to do their work because they consider non-believers “unclean.” The whole point of their invasion of Ansul is to kill everyone who they believe is evil. But the elites order their soldiers to keep many of the surviving unbelievers alive to enslave, rape and rob, which of course, is done often to the utter bafflement and dismay of the true-believer rank-and-file soldiers and priests. The rank-and-file are free to abuse the surviving population as they will, though, which they do.

Memer is a “siege child”, the result of rape. (Apparently, raping unclean women is ok, gentler reader, as it is in many real-life religious theological governments.) Her appearance is that of being an Ald, although she has been raised culturally as someone from Ansul. Her grandfather, the Waylord (seems like the Waylord’s duties were that of being a mayor) is tortured by Alds for many months because they are certain he knows where the Night Mouth is. Of course, gentle reader, there is no such place. His body is broken and crippled. He is stripped of all of his duties as Waylord. But he never tells them of the library which is hidden in a secret cave linked to his house.

The Waylord teaches Memer to read and write, which she hides from everyone else. She also disguises herself as a boy, which enables her to travel everywhere in the city. She meets Ald boys, whom she discovers are lonely, longing for friends, or for sex with the nasty prostitutes they have heard exist in Ansul. She tries to stay clear of the priests, who are cruel and vicious.

Is it better to compromise, to convince the Alds trade and tolerance would be a better strategy in handling a conquered race without any armies, or should all of the Ald be killed in revenge, if the people of Ansul, who far outnumber the Ald soldiers, ever gain the upper hand? What do you think, gentler reader?

I think the novel has a lot of layers and nuances. I loved it, if not the Alds. Although in theory I should be an adult having grown-up intelligence and experience since I am old, an amateur watcher of the wisdom of democratic governments in the ways of statecraft after decades of living through the politics of the USA and reading about theocracies, I honestly don’t know if I’d opt for working with/for the invading theocratic enemy or not to stay alive? To hopefully moderate their views? To secretly work against them when I could? I love reading, gentler reader. I am also a woman, gentler reader, who lived through the eras of American suppression of all female rights until around 2000. I could not suppress my rage about not having the same rights as American men at all. A culture that burns books to enforce not just censorship but because of a theological point of view that reading is evil, idk. I own hundreds of book I love….

Brilliant book, highly enjoyed it!

At first it seems this could be a good/bad, right/wrong sort of book...but this is Ursula LeGuin we're talking about.

The occupiers outlaw books and have their way with the people. The occupied hide their books, and keep their magic hidden, what they have left. A girl is born from both sides, and learns to find her place and her talent.

The prose is beautiful, but the plot was a let down. I was hoping for more as the tension built, and there wasn't enough of a pay off. A beautifully written book but unexciting nonetheless.