Voix

Annals of the Western Shore #2

by Ursula K. Le Guin, Mikael Cabon (translator)

Ansul was once a peaceful town filled with libraries, schools and temples. But that was long ago, before the Alds came. The Alds believe demons hide in words, and so they ban reading and writing, acts now punishable by death. What few books have survived are hidden in the Waylord's House for safekeeping, in the care of the Waylord, crippled by years of torture, and the daughter of his heart, Memer.

And now times are changing. The Uplands poet Orrec Caspro and his wife Gry have arrived, and in his voice is a clarion call, awakening a conquered people.

The second book of the Annals of the Western Shore, Voices is a haunting and gripping coming-of-age story set against a backdrop of violence, intolerance and magic.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, High Fantasy

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

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

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Voices is perhaps a more outwardly compelling book than the first, Gifts, partly because it features some of the same characters, and partly because it has more action. Memer is still pretty introspective, but the scale has changed: from a small mountain community, we’re now in a big city, and a city which is under the control of an occupying force.

Obviously the issues here are ones pretty close to my heart: reading and literacy, but also the way imperialism tries to break down local culture, failing to understand it or branding it primitive, even heretical, or just ignorant. With less heresy and supernatural stuff, and more “you stupid ignorant people”, that’s the relationship between Wales and England. (No, don’t chime in to tell me it’s not. I refer you to the Treachery of the Blue Books and the Welsh Not for just two examples.) Obviously the situations aren’t directly analogous, but it still resonated — particularly Memer’s initial inability to read, considering I still can’t read Welsh. I’m not sure if a single non-border English school offers Welsh classes on the curriculum, but mine definitely did not.

Since this is Ursula Le Guin we’re talking about, it’s beautifully and meditatively written. If you’re looking for big epic battles in which two armies clash, you’re in entirely the wrong place, but if you want a blueprint for how people can interact, even when their cultures clash, then Le Guin’s got your back.

Originally posted here.

[Berfin Kanat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marifetler'in devamı olan Sesler'i ilk kitaba göre daha çok sevdim. Ursula'nın sıradanmış gibi gösterip aslında büyüleyici olan dünyalar kurmasına hayranım. Mistisizm, felsefe, insan hakları, feminizm gibi temelleri alıyor, içine dostluk, sevgi bağları, aşk gibi duyguları ekliyor ve ortaya çıkan şey ruhun en derinine dokunuyor. Sesler'i okurken bir ruhum olduğunu hissettim. Sesler'i benim için özel kılan şey buydu. Yazara başlamak isteyenlere ve herkese bu seriyi tavsiye ediyorum, üçüncü ve son kitabın da en az ilk ikisi kadar iyi olacağından eminim.

[Moira]

My favourite of the three - often the subject was unrelievedly painful to me (BURNING BOOKS OMG NO), but I really loved Memer's voice, utterly direct, plain, and believable, despite the sometimes heavy-handed Symbolism everywhere (her role in the book reminded me very much of Irena in Beginning Place).

I heard someone call these books 'Earthsea lite' but that's really unfair - the language is simpler, less mannered and archaic, but the people more complex, the plots more political. (Melle is certainly an echo of Tehanu and Memer of Tenar/Arha....) This book is more like what The Telling should have been, gripping, dramatic, felt from the interior instead of observed from outside, and much much shorter. I kind of hated La Guin for making me like the barbarian king asshole in this book and the slave king asshole in the third book, but she's gotten a lot better at complex villains over the whole of her career (witness the father in the first book) which I have to admire. I loved Orrec and Beaky too, even if at times I wanted to roll my eyes at their magnificent emo manpain. I think Beaky's book was aesthetically the best, but my heart belongs to Memer and her mixing of epic heroism and marketing. There's also an emphasis on reading and telling, what books mean (not 'just' literacy) through the whole trilogy which I really liked.

It's pretty amazing Le Guin can still write like this. I think the only other unread recent major work I have by her is Lavinia, which I'll be sad to finish.

[Paul Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Le Guin is rightly famed for her novels of the late 1960s and the 1970s such as the Earthsea books, The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness, but she has never let up and has been a force in science fiction, fantasy and indeed literature for almost 60 years now. This, the middle volume of the Annals of the Western Shore, shows just why; she writes prose as lucid and powerful as almost any writer I can think of, characters that walk the line between tale-tellers archetype and fully three dimensional human beings, and infuses the whole with a humanity and relevance that is breathtaking. She writes great stories that are made epic by the inclusion of a meaning that is apparent but never heavy handed, that never overwhelms the tale but lifts it.


Voices finds a great, ancient city of learning that has been subjugated for seventeen years by a foreign power whose singular god considers any other deities to be demons and any books or writing blasphemy, and a girl - child of a violation during the invasion - who has grown up tending the remains of a secret library and is witness to, and instrumental in, a great change.


As wonderful as the first volume, Gifts, leaving me a little sad that there is only one book remaining.

[Zeren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ursula Le Guin’in dünyalarında dolaşmak, yaşam boyu başına kötü şeyler geleceğini bilsen bile koynuna, omzuna, evine dönebileceğin o hep güvenli sığınak hissini yaratıyor bende. Ne zaman hayatta ve edebiyatta tökezlesem, yeniden yeniden elimin uzandığı kitaplar olması bundan sebep.

Bir dünya düşünün. Onlarca toplum, ülke, sınırlar, kültürler, tanrılar, tanrısızlıklar... Tüm bu dünya kültürlerinin, inançlarının, masallarının, tarihlerinin yazılı metinleri olan kitapların bir arada bulunduğu Ansul kütüphanesi; kitapları kutsal sayan, başlarına bir bela geldiğinde kendilerini tehlikeye atma pahasına önce kitapları kurtarmaya çalışan Ansul halkı...

Yaşamın kutsallığını kitaplarda bulan insanlar için çok özel bir yerde durmalı Sesler. Ve eğer burada anlattığın gibi senin de ruhun aramızda dolaşıyorsa sevgili Ursula, bir kere daha sonsuz teşekkürlerimi kabul et lütfen.

[Aslı Can]

Edebiyatın gücüne en çok inanan yazarlardan biri olsa gerek Ursula. Edebiyatla bağı sayesinde kendi bedeninde gizli gücü tanıyan ve okuyana da bedenini, bedeninde gizli sesleri keşfetmesi için güzel ninniler fısıldayan birisi.

Uyurken gördüğün görüntüler, aslında rüya değiller; inan.

[Goran Lowie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Second read, 6 years later, rating unchanged. Amazed by how serene these books are, yet many of Le Guin's prominent themes are present in full force. Most noticeably for me this time is how convincingly she portrays pacifist resistance.


ORIGINAL REVIEW:


In Voices, Le Guin somehow writes one of the best and most beautiful books of her entire career. Hidden away, as one of the last books of her career and stowed away in the "Young Adult" section, never before have her messages been so clear, so powerful, and so developed. An astounding work for all ages.

[Maryam · Rating 3 out of 5]

داستان «صداها» درباره‌ی قدرت کلمات و ارزشمندی میراث مکتوب بشری است. قومی بیگانه به شهر محل سکونت راوی که دختری نوجوان و دو رگه‌ است حمله می‌کنند. دختر در اصل یکی از کودکان حاصل این تجاوز است که توله‌های محاصره نام گرفته‌اند. مهاجمان خواندن و نوشتن را عملی شیطانی می‌شمارند، کتاب‌ها و کتابخانه‌ها و معابد را از بین می‌برند و زنان را خانه‌نشین می‌کنند.
(رویه طالبان در پاکستان و افغانستان و پیشگویی دقیقی از حکومت اسلامی سال 2014 در عراق)

ممر، دخترک راوی داستان بواسطه‌ی قابلیتی که از اجداد مادریش به او ارث رسیده قادر است صدای خدایان را بشنود و پیام‌هایشان را از کتاب‌ها بخواند و به مردم منتقل کند. این کتاب داستان پایداری مردم انسول در برابر مهاجمان است.

کتابی با تم «ارزش و قدرت کلمه» که با انبوهی از غلط‌های نگارشی و محاوره‌ای کردن نچسب دیالوگ‌ها چاپ شده.

تقریبا هیچ صفحه‌ای نیست که ایراد ویرایشی و تایپی نداشته باشد. از قرار هیچکس حتی محض تفنن کتاب را یکبار قبل از چاپ نخوانده. محض رضای خدای ابدی کلمات! «را» در جمله باید به مفعولش بچسبد و گذاشتن صدباره‌اش بعد از فعل غلط است. «ارزانی» به معنای بخشیدن را نمی‌شود محاوره‌ای کرد و نوشت ارزونی، معنایش زمین تا آسمان فرق می‌کند. افعالی نظیر«می‌دانند» با محاوره‌ای شدن نمی‌شود «می‌دانن» و غیره. در کتاب‌های فانتزی غیر معاصر و غیرشهری کسی موهایش را با کش نمی‌بندد، نوار پارچه‌ای یا روبان برای ترجمه استفاده می‌شود؛ کش و پلاستیک اصلا اختراع نشده. «خفه‌خون» در متن اصلی استفاده نمی‌شود آن «خفقان» است. و و و و و و و و ...
*&^&&^&%$%&* >^< F%CK

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

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: Gifts.

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….

[K. E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Yaratıcıların, ev işleri ile yemek pişirme kısmını neden masalların dışında bıraktıklarını hep merak etmişimdir. Bütün büyük savaşlar, cenkler bu yüzden, gün sonunda aile bir sofra etrafına toplansın da huzur içinde bir-iki lokma yesin diye yapılmıyor mu?"

"On yedi yılda çok şey kaybolabilir. Bir nesil, bilginin cezalandırıldığı ve cehaletin saadet olduğunu öğrenerek yetişiyor. Bir sonraki nesil cahil olduklarını bile bilmeyecek çünkü bilginin ne olduğunu bilmeyecekler."

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second volume of a YA fantasy trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin. I read it because a part of monthly reading for January 2022 at Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group is the third volume, Powers, which was nominated for Nebula for 2008. I plan to read the whole trilogy and starting not from the first book by my mistake. I can say that at least this novel works perfectly as a standalone.

The story starts with the protagonist, Memer, a girl about 7 years old. She lives in an old mansion, often spending time in a strange room, to which only she can enter by signing symbols on air. The room is filled with books and initially she hid there with her mother, when enemies, who occupied that city, Ansul, where on rampage of pillage and rape. Her mother’s name was Decalo Galva and she was head housekeeper for Sulter Galva, Waylord of Ansul, the owner of the mansion and an elected official of the city, whose main job before the occupation was making trade deals with other cities. This hasn’t the first time when enemies,
Alds, the people of the deserts of Asudar, invaded the city – the previous attack was the reason Memer’s birth – her mother was raped by Ald soldier.

Memer finds out that the Waylord is also able to enter the hidden room and he takes on himself her education. Time goes on and now she is seventeen, and a famous poet and his wife, able to speak with animals enter the occupied city. Together they should find a way to throw off the yoke…

This is a nice YA with beautiful flowing prose. The fantasy elements are present but they are on background, the central stage given to the characters. The army of Alds, who are a mix of nomads, who love their horses and believers in a only real god of fire, assuming deities of other people as demons to fight with (some allusions to early Islam). Locals, lowered to second class citizens in own city, but who are historically more traders than warriors.

The title, ‘Voices’ has multiple allusions – from the ability to speak with animals, to books speaking to reader, to a poet or agitator speaking to a crowd, affecting moods of the people.

[Antonio TL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Premio Nebula 2008

Le Guin tiene el don mágico de crear universos alternativos muy creíbles poblados por personajes tan bien dibujados que sientes que los conoces personalmente, inundándolos con un humanismo apasionado que transforma sus mundos de ciencia ficción y fantasía. Voices es parte de otro mundo similar, ambientado en Lands of the Western Shore, y aunque vincula el título anterior Gifts y la secuela Powers , existe igualmente como una novela independiente.

El protagonista principal es la joven Memer que se convierte en mujer al final de la novela. Ambientada en un puerto de estilo mediterráneo llamado Ansul (parecido a la Venecia medieval o Génova o Split: se proporciona un mapa para ayudar a orientar al lector), la historia trata sobre su experiencia de vivir en una ciudad ocupada donde tanto la lectura como los libros están prohibidos por razones religiosas. Contra estas condiciones, que son familiares en gran parte de la historia moderna, se establece el elemento de fantasía, que consiste en que Memer se encuentra a sí misma aparentemente como portavoz de profecías, la consecuencia de su adopción por parte de un hogar donde existe tal tradición. .A las voces que Memer escucha interiormente se suman la voz audible del poeta Orrec y la voz inaudible que usa su esposa Gry para llamar a su león. Orrec y Gry, cuando aparecieron por primera vez en Gifts, apenas tenían entonces la edad que ahora alcanza Memer en la gran culminación de este libro, pero han madurado y alcanzado una sensación de tranquilidad con lo que son, un marcado contraste con sus propias adolescencias problemáticas.

Como siempre, Le Guin ha escrito una rica y satisfactoria historia sobre la mayoría de edad, al mismo tiempo que trata grandes temas como la intolerancia religiosa y la naturaleza nebulosa de la revelación. Es raro que puedas imaginarte con tanto éxito entrando en otra existencia que es a la vez extraña y familiar; que Le Guin lo haga aparentemente sin esfuerzo es para su crédito y para beneficio nuestro.
Y de paso me hace pensar que ya es hora de volver a leer la trilogía de El mago de Terramar.

[Drew Nelson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Memer is a sheep-haired oppressed minority girl who is oppressed by a manly warrior society who thinks reading is evil. How does she fight the book burning Nazis? With the power of understanding. Oh, and there's some kind of crazy magic that no one understands that happens about once. Horrible, disgusting tripe. Paper dolls have more real personality than these characters.

Example dialog (completely made up, but in character):

Memer: I am very oppressed. It is because I am a minority who loves to learn and read. Why do you oppress me so?
Oppressing oppressor: It is because I hate reading! Books are wicked tools of the great Satan! My religion blinds me to the goodness in others! (evil snarl!)
Memer: I will strive to understand your culture that I might best you with the power of my knowledge, love, and understanding, though I greatly fear your power to oppress me even more than you already do.

The only reason I finished this book was because I was on a road trip. I'm a little bit disappointed in myself for doing so, even so.

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a better book than the first in this series, Gifts and had a great pace and some fascinating world-building and compelling characters. It is somewhere between children's and YA literature, and I read it because volume 3, Voices won a Nebula prize and is my LAST read in the lists of Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Sci-Fi award laureats. Le Guin is such a gifted storyteller and the pages just fly by when you read this one. I still prefer the Earthsea universe to the Western Shore universe, but this is still a wonderful story.

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about a city under occupation, agents of change, and a way forward to a better future when each side is able to make concessions to the other. Time spent reading a book by Ursula Le Guin is always time well spent.

[Kristen Kieffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS. This is what I have been waiting to read for so long. After a rough 2016 in terms of reading, it was so heartening to discover a novel that absolutely bewitched me.

[Jeraviz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Como en el anterior libro, Le Guin me ha vuelto a descolocar ya que esperaba otro tipo de historia.

Tras los acontecimientos del primer tomo, donde vemos que los adolescentes Orrec y Gry renuncian a usar sus poderes y marchan a conocer mundo, nos encontramos en esta historia con un salto temporal de 17 años y con Memer, una joven que vive en una ciudad esclavizada por unos fanáticos religiosos que prohíben la existencia de ningún libro y consideran herejía saber leer. Aquí llegan Orrec y Gry y se convierten en el germen de la revolución.

Le Guin demuestra su maestría construyendo personajes dotándoles de voz propia y en Voces podemos acompañar a la protagonista de su adolescencia a su madurez a la misma vez que vemos cómo el pueblo oprimido se rebela contra la intolerancia religiosa. Es una historia profunda y que no me esperaba ya que renuncia a continuar con la historia de Orrec y Gry que ya había construido en el primer libro y decide volver a construir otra con Memer como protagonista.

Tal vez mis expectativas eran otras y me esperaba otro tipo de historia ya que la fantasía no es el núcleo central y podría funcionar la misma historia en la realidad de nuestro mundo, pero sin duda es una obra recomendable como cualquiera de Ursula K Le Guin.

[Maven_Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin

This book tells the story of a young woman named Memer living in the conquered city of Ansul, where the invaders, the Alds have outlawed books and destroyed nearly all records of the city’s history, faith, and culture, leaving only a hidden library and a dying tradition for a few survivors to guard in secret.

From the very first pages I felt the quiet ache of loss layered behind every corner of Ansul: loss of memory, loss of identity, loss of home. Memer’s inner life, her anger, her grief, and the weight of prejudice she carries as the daughter of a woman assaulted during the invasion made me ache for her even as I admired her strength to endure. When the wandering poet/storyteller Orrec and his wife Gry arrive in Ansul, offering stories and songs from the old world, I felt hope flicker again, a fragile, defiant glimmer inside a city bowed under tyranny. The way Le Guin shows how storytelling, memory, and language themselves can be acts of resistance moved me deeply.

What stands out in Le Guin’s writing here is her ability to write resistance not simply as violence or rebellion, but as reclamation: reclaiming history, reclaiming dignity, reclaiming voice. She does not shy away from the brutalities of occupation, the heavy toll on the innocent, or the moral complexity of uprising. At times the pacing feels slow, the novel spends much time in reflection, in the quiet spaces between fear, grief, and hope. For some readers that might feel like waiting too long for action. But for me those pauses enriched the emotional core, letting me sit with the sorrow and longing, the fragility of memory, the ache of longing for justice.

I give this book 5 out of 5. It beautifully weaves politics, faith, memory, and humanity into a story that feels both intimate and grand. It stayed with me long after I finished the final page, and reminded me how powerful words and stories can be in healing and resistance.

[Aslıhan Çelik Tufan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben üçleme okuyamıyorum hep ya son ya ortadan başlıyorum🙃 neyse buna rağmen Sesler i çok sevdim! Şimdi önce Marifetler sonra Güçler i okuyacağım eminim beğenim artacaktır.

[Kat Hooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

I'm happy to report that I enjoyed Voices much more than Gifts.

In this story of the Western Shore, we meet Memer, a 17 year old girl -- a "siege-brat" -- who lives in the occupied land of Ansul, a city of people who used to be peaceful, prosperous, and educated but who were overtaken 17 years ago by the illiterate Alds who consider all writing to be demonic. All of the Ansul literature, history, and other books were drowned ... except for a small collection of books that has been saved and hidden in a secret room in the house of Galvamand and can only be accessed by the last two people in the Galva household -- Sulter Galva (the Waylord) and Memer, whose mother was a Galva.

One day, the Maker and orator Orrec, and his wife Gry, (from Gifts) come to town, stay at Galvamand, and recite to the people of Ansul and their Ald overlord, the Gand Ioratth. When Orrec recites ancient epics and poetry, including some of Ansul's own hymns, the Gand is moved, the Ansul people are stirred to revolution, and Ioratth's son and the Ald priests are stirred to wrath. The people of Ansul have to decide whether to revolt or to try to negotiate peacefully with the softening Gand. The situation brings up realistic (rather than fantastical) ideas about the nature of freedom, revolution, and whether it might sometimes be better to compromise, rather than fight to the death, with people who control your destiny.

The pace of Voices is slow and the entire story takes place in approximately a one-mile radius so there's not much action but, as usual for an Ursula Le Guin novel, the power is in the writing -- it's moving and filled with insight into the human mind and our ideas of art, literature, culture, and patriotism. She doesn't just tell a story, but she gives us a full emotional experience and a lot to think about:

"My mother's name was Decalo Galva. I want to tell of her, but I can't remember her. Or I do but the memory won't go into words. Being held tight, jostling, a good smell in the darkness of the bed, a rough red cloth, a voice which I can't hear but it's only just out of hearing. I used to think if I could hold still and listen hard enough, I'd hear her voice."

"I wonder if men find it easier than women do to consider people not as bodies, as lives, but as numbers, figures, toys of the mind to be pushed about a battleground of the mind. This disembodiment gives pleasure, exciting them and freeing them to act for the sake of acting, for the sake of manipulating the figures, the game pieces. Love of country, or honor, or freedom, then, may be names they give that pleasure to justify it to the gods and to the people who suffer and kill and die in the game. So those words -- love, honor, freedom -- are degraded from their true sense. Then people may come to hold them in contempt as meaningless, and poets must struggle to give them back their truth."

It was good to meet Orrec and Gry again and to see how Orrec was using his talents. It wasn't necessary to have read Gifts first, but it gave me greater enjoyment to understand Orrec's past. I listened to Voices on audiobook. The reader was flawless and added much energy and emotion to the telling. I recommend this format for Voices.
Read more Ursula Le Guin book reviews at Fantasy literature.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the second volume of The Annals of the Western Shore, LeGuin takes us a long way south from the Uplands of the first volume, to the conquered coastal city of Ansul. She also provides a map of the Western Shore not printed in the first or third volumes. One of the regions on the map, Sessery, sounds very much like it should be an island of Earthsea.
Memer narrates the story of her young life, growing up in a city conquered by an invading army from the desert to the east - indeed she is a product of that invasion, her mother being forced by a soldier from the invading army.
The hated Alds - the invaders - bring their religious beliefs with them and Atth, their one God, hates the written word.
Ansul was a University city and had a great and famed library. The aftermath of conquest saw it destroyed, along with its contents, any other books discovered by the army and all discovered harbouring the written word.
Memer grows up hating the occupying Alds, though she looks like them, and learning history and poetry from the cache of books held in a room with no doors. Little changes until the arrival of Orrec Caspro and Gry Barr in the city, summoned by the Alds' chief political figure. Then change comes more swiftly than she could have believed possible - and she finds herself at the centre of it.

LeGuin gives more to think about in this book than any dozen documentaries on the religious conflicts of this world...and that is what she is writing about, though any one analogy with a real modern conflict doesn't quite fit, much to her credit, in my view. LeGuin intends her readers not to make easy comparisons but to have to think seriously about the motivations, merits and de-merits of all parties involved in her imagined occupied city and hence be forced to do so with regard to the world we see around us. She uses Memer's awakening to a complicated political situation and enforced close up view of her enemies to suggest that seeing our enemies as human is much of the way to finding a way to live with them. Without ever unrealistically simplifying matters she promotes talking (politics) as a solution, perhaps the only solution, though not necessarily an ideal one.

LeGuin tells a gripping, intricate, carefully crafted story of immediate and yet depressingly timeless relevance in an intelligent and perceptive way. LeGuin is rarely less than profound but does not always give sufficient attention to providing her readers with a compelling narrative. That fault cannot be observed in this novel, making this the best fantasy work she has written since The Farthest Shore and putting it on a parr with her very best work in any genre.

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was excellent, even better than the first book of this series, Gifts. The two main characters from the first book are seen again here playing important parts in the story, but the viewpoint character is someone new. Again, UKL's deft storytelling catches you up right away and pulls you into the action, thoughts, and feelings. In no way does this feel like Young Adult literature. Both of these books are awesome stories. There's nothing that's simplified here, or minor in any way.

The story is set in a city which has been overrun and enslaved by foreign invaders for seventeen years past. The viewpoint character is a half-breed, born of the rape of a local woman by a foreign soldier. Her heart is not divided, though. She's a girl of her people, the beaten enslaved people of the city.

The action starts when she meets Gry and Orrec from the first book. They're 20 years older now than when we met them. They travel around from town to village on the Western Shore. Orrec is a storyteller. He tells history and myth, fiction and nonfiction. Most of these are poetry, one imagines they're like Homer or Virgil, which he recites powerfully. They have a pet lion which Gry has trained. Their coming to the city sets in motion many things that result in great changes.

The action is captivating, but as in all UKL tales, the action is less important than the people, the characters and what they feel and think, what they do and who they become. I highly recommend these books to anyone. I'm going to read the third one, Powers, next.

[Althea Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a companion book to LeGuin's earlier, "Gifts," but it also
works as a stand-alone novel. It takes place about 20 years later. The two main characters from "Gifts" do appear, but are not the main characters here.
The story takes place in an occupied and defeated country. The
invaders, distrusting and fearing the written word as a form of
demonic magic, have sought out all books to destroy them. But young Memer has grown up in a household that still secretly houses a forbidden library... and although she is a 'half-breed' child of rape,
she may also be heir to powers and mysteries that the invaders would regard as their worst fears come to life.
However, while "Voices" is an exciting, vivid and magic-filled fantasy story, it is also, like many of LeGuin's books, a serious political commentary. With their hatred of education and disrespect of women, the invaders of this story bear unavoidable parallels to
fundamentalist extremists today. However, although her dislike of such extremism is more than clear, LeGuin makes a compelling and effective argument against violence and revenge, pointing instead to the historically proven economic and social benefits of compromise,
cooperation, and a gradual understanding of each other's humanity by widely differing peoples.
Both entertaining and relevant, the world would be a better place if
everyone in it read this book, and heeded its message.

[Eddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bon livre pour enfant. J'ai aimé la petite touche qui ressemble aux Tombeaux D'Atuan qui reste l'un de mes livres préférés de l'autrice.
J'ai moins aimé la mauvaise gestion du rythme, par moment.
La trilogie des Rivages de l'Ouest reste une bonne trilogie jeunesse. Une sorte de fantasy sans trop d'action ou d'épique.

[Kalin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second novel in Ursula K. Le Guin's absolutely brilliant Annals of the Western Shore trilogy. As evidenced by the covers, this trilogy is marketed as YA due to the boom in that genre following the early 2000s success of Harry Potter; and while Voices, like the other two books in this trilogy, features a young protagonist and a coming-of-age tale, it does not adhere to many of the expectations we've come to have about what YA emphasizes. I'm not even sure this book would appeal to a YA audience (in fact, I loaned the first book, Gifts, to a teenager and they bounced off it).

Voices is full of the deep wisdom and love for humanity and freedom that permeates all of Le Guin's works. The story follows Memer, a teenaged girl who lives as both a servant and heir to the Waylord of Ansul, an independent city-state violently occupied by an expansionist colonial nation from the east. The city of Ansul is richly depicted, with worldbuilding of a depth only Le Guin can achieve in such short time. As a child, Member discovers a secret library hidden in her home, as well as the ability to read ancient and powerful books that are hunted and destroyed by occupiers. The narrative follows Memer and her community as they navigate the turbulence of occupation and struggle to keep their traditions and identity alive in the face of violent cultural suppression.

While there is violence in Voices due to the nature of the political situation Memer finds herself in, violence is not the solution she turns to in her journey. This is true for all three books in Annals. Our heroes learn of special, even magical abilities connected to creation, interpretation, memory and foresight; what they don't learn is how to defeat evil villains through the use of force (a staple trope of YA fiction). A form of humanitarian, active pacifism shines through in these books: almost as if Le Guin is saying that the antidote to violence is not more violence, but art - creativity - the embrace of life.

I am convinced that Voices, like the other books in Annals of the Western Shore, represents an underappreciated alate-career masterwork by one of the most cherished authors of the past century. Please do yourself the favour of reading this book, this series. They all stand alone strongly enough, but reward the reader who starts with Gifts and moves through Voices to finish with Powers.

[Jennifer Wardrip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by Lynn Crow for TeensReadToo.com

A companion novel to Le Guin's GIFTS, VOICES looks in on the life of a teen growing up in a city controlled by an enemy people. Memer has never known a life when hostile soldiers didn't patrol the streets and the possession of a book was not a crime punishable by death. The invading army believes that written words are evil, and that the city of Ansul is full of demons. But Memer knows that the Waylord, the man who raised her after her mother's death, has a hidden library in his house. There, he teaches her to read, and then, to use her understanding to help the city face its greatest crisis.

For a novel that has a lot to do with story-telling and reading, VOICES has more action and excitement than readers might expect. The arrival of Orrec, a great storyteller (and the narrator of GIFTS), rekindles the courage of Ansul's people, and they attempt to rebel against their oppressors. Memer finds herself caught in the middle, torn between her loyalty to the Waylord, who wishes to find a peaceful solution, and her hatred for the soldiers who destroyed so many things that she treasured. With many twists and turns along the way, VOICES delivers a conclusion that is both satisfying and unpredictable.

Perhaps the strongest element of the novel, however, is the way it moves from black and white to shades of gray. Orrec believes that all people have some good in them, and as Memer is forced to get to know the invaders she despises, she realizes that they are not all terrible and cruel. Some of them are simply different, and unable to understand her way of life. The message seems to be that it is far better to reach an understanding with others, even if you dislike them, than to take revenge. In a time when cultural and religious clashes make news almost every day, this should hit home with many readers.

VOICES is not a perfect book. It slows down a little more than I'd have liked before reaching its conclusion, and Memer was not as active in those events as I expect from a main character. But those flaws are minor compared to everything else about the novel: the distinctive setting and culture, the vivid language and personalities, and a voice that suggests, softly, without preaching, that there is more than one way to win a war.

[Mahdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

"ترس زاینده‌ی سکوت است و عاقبت سکوت چیزی جز ترس نیست."
***
"یک نسل می‌آموزه که دانش رنج می‌طلبه و آسایش در بستر جهل چنبره زده. نسل بعدی اصلا نمی‌دونه که بی‌دانشه، به این خاطر که اصلا نمی‌دونه دانش چیه."
***
دومین کتابی بود که از لگوین خوندم. کتاب "رویای جرج ار" (نشر تندیس) رو خیلی بیشتر دوست داشتم چون ایده ناب و جالب و روایت خوبی داشت.
ولی کتاب "صداها"... نمی‌دونم، تا آخر خیلی خنثی پیش رفت. فرود و فرازی نداشت، بیشتر بخش‌ها گزارش و خلاصه از ماجرا بود. نتونستم با داستان و شخصیت‌ها ارتباط برقرار کنم خلاصه و بعضی از کارهاشون رو نفهمیدم.
ایده‌ی خوب و حرف‌هایی برای گفتن داشت، ولی پرداخت مطلوب و راضی‌کننده برای من نداشت. خیلی چیزها توی روایت و دنیاسازی گنگ موندن تا آخر. (این کتاب جلد دو یک مجموعه‌ هست و تو مقدمه اومده که میشه مستقل خوند، شاید هم اشکال اینجاست و بهتره که به صورت مجموعه خونده بشه، اطلاع ندارم. به هر حال که فقط همین جلد ترجمه شده.)

و امان از غلط‌های ویراستاری فراوان. خیلی فراوان! ترجمه هم به نظرم می‌تونست با یه ویرایش بهتر بشه.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a sequel of sorts to Gifts. It features two of the same characters, but takes place at least eighteen years later. There's a new young protagonist, a new setting, a new question about the nature and use of power. The book makes commentary on a number of large themes, among them education, war, forgiveness, books, responsibility, honor, religion, and loyalty, all hung on an earnest teenager named Memer.

[Xabi1990 · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10 en 2010.

Continúa desarrollando el worldbuilding que inició en el libro anterior, "Los dones".
Doña Úrsula te mete en la acción, pensamientos y sentimientos de los protagonistas (básicamente los del libro anterior) de una forma entrañable.

Hay acción, sí, pero como en todos los libros de UKL lo principal son los personajes.

Como dije en el anterior, no es una obra menor de la autora aunque no se mencione por ningún sitio.

[Züleyha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marifetler, Güçler ve Sesler'i okuduğum bu döneme hayatımın Batı Sahili dönemi diyebilirim. Bu seriyi okudum, artık başka bir insanım.