Lo Irreal y lo Real: Relatos seleccionados, volumen 1

The Unreal and the Real #1

by Ursula K. Le Guin, Juan Pascual Martínez Fernández (Translator), Ana Quijada (Translator)

Las historias de Ursula K. Le Guin han dado forma al modo en que muchos lectores perciben el mundo. Han ayudado a dar voz a los que no la tienen, a otorgar esperanza a los marginados y a decirle la verdad al poder. Manteniendo siempre su independencia y sentido del humor, ha demostrado ser una de las mejores escritoras de todos los tiempos. En los dos tomos de Lo Irreal y lo Real la propia autora selecciona algunos de sus mejores relatos, que recorren todo el espectro que va de la ficción al realismo, pasando por el realismo mágico, la sátira, la ciencia ficción, el surrealismo y la fantasía. Ella misma presenta estos relatos cuidadosamente escogidos en las introducciones escritas en exclusiva para este volumen recopilatorio. «Nadie, por buenas razones, ha sido capaz de decir exactamente dónde comienza y termina la “fantasía”. Es inmensamente más grande que la categoría comercial actual de libros etiquetados como Fantasía. No puede limitarse a “lo imposible”, “magia” o “lo sobrenatural”. Los orígenes de la literatura fantástica se pierden de vista porque es mundial, y si se incluyen en ella mitos y leyendas, es muy anterior a la historia y la alfabetización. Es permanente, y prospera, porque es infinitamente adaptable. [...] No es mi trabajo como escritora facilitarle la vida a nadie. Incluyéndome a mí.» Un compendio de relatos, algunos inéditos, de la gran creadora de mundos.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

336 pages, Paperback

First published November 20, 2012

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

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure whether to rate this collection 3 or 4 stars but at the end I feel pretty good going with 4.

Reason I gone as low as 3 (not actually that low normally but this is Ursula Le Guin we are talking about) is that at times I thought slow, methodical approach doesn't work as good in short form and made it bit dull but they develop into good stories with some very clever moments with subtle feminist undertones in lot of them.

The best story: Diary of the rose, it's one the best Le Guin's stories which is saying something.

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Some people will identify the first volume as “mundane” and the second as “science fiction,” but they will be wrong. All the science-fiction stories are in the second volume, but not all the stories in the second volume are science fiction by any definition.”

--So, people are not wrong calling the first volume “mundane”?
--I am not a connoisseur of fiction. I keep hearing we as a society are accelerating towards existential ecological crisis, so much of my free time is spent on learning the global material (physical and social) conditions from critical nonfiction:
“There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.” -Marx, preface to Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1
--Only once I’ve exhausted my post-work, post-school attention on critical nonfiction books/lectures/interviews/biographies will I entertain fiction. By then, my state of consciousness is so mushy that I’m drawn to favorites I’ve ready many times.

--Still, nonfiction academics who are also talented writers/communicators (Yanis Varoufakis, David Graeber) draw inspiration from literature, so I feel obligated to dabble. Le Guin has been hit or miss for me, both fiction and nonfiction (No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters).
--This first earthly volume was a miss (only 3-out-of-18 short stories I found compelling), compared with Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands (6-out-of-20):
-“The Diary of the Rose” and “The Water is Wide”: reminds me of The Lathe of Heaven
-“Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight”. That is all.

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been picking this up and putting it down for something like a year now, and finally got the time on commutes and home time, between other big books on audio, to wrap it up.

Tandy Cronyn is a perfect reader for Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ms. Le Guin is an awesome writer. However, these stories are from the not-early, not-middle part of her career, and this half of the two-volume set (sometimes one...) are the parts set on earth, so for me, these were mostly so-so stories from a great writer.

With the exception of 1987 's "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight", the tale of a meeting between a modern girl and Coyote the Trickster, with guest appearances by other pantheon members Jay, Chickadee, Grandmother, and others. A quiet and gentle five-stars to this Hugo-winning story.

If you like more experimental fiction, or feel complete-ist and want to catch some old Orsinia stories, you will find some hidden gems here (but they weren't for me just now...).

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume of Le Guin's stories contains the work that is perhaps furthest from what you expect of her, which would usually be science fiction and fantasy. These are her realist works, which doesn't mean straight forward or more serious or anything like that. It just means that they do, or could, take place in the world we're used to.

While Le Guin's writing is always beautiful, and I love the atmosphere of her stories -- there's something cool and clear about them, something steady and patient and knowing -- I'm not a big fan of most of these stories. They're very literary, sometimes to the point where I find them a little overdone, maybe pretentious. I'm not quite sure what the word I want is, but anyway, a lot of these don't work for me. They make me feel not clever enough, or just frustrated with their meandering.

[GraceAnne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read nearly all these stories before, in all the places they were previously published. Most I remembered, but I was struck with how powerful, and how elegantly written, they were and are. There were a couple (e.g. "The Diary of the Rose") whose remembered pain was so intense I could not finish them, all these decades later. "Buffalo Gals, Won't you come out tonight" is one of the great short stories of the 20th century, and it still is in the 21st. Treat yourself and read it. Read them all.

[Mareike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again and again I am amazed at the brilliance of Le Guin's storytelling and her commitment to exploring the human condition.

[Librukie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

"Si había una manera de vivir en un tiempo propio y todavía moverse entre los mundos, ellos querían probarla jugándoselo todo, porque nada funciona salvo aquello en lo que empeñamos nuestra alma, nada está seguro salvo aquello que arriesgamos".

Ya de normal es muy difícil reseñar una antología (y ya no te digo puntuarla), pero más aún cuando estamos hablando de una de más de 700 páginas, 39 relatos y con mezcla de géneros. Esta se divide en dos partes. En la primera tenemos relatos más cotidianos, con pocos elementos fantásticos (quizá de ahí venga "lo real"), y en la segunda ya están todos los relatos de fantasía y ciencia ficción.
En casi todas las antologías que he leído hay algún que otro altibajo, pero quizá este es uno de los casos en los que más me he movido entre extremos.
La inmensa mayoría de los relatos pertenecientes a la primera parte, a pesar de estar maravillosamente bien escritos, me han dejado un poco fría. El único que me ha gustado mucho es "El diario de la Rosa", y porque es el único que tiene un componente distópico, así que perfectamente podría estar en la segunda mitad.
Cuando llegamos a esa segunda mitad, la cosa ya cambia. Es donde considero que están los mejores relatos, y algunos de ellos son de lo mejor que he leído de Úrsula en general, como "Quienes se marchan de Omelas", "La cuestión de Seggri" o "Las chicas salvajes". El tema es que muchos de esos relatos yo ya los había leído por separado o en otras antologías, con lo cual la sorpresa tampoco ha sido tan grande.
Y por esta razón se me hace tan difícil valorarla en conjunto, porque hay relatos que se me han hecho bola y otros que me parecen de lo mejor de la obra de Le Guin, a partes iguales.

Algo que nunca suelo hacer en las reseñas, pero que en esta ocasión veo necesario comentar, es el inflado precio de esta edición en castellano. Mis reseñas suelen centrarse simplemente en el contenido, ya que no soy una persona que tenga muchos conocimientos en el mundo editorial, simplemente soy una lectora. Pero como consumidora no puedo dejar pasar que un libro de tapa blanda normal y corriente se suba a los 32€, en mi humilde opinión, de forma bastante injustificada. Y más aún cuando muchos de estos relatos ya se encuentran presentes y repetidos en otras antologías de la autora de la misma editorial. Como persona que los ha pagado, ya que Úrsula es una de mis autoras favoritas, yo os recomendaría que buscaseis los relatos en otras antologías, y que comprobéis si ya los tenéis en otros libros. Por ejemplo, "Traiciones" está en "Cuatro caminos hacia el perdón", "La cuestión de Seggri" en "El cumpleaños del mundo", "Los voladores de Gy" en "Planos paralelos", mientras que "Quienes se marchan de Omelas" y "Las chicas (niñas) salvajes" tienen edición aparte solo para ellos.

Siempre es un gustazo leer a Úrsula y esta vez no ha sido diferente, pero entre el precio de la edición, la repetición de relatos que ya había leído (y que justo son los mejores) y que la primera mitad no me gustó tanto, la sensación ha sido un poquito más agridulce que en otras ocasiones.

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Palabras brillando en el cielo nocturno (Reseña, 2022)

(También disponible en: https://cuadernosdeunbibliofago.wordp... )

Querida Ursula:

¿Me creerías si te digo que después de tu partida el mundo está cada vez más hueco? Literal y metafóricamente. Caminamos sobre un planeta que es día a día más semejante a la cáscara de un planeta, creamos cosas que son cáscaras de cosas, escribimos libros que apenas alcanzan a ser cáscaras de libros. Pero no se trata de caer en el pesimismo, procuraste enseñarnos, sino en seguir ese camino de cáscaras regadas, en atravesar el laberinto del bosque siguiéndolas, en encontrar las fuerzas para aprender su lenguaje crujiente y poder leer, entonces, las historias de que esas cáscaras no sabían del todo que estaban contando. Descifrar, de nuevo, la autoría de las semillas de acacia.

Ya lo ves, este camino de cosas rotas, de materia en descomposición, me lleva de regreso a tus cuentos. Vuelvo a escuchar gozoso las conversaciones sobre el perdón en una casa donde sólo la sala está iluminada, el tintineo de las llaves que cantan en la plaza su deseo de otro mundo, los gritos jubilosos de la ciudad que celebra sus fiestas con carreras de caballos. Acudo a ti, en la última selección de historias que preparaste, para recordar que mientras haya lenguaje hay mito, y que mientras haya mito hay mundo: un mundo donde la coyote juega a darnos otra oportunidad, incluso cuando nuestro tributo a su divinidad devoradora estaba envenenado.

Supongo que es la generosidad de quienes saben que en el fondo no somos más que historias: las que contamos, las que escuchamos o leemos, las que vivimos. Este semestre le presenté tu Terramar a uno de mis estudiantes. Se llama Ricardo. Fue deslumbrado. Ahora tu voz está en su voz, y algo de los mundos que creaste latirá en los mundos que él está creando. A esa generosidad me refiero, a la que nos ayuda a conocer las palabras que no sabíamos que necesitábamos, a la que nos regala los cuentos que son capaces, no importa que tan breve sea el intervalo, de ayudarnos a llenar el vacío del mundo.

Gracias, querida Ursula —coyote, dragón, chica búfalo— por las palabras que, brillando en el cielo nocturno, señalan el camino que se aleja de Omelas.

Afortunadamente tuyo,

Lucas.


**

Lo irreal y lo real es una antología personal donde la autora, según sus palabras, eligió aquellos cuentos que no habían recibido tanta atención como otros, incluyendo, además, un par de grandes éxitos. El resultado es espléndido. Todo lo que enamora de Le Guin está aquí. Léanla como tomando agua. Háganse conscientes del milagro.

¿Ya dije que amo a Le Guin?

[DivaDiane SM · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've only listened to 1 story and half of the next. The first was beautiful. It's amazing how LeGuin makes you care about the characters in such a short time. The 2nd story features one of the same characters, but instead of in some made-up place it's in Ohio. ??? Maybe I misunderstood something. The character may not be the same person even if he has the same unusual name. I'm looking forward to the rest.

I just realized That I never got back to reviewing this properly. And now, a couple of years later I can’t. At least I can’t do a good job. First, I listened to it so I don’t know the titles of the stories that are still vivid. Second, many of them aren’t. Vivid, I mean. Looking at the titles somewhere doesn’t help. The one from the POV of the tree was just amazing. And there was a female character in one who I want to be when I grown up. I think I have to listen to it again.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

These short stories were a revelation to me. Ursula K. Le Guin is one of my favorite authors, and books like The Left Hand of Darkness changed my understanding of what's possible in life and the largeness of the human spirit. I think of her, naturally enough, as a sci fi writer -- one of the best. These short stories are written with all the artistry and nuance one expects of Le Guin, and yet they are not really sci fi -- at least not in atmosphere. They read more like John Steinbeck or (even, a bit of a stretch) Jack London -- books about the (American) west with a bit of a frontier attitude and a chip on the shoulder toward the east. As such, I was both enthralled, because they were so well written, and a tiny bit disappointed, because they didn't take me anywhere new. Instead, we get small, precious insights into families, sexual politics, human dreams and daydreams -- all the stuff of everyday life. I'm hoping that volume 2 takes me to other planets, but I am grateful for volume 1.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stuff I Read – The Unreal and the Real Vol 1 Where on Earth by Ursula K Le Guin

To be completely honest, this was not the volume of Ursula K Le Guin’s stories that I was most excited about. That would be Volume Two of this two volume set, which explores the more speculative, otherworldly stories that she has written. But being a bit of a book nerd who wants to have things “in the proper order,” I got this one first. And I must say I was surprised with the quality and fantasy that exist even in these stories. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I know, because Le Guin is such a talent when it comes to stories. Criminally I only discovered most of her works more recently and this volume seemed like a good way to catch myself up on some of the stories that she likes best.

And despite it being a collection of stories set on Earth, or presumably on Earth, there is a lot of spec elements at play here. Many of the stories either take place in a completely fictional European country or incorporate things like manifestations of Native American lore, sentient trees, and a lot of nontraditional narratives. There is a good mix of types of stories, too, ranging from themes of political oppression to familiar identity, cultural heritage, perspective, and the nature of stories. There’s a lot to like in these stories, and hopefully something for all tastes, though by and large these are not happy stories. That only makes sense, though, when you stop to examine what exactly these stories are dealing with.

Stories like “Buffalo Gals…” are the ones that I enjoyed the most, though, which set out to tell a story but that included a lot of weirdness, a lot of elements that were never quite defined. There is such a sense of yearning and pain in those stories, and the ending was almost heartbreaking, tragic and inevitable. And that’s what I liked about it, that this wasn’t something that was going to let you get away, that in the end it showed the reality of the situation while telling and fantastical story. I wonder some if part of why I liked it was because it seemed like one of those stories that really hits you, that doesn’t let you escape the implications. It doesn’t present you with a clear picture, good and evil, but a nice gradient of gray that you have to navigate.

I was perhaps less a fan of some of the stories that played around too much with the actual structure of the story, though I did like some of them. It just became a little difficult in some of the stories to follow what was happening, what was taking place when, when the narrative jumped so many times. And where this was used to create a tapestry of perspectives to hint at there not being much of a real story or person so much as a number of them, I found I liked it. But again, there were times that I had trouble following, and it made some of those stories more frustrating. I still liked them, but those were the ones I would check to see how many pages were left on.

And sprinkled in throughout are some nice very short stories, which is always refreshing for a collection to do, because it does give something of a creak from some of the longer, denser stories. They are like breaths of air, and were necessary at times despite taking a long time to get through the book. In the end, though, the collection managed to provide me with a good cross section of Le Guin’s work, and especially those based on Earth. Most of them were still in some wants fantasy or at least speculative, but it is a side of her writing that I really hadn’t seen before and I did like it a lot. And with all that in mind I give this volume of stories an 8.25/10.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Úgy indul, mint egy vakrandi, amit ráadásul a nagymama szervezett le. Gyanakvó tapogatózással, halvány, körvonalazatlan nemtetszéssel. A kötet első fele egy fiktív közép-európai országban játszódik – elmaradottsággal, elnyomással, konstruált hagyományokkal dolgozik, de felsejlenek benne a valódi Közép-Európa egyes történelmi eseményei. Valamiféle pszeudo-realizmus ez, érzékenyen megírva, ám távol tartott tőle, hogy végig úgy éreztem, csak egy Le Guin fejében létező közép-európai beszél úgy, mint a novellák szereplői. Az első hűha-élményem A rózsa naplója olvasásakor sodort el: itt a diktatúrák működésének egy olyan aspektusát kapja el a szerző, ami teljesen a feje tetejére állítja az autoriter rendszerekről alkotott képünket, csupa termékeny bizonytalanság és zavarba ejtő kiszolgáltatottság – nem csupán az áldozat esetében, de az elkövető oldalán is.

Ezt követően, bár akadtak még csúcspontok (Az út iránya, vagy épp a Buffalo lányai, gyertek ki), beállt egy középértékre a kötet. Végig tudatában voltam, hogy Le Guin szenzitív szövegalkotó, aki maximális empátiával fordul a szereplői felé. Ez jó. Aztán jó az is, hogy előszeretettel helyez el pontokat az elbeszélésekben, ahol a szereplők közti kapcsolat, illetve a novella és az olvasó közti kapcsolat egyszeriben új struktúrába rendeződik: ez magabiztos mesterségbeli tudásra utal, és arra, hogy Le Guint őszintén érdeklik az irodalmi eszközök, és azok hatása az irodalmi élményre. Csak itt valahogy mintha el lennének eresztve a történetek. A változás megtörtént, oké, de megtorpanunk – mintha a legtöbb történetnek nem lenne igazi kifutása. Vagy mintha az új nézőpont lenne maga a lényeg, az lenne a kifutás. És azt hiszem, itt leplezi le magát a szerző: első blikkre azt gondolnánk – az erőteljes érzékenység miatt –, hogy egy szereplő- és kapcsolatközpontú íróval van dolgunk, de nem, valójában ezek ötletközpontú novellák. És én a jó ötletet hajlamosabb vagyok kevesebbre értékelni, mint a komplex kapcsolatot szereplő és szereplő, szereplő és olvasó között. Mert előbbi csak úgy jön, utóbbiért viszont jobban meg kell dolgozni.

Azért nem volt tragikus találkozás, egy második randit még mindenképpen leegyeztetünk. Kínait szereted? Vagy gyros-tálat inkább?

[Dawn F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le Guin’s poetic prose takes you through her stories of different make and structure, sometimes philosophical, sometimes sharp, sometimes dreamy, but never boring. While I wasn’t always clear on what the purpose of the stories were, her writing still holds a special, spellbinding quality to me that makes the topic less important than simply enjoying the words themselves. I swear, she could narrate the phone book and I’d listen.

[elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

le guin is wonderful as ever. cool to read some of her earth-set stories, i'll have to read some more of orsinia.
favourites:
unlocking the air
the diary of the rose
buffalo gals, won't you come out tonight
horse camp
texts
hand, cup, shell

[Книжни Криле · Rating 5 out of 5]

На 22 януари тази година, на 88 годишна възраст ни напусна майката на Гед, богинята на Землемория, великата Урсула Ле Гуин. Едно от най-големите имена в съвременното фентъзи и фантастика, тя ни остави богато наследство от истории, различни по дължина, жанр и усещане, но обединени от темите за всичко онова, което ни прави хора – в този свят и отвъд пределите на въображението. Днес си припомням Урсула Ле Гуин и нейния човеколюбив, философски мироглед с „Реално и нереално” – общо издание на двутомника „Къдe, зa бoгa?” и „Външeн кocмoc, вътрeшнa зeмя”, част от поредицата „Велики майстори на фентъзи и фантастика” на изд. „Бард”. Прочетете ревюто на "Книжни Криле":

https://knijnikrile.wordpress.com/201...

[Cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

a rough start in comparison with other of le guin’s work, but it gets much stronger as it goes on and ends up in a much better place than it began. part of the issue is that many of these stories are played much straighter than the vast majority of le guin’s most popular work; turns out that I prefer her more explicitly speculative fiction to her more realistic fiction, as a rule (even though some of the most realistic stories here turned out to be among my favorites from within this collection in particular). still, le guin on a mediocre day can run laps around most authors at their best, and even though this isn’t my favorite from her œuvre, there are a number of lines of beauty or sudden, startling insight.

thoughts on individual stories in order, separated by section (not official, just ~vibes~), are below. as a group, the orsinia-set stories were my least favorite, and the oregon-set ones perhaps my favorite—again, not individually but collectively.

🐻 “brothers and sisters” (orsinia) — dull — she talked loudly, and laughed aloud. she struck back at whatever touched her. a voice, a wind, a word she didn’t understand, the evening star. she hadn’t learned indifference: she knew only defiance. || behind them, the karst stretched in the light of the half moon, away on and on, pocked, pitted, level, answering the moonlight with its own pallor taken at third hand from the sun. the moon, secondhand, worn at the edges, was hung up in the sky like something a housewife leaves out to remind her it needs mending.
🐻 “a week in the country” (orsinia) — a little better than brothers and sisters — um, taught me the word houris in sort of random usage
🐻 “unlocking the air” (orsinia) — fine — remember the tale of koschei the deathless, whose life was in a needle, and the needle was in an egg, and the egg was in a swan, and the swan was in an eagle, and the eagle was in a wolf, and the wolf was in the palace whose walls are built of the stones of power: enchantment within enchantment. we are a long way yet from the egg that holds the needle that must be broken so that koschei the deathless can die, and so the tale ends.
🐻 “imaginary countries” (orsinia) — not much of anything

🥀 “the diary of the rose” — the first really compelling story in the collection; not a work anyone would describe as being one of ‘staggering originality,’ perhaps, but COMPELLING. potentially triggering for some; lobotomy and the loss of an ‘intelligent’ mind to ‘madness’ (and please note that this latter is a belief whose ableism I will fully cop to, and I clung most firmly to it in high school and college but have done a lot of learning and unlearning since then) were legitimate and profound fears of mine for a long time, and while lobotomy itself isn’t the threat in this story, it’s not far off.

🌳 “the direction of the road” — note to self to use this for as an exercise in perspective for creative writing next school year!! — I will not act eternity for them. let them not turn to the trees for death. if that is what they want to see, let them look to one another’s eyes and see it there.
🦄 “the white donkey” — still just not sure what the point was
🎶 “gwilan’s harp” — a nice little story. in spite of the flaws of this collection you can really see le guin quite explicitly flexing the muscles with which to explore the role of Woman and what that means and what its bounds are — the two of them were gentle to each other. not that they lived together thirty years without some quarreling: two rocks sitting side by side would get sick of each other thirty years, and who knows what they say now and then when nobody is listening. but if people trust each other, they can grumble, and a good bit of grumbling takes the fuel from wrath. (do u think the EEAAO team has read this story lol) || and the good year, and the poor year, and there was food to eat and be cooked and clothes to wear and be washed, good year or poor year.

🐆 “may’s lion” — u fucking know I love old women!!! — and people who behave strangely are usually sick, or in some kind of pain. sometimes, though, they are spiritually moved to act strangely.
🏜️ “buffalo gals, won’t you come out tonight” — many people have noted this as the standout from the collection, and I can understand why. pretty sure I’ve read this one before at some point — “go on, little one, granddaughter,” spider said. “don’t be afraid. you can live well there. I’ll be there too, you know: in your dreams, in your ideas, in dark corners in the basement. don’t kill me, or I’ll make it rain.”
🐎 “horse camp” — MS. LE GUIN CAPTURING THE SPIRIT OF THE HORSE GIRL LIKE A BUTTERFLY ON A PINBOARD

🌊 “the water is wide” — lethe! styx! who needs a self, anyway! explores similar themes to “the diary of the rose,” but more experimental (or uneven, depending how you look at it) in pacing, and not my personal preference of the two, although I don’t think this one was bad
🎪 “the lost children” — my brain took in nothing ngl. malls are bad? or something? um. that’s on me sorry!!

🐚 “texts” (klatsand) — yeah ykw I too am haunted by words and echolalia lol — ‘sister, sister, sister, light the light’
🐚 “sleepwalkers” (klatsand) — another good one for the studying of craft
🐚 “hand, cup, shell” (klatsand) — more on Role of Woman — a younger son had poured whiskey onto diabetes and died at thirty-one. men did seem to be so fragile.

🌬️ “ether, or” (not klatsand but still oregon) — although not perhaps The primary focus of this story, one of my favorite things about the oregon stories in general, klatsand or otherwise, is le guin’s unflinching persistence in laying bare the white supremacist foundations of oregon as a state — it’s restless. it’s off somewhere over the mountains, making up in one dimension what it lacks in another. if it doesn’t keep moving, the malls will catch it. nobody’s surprised it’s gone. the white man’s his own burden, and nowhere to lay it down.
🌀 “half past four” (I think also oregon) — and ANOTHER good one (and again about womanhood to a certain extent) for the studying of craft! — ella was the last person in the western industrial hegemony who said ‘icebox’ or ‘canapé’ or crossed her legs at the ankles. || wearing purple sweatpants and a red sweatshirt with an expressionless yellow circle face on it labeled ‘HAVE A DAY’ || “always men?” / ella nodded. “they hadn’t invented women yet then,” she said. || “I remember your wedding.” / “oh, christ, yes, when you were flower girl.” || her voice was low and a little husky, with a break in it, like some children’s voices, what they used to call a whiskey voice, only childlike.

[Célia | Estante de Livros · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gostei muito de alguns livros que li da autora, outros nem por isso, e este livro de contos infelizmente ficou no segundo grupo. A grande maioria dos contos não me disse muito, fosse por não conseguir perceber qual o objetivo da história, fosse por ter achado a escrita demasiado esotérica.

[Garrett S · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I really enjoyed some stories, not so much others. Le Guin’s style is really great & I enjoyed the beauty she instills in her everyday-type characters.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ursula can make anything seem otherworldly. A little Oregon foreshadowing as well :’) a great little collection.

[Koen Crolla · Rating 2 out of 5]

Le Guin at her best is very good—I want to believe that—but her insecurities about writing SFF, which she shares with most SFF writers worth reading, have led her to produce a good deal of extremely tedious dross over the decades. This first part of a two-part short story collection of hers is explicitly dedicated to that dross, though she obviously doesn't use that word herself in her introduction.
Some of the entries verge on memorability (Direction of the Road, The Water is Wide, Texts), though I would hesitate to call even those good; the great majority are conspicuously pointless—meaningless expressions of an empty literary aesthetic, not even stories. Some people do like that—hell, I do, at least some of the time—but getting them one after the other really highlights that Le Guin wrote to keep the lights on first and foremost.

[Therese · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this first "Unreal" volume of stories from Ursula K. Le Guin is like floating down a complex river on a spring day. Eddies, calms, and steady currents punctuated by brief, thrilling rapids. She selected the included stories herself, and they are mostly--not all--set in non-fantastical homes and places, among non-fantastical people. But holy cow, are Le Guin's characters and ideas ever fantastic. No author has ever better succeeded in riveting me with family dynamics. If you're looking for SFF, you'll find more if it in Volume 2, but I urge you to give the first set a try. If it helps, just think of these stories as exquisitely written anthropological examinations of a truly weird species.

[Silvana · Rating 2 out of 5]

In her intro to this book, Ursula Le Guin said the stories got selected because she liked them the most. Well, apparently our taste differs this time. (I seem to remember the same thing happened with one of Ken Liu's collections).

Most stories just did not resonate with me. Often times I found them slow, hard to understand, or, just when I got into groove in one story then it ended. Maybe they're just too literary for me.

Sure I was surprised after reading the first three stories (completely baffled me, they did) that this is not an SFF collection, but since I actually also have read non-SFF fiction and that my buddies cheering me up, I decided to continue. I am glad I did despite my rating. Some stories were quite captivating, like May's Lion, which was my favorite.

[Minifig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se trata, en realidad, de dos libros (Dónde en la Tierra y Espacio exterior, Tierras interiores) que reúnen dos colecciones de relatos que tratan de resumir la prosa de Ursula K. Le Guin. El primero está dedicado a relatos de corte realista y mainstream, mientras que el segundo está dedicado a la fantasía y a la ciencia ficción.

En todo caso, es una buena recopilación de relatos que permiten comprender la prosa y temática de una de las autora de ciencia ficción más relevantes.

[+] Reseña completa de la antología y sus relatos en Alt+64 wiki: http://alt64.org/wiki/index.php?title...

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these stories are absolutely beautiful, poetic, immediate, and stirring. Some others are a little obtuse, as if Le Guin was experimenting with things, but in such a way that made them feel a bit remote. But her writing is always fascinating and full of wisdom, keen observations, and a deep and abiding respect for the mysterious, epic, gorgeous natural world.

[Jeff Koeppen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid collection of short fiction muddied by Audible's terrible job aligning chapter breaks with the actual beginning and ending of the short stories. How can a company like that botch something so basic? The first several stories lined up with a the audiobook chapter breaks but later on the breaks seemingly became random. Making this worse was the fact that a few of the stories had their own breaks and jumped around a bit character-wise, so when Audible added its random breaks I didn't know if I was starting a new story or a separate chapter some of the time. The narrator's voice wore on me after a while as well. And I see she's also narrating the Volume Two which I will be starting now. I would've been better off with a paper copy.

This first volume contains standard literary fiction and fantasy stories in a number of different styles, whereas the second volume is science fiction. Overall, I thought the stories in the first volume were good, with a few that were outstanding. I didn't care for the fantasy stories. The book contained a delightful introduction by the author in which she talks about her process for picking the stories, how she chose their order, and some background of several of them.

My favorites of this collection were:

"The Diary of the Rose" - this was a sad story about a psychotherapist and a patient

"Directions of the Road" - this was an interesting story of a tree commenting about the changes in its surroundings over a long period of time.

"Half Past Four" - a collection of eight interrelated melancholy stories.

Giving this three stars for the stories I really enjoyed less the fantasy which I endured less the confusion I felt trying to navigate the terrible Audible formatting.

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest, I was disappointed by this! This volume of Le Guin's stories is the realistic half, and I don't think that's where she's strongest. Many of these stories seem generic, especially those set in a fictional Eastern European city, which open the collection -- it feels like Le Guin is trying to do Tolstoy or Turgenev. She's on more creatively fruitful ground when she's playing with form and interrogating the nature of stories, though even then, the device, for example, of a community being portrayed through lots of short glimpses into different residents POVs grows wearying the second (or third or fourth) time.

“Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight” is by far the standout story, and it's the least realist of the bunch. I hope the second volume, which is the sci-fi/fantasy assortment, will continue this trend.

[Werther Azevedo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved The Left Hand Of Darkness, and bought this collection of short stories assuming that I’d have more of Ursula’s creativity. These stories are not in the sci-fi genre, though, and are really slow paced. I read three, fell asleep twice, and gave up. I’ll keep trying Le Guin’s sci-fi books.

[Alatea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some better than others, but overall beautifully written stories.

[A.B. Neilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some interesting stories but most of them I found boring. I heard the audiobook and it was not until the end that I realized the fantasy and science fiction stories are on vol 2

[Rory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perfectly fine stories, not sure about gathering all the not-SFF stuff in one volume as you do get a higher than average concentration of crunchy Berkeley-flavour Le Guin. The standout is “Ether, OR,” which isn’t especially similar to the second season of Twin Peaks but is close enough for me.