Space Crone

by Ursula K. Le Guin, So Mayer (Editor), Sarah Shin (Editor)

For the first time, ​Space Crone brings together celebrated author Ursula K. Le Guin’s writings on feminism and gender. Witness to the twentieth century’s rebellions and upheavals, including women’s liberation, the civil rights movement and anti-war and environmental activism, Le Guin continued to fight for social and environmental justice throughout her life.

Famous for her experiments in imagining society where gender is irrelevant in novels such as ​The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin’s feminism kept ahead of the times to reimagine gender in a non-essentialising way.

​Space Crone shows the development of Le Guin’s expansive, multi-layered and deeply radical feminist consciousness from its roots in her ecological, anti-war and anti-nuclear activism, to her self-education about racism and her writing about ageing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Essays, Philosophy, Politics, Short Stories, Writing

230 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 2023

About the author

Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon.

She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

She’s got a point. She’s an icon, she’s a legend and she IS the moment. Now come on now.

[Juliette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure what to rate this collection. Of course, I love Ursula Le Guin and think most of the texts included in this book were powerful, well-written, and gave me plenty to reflect upon. However, the way the collection has been marketed by the publishing house makes me grind my teeth a little bit.

By saying that "For the first time, ​Space Crone brings together celebrated author Ursula K. Le Guin’s writings on feminism and gender," it is implied that these texts weren't previously published, or not in collections of their own. As a matter of fact, there were no exclusive texts included in here, rather they were taken from a variety of previously published collections that Le Guin herself put together. Had I know that, I would have purchased those collections instead as I would have rather read the texts in the context that Le Guin intended (Steering the Craft, The Wave in the Mind, Dancing at the Edge of the World, to name a few).

That being said, her writings remain almost timeless, and while I wondered at why some texts were included in this collection, I did mostly really enjoy my reading experience. If you are new to Le Guin and want to read a capsule of her thoughts on gender and feminism, this might be for you, although I would recommend sticking to her novels and previously published collections. Just generally think the publishing house should focus on finding new authors and publishing new voices as opposed to re-purposing famous authors who have their texts still in print through other publishers.

[Lillian Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully edited selection of poignant writings by LeGuin (some more poignant than others). I found her references to Woolf particularly astute.

[Kairi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feministlik ja teravapilguline kogumik naistest, meestest ja kultuurist. Le Guin heidab valgust nähtamatule ebaõiglusele, siin on juttu keelest, loodushoiust, emadusest, vananemisest, sugudest ja patriarhaadist. Jajah, ütlete te, aitab mulle juba menopausist ja vägivallast, ma olen kõike seda juba lugenud, aga Le Guin on revolutsiooniline ja kirjutas oma esimesed läheduse olulisust rõhutavad esseed ammu enne kolmanda laine feminismi. Ta teritab suurepäraselt sotsiaalseid tundlaid ja pakub selge sõna ja sädeleva huumoriga välja uusi elamise viise. Parafraseerides kindlasti samuti Le Guinist mõjutusi saanud Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie esseed “We Should All Be Feminists” - kas me siis polegi juba? Kui pole, siis lugege, ja kui olete, siis lugege ka. Võimestav kraam, paneb märkama ja arutlema, annab usku, et koos on parem, ja et on täiesti normaalne, isegi mõnus, olla vana ja tark. Elagu Ursula!

[Laura]

Ursula K. LeGuin is one of my all time favourites. This collection gathers together essays, speeches, and excerpts spanning much of her career, from the mid-70s to 2018. All of these writings have been published elsewhere before, and I'd read many of them previously.

LeGuin is an excellent writer and her essays are very much worth reading. This said, I'd suggest someone interested in first starting to read LeGuin's nonfiction start with a book LeGuin herself compiled rather than this one, which was put together of course without her input. The arrangement of essays is a bit strange here, and some of them - particularly things like excerpts from Steering the Craft - make more sense in the contexts LeGuin herself published them than here.

[Maki Morita · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Ursula era starts now

[Tjaša · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good essays in here, but a bit scattered as a collection. Good for die-hard fans though!

[Becca · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this!

For SO LONG everyone has been telling me how brilliant Le Guin is, and I have only recently started dabbling in her work. This was the book to break into my heart and have it dedicated to her. I love non fiction, and this book really celebrates the breadth of her talent, wit and brilliance.

Loved the intros from Mayer & Shin, and their occasional footnotes throughout.

Only docking a star because I found a noticeable difference in the essays from the first half to the second half, and the ending on Dangerous People didn't really work for me.
Brought me back with the afterword, and it will delight me to no end that her cat was called Pardner.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, important, and wise words. I laughed. I cried. I contemplated.

[Totarota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine schöne Zusammenstellung von Texten, die Le Guin zu den Themen Feminismus und Gender, insbesondere im Kontext ihres eigenen Schreibens, verfasst hat und welche die Autorin für mich einfach mal wieder zu einer der sympathischsten Personen überhaupt machen.
Enthalten sind überwiegend Essays und Reden, die man auch in anderen Sammelbänden findet, sowie ein paar fiktionale Texte wie etwa die Erzählung „Sur“, in welcher der Südpol erstmalig 1909 durch eine Gruppe Frauen bereist wird, oder „Dangerous People“ aus der Welt von „Always Coming Home“. Da die versammelten Texte über einige Jahrzehnte hinweg entstanden sind, werden auch Veränderungen in Le Guins Denken sichtbar, beispielsweise musste sie einen Text über die Entstehung von „Die linke Hand der Dunkelheit“ revidieren, da sie die Verwendung männlicher Pronomen für die geschlechtslosen Gethenianer zwar zunächst verteidigte, später aber zunehmend hinterfragte.

[Cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

- Bryn Mawr Commencement Address
- The Fisherwoman’s Daughter
- The Sound of Your Writing
- What It Was Like
- Dangerous People (probably, but skimmed bc I have Aways Coming Home)
- Afterword (excerpt from an interview with Arwen Curry)

[sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got my hands in a copy of this after reluctantly coming to terms with the fact I needed to open my mind to sifi. I’m a slut for essays so thought this would be a good way to dip my toes in one of the most famous sifi writers to date…

and goddamn do I have a Crush.

The fact that Ursula is :

- more in love with Woolf than I am (OBSESSED)
-reflects on cows
- reworks past writing and entertains conversations about what that looks like
- her name is one of my favorite underrated Hot Names

Makes me so excited to read more of her and also all her recs dropped throughout the book and that one random writing exercise - should I form a group to do book writing exercises together, who has the will and then does this one their own??

(I’m scared to admit that I loved her essays and then skimmed over the sifi essays please don’t judge me or even read this part it’s in parenthesis so it’s a secret between us, I promise I’m going to read and love sifi I just get bored and I need someone to HELP me please)

[Danika Christensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half or third is a really good selection of writing, but the latter half feels disconnected, choppy, and mostly taken out of context. Some of the essays are less than 2 pages, and leave nothing of substance after reading. I loved Sur, In and Out, the Fisherwoman's Daughter, but I found myself rushing through the end of the book because I was shrimply disinterested.

This is NOT a review of Le Guin's writing, which is perfect and beautiful and soft-- Reading her short stories made me want to pick up her science fiction books. Its mostly a problem with the anthology itself (the editing is also pretty sloppy).

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

'It will be very hard to explain to her that we want her to go because only a person who has experienced, accepted and acted the entire human condition— the essential quality of which is change— can fairly represent humanity. "Me?" she'll say, just a trifle slyly. "But I never did anything." But it won't wash.'

-

I love Le Guin; I've only really read her fantasy fiction until now, but I knew her nonfiction voice was sly and winking and irrepressible, and it's even better here than I hoped. There are turns of phrase that remind me a lot of the way my grandmother talks. I hope only to be as mighty an old women as them.

I wish there was slightly more short fiction in here than there was, because I really liked Sur and In and Out and Dangerous People especially (I may have to try and get hold of Always Coming Home). I particularly liked The Sound Of Your Writing as well; I don't always hear (hah) writers talked about as having an inner ear (but perhaps that's just because I don't read a lot of writing about writing, because unless I really admire the writer, I find it a bit naval-gazey) but that's always been how I've thought of it, and it was nice to be validated. I shall have to try the writing exercises they seemed fun...

There were bits in here that were immensely funny, more than I expected; I feel as if Le Guin is not always positioned as a 'funny' writer but I find her very witty. I'm dying to find a recording of her performing Loud Cows. Effervescent. And practically the whole of Introducing Myself was pure gold, as well as cuttingly accurate. And, while not necessarily intended to be extremely funny, I personally had a big giggle at "You can't write science fiction well if you haven't read it, though not all who try to write it know this." God. So true. Getting truer. Le Guin and Pratchett were the two always clipping in with bats in hand every time someone disdained the SFF genre, and I wish they were still with us to do it.

Reading the redux on The Left Hand of Darkness and Is Gender Necessary without having actually read The Left Hand of Darkness yet was very interesting, I guess this will probably affect the way I encounter it when I do read it, but perhaps that's not such a bad thing. I'm also pleased she pointed out that bit in Tehanu where Moss describes the form of 'women's' magic and how everyone's jumped uncritically on the idea of an inherent 'primitive' 'deep' women's magic without noticing Tenar's response, which defused it.

Varied and enjoyable, well put-together and deftly edited. Really enjoyed, and lots of food for thought. May have to go back through with a pencil.

[urbancohort · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays on feminism and gender. I would recommend reading some of the essays after reading a few books from Le Guin, especially Left Hand of Darkness, as some of them are self-criticism of her earlier books.

The topics include, but not limited to, objectivity vs subjectivity, patriarchal and societal expectations from women, especially artists and authors, old age, and experiences of women in old age.

The essays themselves are beautiful, but some of them felt out of the place, not related to the main topic, which is due to editing.

I knew I would enjoy this book, but I did more than I expected. Would recommend.

[juanje · Rating 4 out of 5]

buen libro! ella es una genia, escribe unas frases largas y bonitas. siempre hay algo de ficción en todo lo que escribe pero los textos que más he disfrutado han sido los de no ficción o crítica. 'Introducing Myself' ha sido mi favorito, y la pequeña entrevista del final es muy mona. Gracias Bal por regalarme este libro por navidad.

[Annie Tate Cockrum · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5
A beautiful and compassionate collection of essays. Le Guin’s writing is still incredibly relevant today even though (most of) the essays in this collection are many years old. The main subjects that she explores in this collection are gender, aging, gender in relation to aging, and writing.

[Sílvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Ursula K. Le Guin might have been the most interesting person to have ever exist? I don't remember having ever read such funny, beautiful, emotional, and thought-provoking non-fiction before; the first essay (also called Space Crone) made me tear up a little bit.
Will always pick up anything written by her with the certainty that I won't be disappointed. Love her!!

[Eva Rajher · Rating 5 out of 5]

loooveeed, i keep returning to it. such an important writer, activist, feminist, person. really a shame she isn’t more known. beautifully written thoughts on language, gender and female writers/working women.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's about time somebody thought of this.

Ursula Le Guin is well known for her fiction on gender and women's roles, and also for her non-fiction about the same topics and on writing, especially writing as a woman (and as an aging woman). Finally, someone has pulled together a book including excerpts on these topics from a variety of sources (largely her own books of essays published over decades), as well as sprinkling pieces of fiction throughout that illustrate her points.

From the delightful story 'Sur', where an all-woman expedition reaches the South Pole first but won't tell anyone lest they embarrass the male explorers whom they greatly admire, to the excerpt from 'Always Coming Home' titled 'Dangerous People' which look at alternate ways for men and women to form relationships and interact, the fiction shows the working-out of Le Guin's thinking. The essays are marvelous: Thoughtful, considerate, sometimes intentionally provocative and/or humorous. Especially in the addresses she gave to audiences, you can 'hear' her voice. In some cases, she has added commentary about audience reactions to what she says, and her responses to their reactions. Priceless.

As you can see from my profile photo, I am a fan of Le Guin. I have all the books that these pieces were drawn from, but to read them all together in this concise form is illuminating. No Le Guin fan should be without this. It's a UK book, but US readers can order it through Blackwell's with free shipping to the US. With the strong dollar exchange rate, it's probably cheaper than if it was published in the US.

[ilinca.burdulea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the second book of Ursula Le Guin I read and definitely helped a lot in understanding the context of her body of work (since I started with Always Coming Home which was incredibly dense and complex both as a narrative and compendium of metadata about that specific post-apocalyptic civilization). This selection of essays spans topics such as feminism, gender norms in art, world building (as an experiment), but also shows how the author is continuously engaging with and revisiting her work with a critical perspective. Some essays were absolutely formative, such as:

@ Bryn Mawr Commencement Address: scanning the patriarchal mythology of what a woman does or should do, defining a ‚father tongue‘ (spoken in public discourse) as opposed to a ‚mother tongue‘ (care rooted in the mundane)
@ The Fisherwoman‘s daughter: relating to her ‚greatest enabler‘, Virginia Woolf, she describes the process of imagination that precedes writing while being at war with the conventions that ‚still exist to protect men from being shocked, still admit only male experience of the women‘s bodies, passions, and existence‘
@ What Women Know: amazing critical view on teaching of the mothers (which teaches children the morals and the manners of their people - how to be human without reference to their sex; this also teaches history of the family/tribe) and teaching of the fathers (only male knowledge passed to boys, which tends to maintain hierarchy and uphold the status quo; men also transmit public history). Given this lens, are women the great upholders of traditional values? Or is this only a story men tell in order to be able to see themselves as the teachers of what is new and important?

[mattie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such an interesting person with such an interesting mind. Love the way that this collection is structured to acknowledge Le Guin’s changing ideas about certain topics and the way it allows us to see how her thoughts developed and also follow certain threads of arguments as they pop up in different essays/talks. In a lot of ways the ideas she presents are not revolutionary but she expresses them in really interesting, lucid and grounded ways which makes them feel very transformative whilst remaining accessible. I thought her conception of the father tongue/mother tongue/native tongue in the Bryn Mawr Commencement Address was fascinating and definitely something that I’ll be returning to. The only other work of Le Guin’s that I have read is Left Hand Of Darkness, but the final section of this collection with the chapters of Dangerous People made me really want to read Always Coming Home. The way Le Guin writes science fiction is so insanely skilful, it really feels like she focuses on storytelling and building a culture rather than just a planet or world and the glimpse of the Kesh people provided in those few chapters has really made me want to know more.

Anyway main point is I just love Le Guin!!! So cool!!! So fascinating!!! 10/10

[Kai · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star. No one is more shocked than I.

This book was just not meant for me; I found the few short fictional stories included here weak, the non-fiction parts repetitive, and generally felt frustrated at the short-sighted interpretation of feminist thought. Everything felt very much like a women vs. men division: the Us and the Them. No thought was spared to how the patriarchy hurts men also, and how if we want anything to change for the better we need to work together, not sequester ourselves into separate boxes of existence.
There was no mention of capitalism and its influence on how the patriarchy functions anywhere. I found the absence of queer theory severely lacking also.

All in all, this book read to me as self-absorbed and uncritical. Perhaps that's simply due to this particular selection of works, but I felt disappointed. For anyone interested in the premise of this book, I highly recommend they pick up something by bell hooks instead.

[Joey]

I'm not sure I would recommend this compilation, although I'm glad it contained several essays and short stories by Le Guin that I hadn't read before. Something just doesn't sit right with me, that some of her various writings from over the decades (mostly related to feminism, sexism, intersectionality, etc.) have been brought together posthumously by editors with their own agenda. Despite sympathizing with the editors' motives, I suggest reading Le Guin's works individually, as intended, rather than grouped together without the author's endorsement. I hope her ghost doesn't haunt me for saying that!

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with any collection, some inclusions were better than others. This one would get 4 stars for 'Sur' alone - man Le Guin was such a bad ass, her creativity is almost unmatched. I adore her for her ability to think and change and forever question herself, never stuck in one place or one line of thought.

[Arianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love you forever and always Ursula Le Guin <3

No matter fiction or non-fiction, Le Guin writes with such warmth and kindness and brilliance.
I do wish this collection had more thought/organisation/context added to it though.

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Qué interesante leer textos de Ursula ya anciana, qué mente prodigiosa y qué capacidad de cambio y adaptación a los tiempos. 🥲

[Vics · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cracking. Lots of small bits to read. All good

[MouDeik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ich liebe diese Frau

[anna de luca di pietralata · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally someone who has grown, grown old, and has looked with eyes and mind wide open