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Orsinia
The Complete Orsinia: Malafrena / Stories and Songs
In a career spanning half a century, Ursula K. Le Guin has produced a body of work that testifies to her abiding faith in the power and art of words. She is perhaps best known for imagining future intergalactic worlds in brilliant books that challenge our ideas of what is natural and inevitable in human relations—and that celebrate courage, endurance, risk-taking, and above all, freedom in the face of the psychological and social forces that lead to authoritarianism and fanaticism. It is less well known that she first developed these themes in the richly imagined historical fiction collected in this volume, which inaugurates the Library of America edition of her works.
The Complete Orsinia gathers for the first time the entire body of work set in the imaginary central European nation of Orsinia: the early novel Malafrena, begun in the 1950s but not published until 1979, the related stories originally published in Orsinian Tales (1976), and additional stories and songs. In a new introduction written for this volume, Le Guin describes the breakthrough that led to her first novel: “Most of what I read drew me to write about Europe; but I knew it was foolhardy to write fiction set in Europe if I’d never been there. At last it occurred to me that I might get away with it by writing about a part of Europe where nobody had been but me.” So Orsinia was established, a country, like its near neighbors Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania, with a long and vivid history of oppression, art, and revolution.
An epic meditation on the meaning of hope and freedom, love and duty, Malafrena takes place from 1825 to 1830, when Orsinia is a part of the Austrian empire. Itale Sorde, the idealistic heir to Val Malafrena, an estate in the rural western provinces, leaves home against his father’s wishes to work as a journalist in the cosmopolitan capital city of Krasnoy, where he plays an integral part in the revolutionary politics that are roiling Europe.
Thirteen additional stories trace the history of Orsinia from the twelfth century, when it first emerges as an independent kingdom, to 1989, when its repressive Stalinist government falls in an Orsinian Velvet Revolution. The poem “Folksong from the Montayna Province,” Le Guin’s first published work, joins two never before published songs in the Orsinian language.
The volume also features a newly researched chronology of Le Guin’s life and career, and detailed notes. The beautiful full-color endpaper map of Orsinia is drawn by Le Guin herself.
The Complete Orsinia gathers for the first time the entire body of work set in the imaginary central European nation of Orsinia: the early novel Malafrena, begun in the 1950s but not published until 1979, the related stories originally published in Orsinian Tales (1976), and additional stories and songs. In a new introduction written for this volume, Le Guin describes the breakthrough that led to her first novel: “Most of what I read drew me to write about Europe; but I knew it was foolhardy to write fiction set in Europe if I’d never been there. At last it occurred to me that I might get away with it by writing about a part of Europe where nobody had been but me.” So Orsinia was established, a country, like its near neighbors Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania, with a long and vivid history of oppression, art, and revolution.
An epic meditation on the meaning of hope and freedom, love and duty, Malafrena takes place from 1825 to 1830, when Orsinia is a part of the Austrian empire. Itale Sorde, the idealistic heir to Val Malafrena, an estate in the rural western provinces, leaves home against his father’s wishes to work as a journalist in the cosmopolitan capital city of Krasnoy, where he plays an integral part in the revolutionary politics that are roiling Europe.
Thirteen additional stories trace the history of Orsinia from the twelfth century, when it first emerges as an independent kingdom, to 1989, when its repressive Stalinist government falls in an Orsinian Velvet Revolution. The poem “Folksong from the Montayna Province,” Le Guin’s first published work, joins two never before published songs in the Orsinian language.
The volume also features a newly researched chronology of Le Guin’s life and career, and detailed notes. The beautiful full-color endpaper map of Orsinia is drawn by Le Guin herself.
592 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
129 people are currently reading
818 people want to read
About the author
Ursula K. Le Guin
1,045 books30.2k followersUrsula 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.
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.
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June 23, 2021
I knew it was foolhardy to write fiction set in Europe if I’d never been there. At last it occurred to be that I might get away with it by writing about a part of Europe where nobody had been but me.
A land-locked country somewhere in Europe. Known as Orsenya to its inhabitants and as Orsinia to the outside world. A land with its own language, culture and history but not so dissimilar to those of its neighbours. Yet beyond the writings of its only chronicler little is known about it. Although that chronicler is sadly no longer with us, she has nevertheless provided us with glimpses into lives lived at various points in its history; a few lives are those of the powerful but most are of ordinary people, though that’s not to say they’re not extraordinary in their own ways.
Containing Orsinian Tales (1976) and Malafrena (1979) you might, if you already have copies of both, wonder what the advantage of acquiring this compendium could be. Well, apart from the convenience of having the two titles in one volume there are the additions: two extra short stories published subsequently, in 1979 and 1990, and three short Orsinian songs, plus supporting material. That material — Le Guin’s 2015 introduction, an extensive chronology of the author’s life up to 2014 (she was to die in early 2018) and notes by the editor on the texts — renders this one-volume edition well worth the outlay.
Orsinian Tales were a series of vignettes from different periods in Orsinian history, from the twelfth century when Orsinia was emerging into nationhood to the second half of the twentieth century before the fall of communism in Europe, whereas Malafrena focused narrowly on just half a dozen years in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars when fledgling revolutions were attempted, only to be smacked down by established regimes. Common themes soon emerge between the shorter pieces and the longer novel — the nature of power, whether political or on the level of personal relationships; histories of individual struggles with self-fulfilment and finding partners; landscapes shaping one’s future whether in terms of options for work, for friendship, or one’s imaginative horizons; and Orsinia itself taking on the nature of a key character steeped in melancholy.
The longer title in this volume is the novel, which “was about the generation in Europe that came of age in the 1820s and broke their hearts in the revolutions of 1830.” Though beginning in the upland western province of Montayna its three young protagonists — Itale Sorde, his sister Laura and their childhood friend Piera — range south, east and northwest as well as to Krasnoy, the capital; it’s all on a large canvas, though that canvas is bounded almost entirely by the country’s borders.
The author makes it clear when and where she invented Orsinia, at the age of twenty, at Radcliffe College in California. I say ‘invented’ but I mean that in its Latin sense, from invenio, “I come upon, I discover”, for she truly discovered this “unimportant country in Middle Europe”, as she says in her introduction, “a land not too far from Czechoslovakia, or Poland, [… not] one of the partly Islamized nations—more Western-oriented. . . . Like Rumania, maybe, with a Slavic-influenced but Latin-descended language?” (Unsurprising, as her academic studies were in Romance languages.)
Into this country she infused and interlaced her name, and the names and human stories of her family and echoes of events in the contemporary world (as her brother Karl made clear in an introduction to the short story included here called ‘Brothers and Sisters’). At one stage Malafrena was to have the title ‘The Necessary Passion’ but the latter phrase is as good a description of her deep exploration of and commitment to Ursula-land, from 1949 to 1990 and beyond.
In addition to fragments of songs in the stories themselves this volume includes three short songs, one in English and the other two in Orsinian, and two short stories, published after the Orsinian Tales and Malafrena appeared. ‘Two Delays on the Northern Line’ is the more personal, written as her mother was dying from cancer, the emotions transposed to the protagonist travelling between the provinces of Molsen and the Northern Marches. ‘Unlocking the Air’ was a response to the so-called Velvet Revolution in 1989 Czechoslovakia, when mass gatherings indicated their intention to unlock the country’s repressive state apparatus by the jingling of keys. Keys also form a motif in one of the songs in Orsinian, The Walls of Rákava (Polana Province): I’ve attempted a rough translation here:
In Rákava its high walls
my love wearies (?).
I want to return to Rákava
but I don’t have a key.
O walls of Rákava,
where is your key?
Brian Attebery’s notes inform and deepen our understanding: he includes the texts’ references to German, Italian, English and French literature and to European events contemporary with those of Orsinia; there are also cultural references as varied as hagiography, music, Norse myth and Russian fairytale. His chronology of the author’s life up to 2014 is almost as good as a biography, but it is Le Guin’s own 2015 introduction that furnishes the most fascinating account of the formation of Orsinia and a validation, if ever one was needed, that these stories were as vital to her creative life for many years as her more famous fantasy and science fiction, or her poetry and essays.
I am sorry I have heard nothing from my friends in Krasnoy since [1990]. I hope things are going along all right there. I hope there is still a family named Sorde living in Val Malafrena, that dogs wander across the cobbled forecourt of the Roukh Palace, that the Cathedral of St Theodora stands, that the quiet fountains of Aisnar still run.
Despite its valedictory tone we needn’t fear for Orsinia’s continuance: for us to revisit we have only to open the pages of this collected edition and immerse ourselves in its heartfelt and heartening stories.
September 24, 2017
One of the greatest writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy, LeGuin’s first novel was nothing of the sort, but instead a tale of a fictional middle European state in the 19th Century. She wanted to write about European history, specifically about that generation that “came of age in 1820 and broke their hearts in the revolutions of 1830”, but didn’t know enough about Europe to confidently attempt such a book. So she made up a country, Orsinia, and told her tale there. That book was called A Descendance and was rejected. LeGuin returned to it over the years though, revising and rewriting until finally, in the late 1970s, it was published under the title of Malafrena.
The debt to Tolstoy is obvious. But the world building is superb. You really believe in this small country under the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and an archaic governmental system. The story focuses on Itale Sorde, a passionate young man who leaves his middle class farming family to try and bring about change in the world. He starts a new newspaper with various like-minded intellectuals in the capital, Krasnoy and travels the country to report on conditions in the smaller towns and villages.
As ever with LeGuin, the main themes are of people striving to make a better world for themselves and others in the face of oppression. Thematically there are parallels to her great SF novel The Dispossessed and other works. But this is wholly a tale set in the 19th Century. There’s a romantic streak running through the work, as there is with all great 19th Century literature, but this is no potboiler. Having said that I’m not sure the novel is wholly successful. History tells us that change was slow in coming so and that proves to be the case in Orsinia. Itale suffers for his ideals and in the end is forced to return home and is reconciled with his family. That is what is really at the heart of this book - home and family. A curiosity then, but one well worth reading.
The second part of this handsome Library of America edition, is the short stories LeGuin wrote set in Orsinia. These range back and forth across history, from the 12th century, the early 20th century, the years Orsinia spent as a Soviet dominated country after World War 2, right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrowing of the Eastern Bloc dictatorships.
They are all quite wonderful. Tales of ordinary people in a mythical country, but mirroring the realities of the world we know. From the working class would-be composer of An Die Musik, to the students who see the dawn of a new era in the 1990s, these stories are full of heart, passion and the missed opportunities that can befall anyone. I much preferred them to the novel, as LeGuin is able to present a much more multi-faceted view of her imaginary country.
So, while this may not rank amongst her finest work, it is still LeGuin, and any LeGuin is worth your time.
The debt to Tolstoy is obvious. But the world building is superb. You really believe in this small country under the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and an archaic governmental system. The story focuses on Itale Sorde, a passionate young man who leaves his middle class farming family to try and bring about change in the world. He starts a new newspaper with various like-minded intellectuals in the capital, Krasnoy and travels the country to report on conditions in the smaller towns and villages.
As ever with LeGuin, the main themes are of people striving to make a better world for themselves and others in the face of oppression. Thematically there are parallels to her great SF novel The Dispossessed and other works. But this is wholly a tale set in the 19th Century. There’s a romantic streak running through the work, as there is with all great 19th Century literature, but this is no potboiler. Having said that I’m not sure the novel is wholly successful. History tells us that change was slow in coming so and that proves to be the case in Orsinia. Itale suffers for his ideals and in the end is forced to return home and is reconciled with his family. That is what is really at the heart of this book - home and family. A curiosity then, but one well worth reading.
The second part of this handsome Library of America edition, is the short stories LeGuin wrote set in Orsinia. These range back and forth across history, from the 12th century, the early 20th century, the years Orsinia spent as a Soviet dominated country after World War 2, right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrowing of the Eastern Bloc dictatorships.
They are all quite wonderful. Tales of ordinary people in a mythical country, but mirroring the realities of the world we know. From the working class would-be composer of An Die Musik, to the students who see the dawn of a new era in the 1990s, these stories are full of heart, passion and the missed opportunities that can befall anyone. I much preferred them to the novel, as LeGuin is able to present a much more multi-faceted view of her imaginary country.
So, while this may not rank amongst her finest work, it is still LeGuin, and any LeGuin is worth your time.
July 29, 2018
UKL said she wanted to write about Europe but felt that as an American, she wouldn't be taken seriously if she did so - so she invented a central European country (Orsinia) in the hope that would allow her to get away with it. She set her first novel, Malafrena, there and talked about love and freedom and revolution, but it didn't work; the novel was re-hashed several times before publication and she had already established herself as an SF novelist by that time. Superficially, a historical novel about trying to escape foreign control and gain self-determination doesn't seem to fit with the space adventures and magical worlds of the familiar later UKL - but I've already revealed the actual close connections; made up places, similar thematic concerns. Despite all the re-working it never really attains the greatness UKL was capable of and remains a quirky early book that only completists will probably want to read.
The following Orsinian Tales, which range across the entire history of the country from tenuous early Christian conversion to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, however are on average greatly superior and I recommend them. Unfortunately to get the most from them, Malafrena is a pre-requisite, slight slog that it is. The stories are set not only at key points in European history but also just wherever they might need to be to tell the story UKL had in mind. The end of Summer in the countryside, 1935, particularly redound through history, for instance, but the story captures a mood exceptionally and delightfully.
The book ends in 1989, the most optimistic year in Europe since the start of WWI. The Iron Curtain fell and a great, meancing Russian shadow over Europe was removed. Shocking and scary to note, in 2018, the extent to which that shadow is regrowing and spreading over America, too. Ukraine, and Georgia strategically nibbled at. America that defined itself as standing against the Soviets, now a client state of a resurgent Imperialist Russia.
The following Orsinian Tales, which range across the entire history of the country from tenuous early Christian conversion to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, however are on average greatly superior and I recommend them. Unfortunately to get the most from them, Malafrena is a pre-requisite, slight slog that it is. The stories are set not only at key points in European history but also just wherever they might need to be to tell the story UKL had in mind. The end of Summer in the countryside, 1935, particularly redound through history, for instance, but the story captures a mood exceptionally and delightfully.
The book ends in 1989, the most optimistic year in Europe since the start of WWI. The Iron Curtain fell and a great, meancing Russian shadow over Europe was removed. Shocking and scary to note, in 2018, the extent to which that shadow is regrowing and spreading over America, too. Ukraine, and Georgia strategically nibbled at. America that defined itself as standing against the Soviets, now a client state of a resurgent Imperialist Russia.
March 20, 2018
I do not feel worthy to review this. I might try someday.
March 21, 2024
This year I've been focusing on the writing of Ursula K. Le Guin. I've decided that one of my bucket list items will be to try and read as much of her writing as possible. My online book club has various reading challenges and one I've selected is to read 16 of her books. The majority will be in the Hainish Cycle and the Earthsea stories, but I've also picked some of her other books / series. The Complete Orsinia: Malafrena / Stories and Songs is the complete stories of Le Guin's Orsinia collection, as collated by the US Library of Congress. OK, enough of my plans for 2024. 😊
When Le Guin was just beginning to consider a career as an author, the authors that interested her the most were European and Russian authors. But how for a west coast girl to write about Europe? That was her dilemma and it took her a number of years to get into her work. In the meantime, she had Sci Fi short stories and some of her first novels published. But Orsinia was the story she wanted to write. So Le Guin, rather than try to set a story in an existing European country, decided to create her own country and that country became Orsinia, a nation of 10 regions under the influence of the Austro - Hungarian empire. The compilation by the Library of Congress consists of the novel, Malafrena, a chapter of songs and finally a collection of short stories; Orsinian Tales and Other stories. Finally there is an interesting chronology of Le Guin's life; where she lived, when the various novels and other stories were written and published.
So, onto the stories. Malafrena is a town in the southeast of Orsinia. The story follows various people in the Sorde family. Their estate is in Malafrena. The son, Itale, is away at seminary school and rather than move back to Malafrena to help take over his father's estate, decides to move to the capital Krasnoy, where he wants to join the revolution. This causes his father to disown him. The story moves from the estate and the family there and back to Krasnoy where Itale and his college friends try to run a newspaper under the constant overlook of the censors. The story moves around Orsinia as Itale tries to find other people to help with their revolution. He ends up in a prison for a few years in an eastern district, Polana. This allows other characters, sister Laura, her friend Piera and others to develop.
I'm making it sound like a simple story but there are many levels to it. You've got the development of the main characters and their ideas on freedom and thought. You've got various love stories - will they or won't they? And you've got the history of Orsinia going on in the background, placing it within the context of what is happening around it, in Austria, France (the French Revolution). As I got into it, the story became richer and more interesting. It's a different style of writing than I was used to from Le Guin.... different but similar, I guess would be more accurate. Historical fiction vice Sci Fi / Fantasy, maybe.
Then you have the various short stories, all set in Orsinia and many featuring ancestors or children and grandchildren of the characters in Malafrena. They are varied and different; some I liked more than others but all were interesting and enjoyable. Did I have any favorites? Brothers and Sisters, which moved from one family to another and the relationships between the various families was excellent (and in Notes on the Texts portion there is a fascinating portion from one of Le Guin's brothers who talks about the ideas in the story). Imaginary Countries deals with a family closing down their summer home to move back to the city. The interactions between the children and their parents and the feelings about their country home is wonderful. It's a lovely story. Two Delays on the Northern Line was also excellent; a man dealing with the death of his mother and wife and how the end of his train trip seems to solve his emotional loss.
Le Guin is one of those unique writers. There is a sparseness to her writing but at the same time her stories are rich in detail. I always have a reaction to her stories, whether fiction, poetry, Sci-Fi or fantasy. She is equally comfortable writing novels or short stories. Onward to my next story,City of Illusions, back to Sci Fi with #3 in her Hainish Cycle. (4.0 stars)
When Le Guin was just beginning to consider a career as an author, the authors that interested her the most were European and Russian authors. But how for a west coast girl to write about Europe? That was her dilemma and it took her a number of years to get into her work. In the meantime, she had Sci Fi short stories and some of her first novels published. But Orsinia was the story she wanted to write. So Le Guin, rather than try to set a story in an existing European country, decided to create her own country and that country became Orsinia, a nation of 10 regions under the influence of the Austro - Hungarian empire. The compilation by the Library of Congress consists of the novel, Malafrena, a chapter of songs and finally a collection of short stories; Orsinian Tales and Other stories. Finally there is an interesting chronology of Le Guin's life; where she lived, when the various novels and other stories were written and published.
So, onto the stories. Malafrena is a town in the southeast of Orsinia. The story follows various people in the Sorde family. Their estate is in Malafrena. The son, Itale, is away at seminary school and rather than move back to Malafrena to help take over his father's estate, decides to move to the capital Krasnoy, where he wants to join the revolution. This causes his father to disown him. The story moves from the estate and the family there and back to Krasnoy where Itale and his college friends try to run a newspaper under the constant overlook of the censors. The story moves around Orsinia as Itale tries to find other people to help with their revolution. He ends up in a prison for a few years in an eastern district, Polana. This allows other characters, sister Laura, her friend Piera and others to develop.
I'm making it sound like a simple story but there are many levels to it. You've got the development of the main characters and their ideas on freedom and thought. You've got various love stories - will they or won't they? And you've got the history of Orsinia going on in the background, placing it within the context of what is happening around it, in Austria, France (the French Revolution). As I got into it, the story became richer and more interesting. It's a different style of writing than I was used to from Le Guin.... different but similar, I guess would be more accurate. Historical fiction vice Sci Fi / Fantasy, maybe.
Then you have the various short stories, all set in Orsinia and many featuring ancestors or children and grandchildren of the characters in Malafrena. They are varied and different; some I liked more than others but all were interesting and enjoyable. Did I have any favorites? Brothers and Sisters, which moved from one family to another and the relationships between the various families was excellent (and in Notes on the Texts portion there is a fascinating portion from one of Le Guin's brothers who talks about the ideas in the story). Imaginary Countries deals with a family closing down their summer home to move back to the city. The interactions between the children and their parents and the feelings about their country home is wonderful. It's a lovely story. Two Delays on the Northern Line was also excellent; a man dealing with the death of his mother and wife and how the end of his train trip seems to solve his emotional loss.
Le Guin is one of those unique writers. There is a sparseness to her writing but at the same time her stories are rich in detail. I always have a reaction to her stories, whether fiction, poetry, Sci-Fi or fantasy. She is equally comfortable writing novels or short stories. Onward to my next story,City of Illusions, back to Sci Fi with #3 in her Hainish Cycle. (4.0 stars)
October 18, 2023
This one's kind of a cheat since I've already read Malafrena and Orisnian Tales, but I wanted to go through the (excellent) supplementary material.
January 3, 2022
Profoundly glad that this was my first read of the new year because it felt like a much-needed reset. Le Guin’s non-SF works have surprisingly become some of my favorites even though I still am very fond of the Hainish Cycle. Malafrena took everything I thought I hated about 19th century novels and made me wish I could both live in the moments before the action where the characters stew in frustrated ambition and childish loves and also made me anxious to see their story carried past the ambiguous aftermath of the failed revolution. That’s part of why I enjoyed the other stories in the collection so much since they gave some closure on that front. “Unlocking the Air” tied everything together so beautifully and yet still made the long arc of this fictional country’s history feel wonderfully incomplete: “You know the song, that old song with words like ‘land,’ ‘love,’ ‘free,’ in the language you have known the longest. Its words make stone perfect from stone, its words prevent tanks, its words transform the world, when it is sung at the right time by the right people, after enough people have died for singing it.”
December 12, 2017
The novel, Malafrena, reads more like pastiche than Le Guin's other work but like everything else in this collection it's a work of astonishing clarity and few contemporary authors could create a simulacrum of a 19th century realist novel this convincing.
December 20, 2024
Waw c'était un sacré morceau
Comme d'habitude avec Mme Le Guin histoire lente à se mettre en place, mais on s'accroche car on sait qu'on sera pas déçu !! Je l'adore c'était trop bien
Vive la révolution !! Qu'on leur coupe la tête !
Comme d'habitude avec Mme Le Guin histoire lente à se mettre en place, mais on s'accroche car on sait qu'on sera pas déçu !! Je l'adore c'était trop bien
Vive la révolution !! Qu'on leur coupe la tête !
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September 7, 2025DNF 24%
October 29, 2017
No entiendo por qué la Librería de América (www.loa.org) decidió empezar la publicación de la obra de
Ursula K. Le GUIN
con sus únicas obras que no son de ciencia ficción, sino trabajos "serios"... pero menos conocidos. La ficción histórica sobre un imaginario país europeo (que bien podría ser Rumania) aunque muy bien escritos, no es lo mejor de esta escritora norteamericana, reconocida como una de las mejores en el campo de la ciencia ficción.
Pero en lugar de quejarme, aprecio como siempre la calidad de las ediciones de la LoA, y haberme "obligado" a leer este tomo, que incluye la novela Malafrena y la colección de cuentos cortos Orsinian Tales.
Aunque cronológicamente los "Cuentos" fueron publicados antes que Malafrena, en esta edición los colocan a l revés, y es una buena decisión, porque en la novela se entienden mejor las características históricas de este país centro-europeo, y los Cuentos complementan varios de los lapsos históricos antes y después de la novela. Entre éstos, los que más me gustaron fueron : "The Barrow" (1150), "The Road East" (1956), "An Die Musik" (1938), "The House" (1965) y "The Lady of Moge" (1640).
Pero en lugar de quejarme, aprecio como siempre la calidad de las ediciones de la LoA, y haberme "obligado" a leer este tomo, que incluye la novela Malafrena y la colección de cuentos cortos Orsinian Tales.
Aunque cronológicamente los "Cuentos" fueron publicados antes que Malafrena, en esta edición los colocan a l revés, y es una buena decisión, porque en la novela se entienden mejor las características históricas de este país centro-europeo, y los Cuentos complementan varios de los lapsos históricos antes y después de la novela. Entre éstos, los que más me gustaron fueron : "The Barrow" (1150), "The Road East" (1956), "An Die Musik" (1938), "The House" (1965) y "The Lady of Moge" (1640).
February 4, 2017
Took me a while to get through this, which I did because of my pride as a self-declared fan of Le Guin. This was her first novel, a historical fiction set in the early 18th century country of Orsinia. Its principle theme in my view is one that speaks to me: adventure and duty versus home and safety. The characters are finely detailed and believable. I'd recommend it.
June 12, 2020
Everything I read by UKG is my favorite. This one is particularly poignant, hopeful and tragic and very human. Malafrena is obviously the star here, but I thought the short stories were great, and the way they develop the history and advance the themes is pretty special.
August 31, 2020
Some times a little slow, but this realistic historical fiction is fascinating! You just have to be in the right mindset to read it. It's people heavy and deals with what we are born into, and how we choose to handle the lives that we're given. So cool.
October 22, 2016
Fantastic writing. Malafrena is a superb novel on what it means to fight for freedom and lose.
November 30, 2016
Am I finally old enough for Le Guin? Maybe!
October 12, 2024
Surprising and lovely bunch of stories. Had it been anybody else writing about a made-up European country, assuming you can just squeeze it in somewhere between Italy and the Balkans, or Czechoslovakia and Poland (though given the language the former is my preferred guess), rewriting the history of the continent in the process, I would have been appaled. But this is Le Guin. Somehow, she makes it work, and she makes me believe. More, she makes me feel seen in a way that very few Western authors have managed - seen as a product of a small central European country, without patronising glances or prejudice, with infinite kindness and understanding, and with love.
Best stories: Malafrena, An die Musik, Unlocking the Air.
I'm not sure why there is an impression that Le Guin's "other-worlds" fiction should outshine her early, "home-world" writing. Malafrena is a tough read in many ways, but also highly rewarding; but perhaps my own bias for the romantic period shows here. Especially some of the shorter stories also have a fable-like feeling, something I already discovered in Le Guin's writing with Always Coming Home, but this time the fables are closer to my own home.
There was only one, tiny occasion showing a vestige of US-American thinking that warranted a chuckle, since clearly neither Le Guin nor her editors thought this a problem: there is no such thing as "walking half a block" in European cities.
Best stories: Malafrena, An die Musik, Unlocking the Air.
I'm not sure why there is an impression that Le Guin's "other-worlds" fiction should outshine her early, "home-world" writing. Malafrena is a tough read in many ways, but also highly rewarding; but perhaps my own bias for the romantic period shows here. Especially some of the shorter stories also have a fable-like feeling, something I already discovered in Le Guin's writing with Always Coming Home, but this time the fables are closer to my own home.
There was only one, tiny occasion showing a vestige of US-American thinking that warranted a chuckle, since clearly neither Le Guin nor her editors thought this a problem: there is no such thing as "walking half a block" in European cities.
April 12, 2020
I struggled with Malafrena. It lacked that individual substance that makes a story its own. At times it read so close to Middlemarch I had to check which book I was reading. At others, it was just words. Many beautiful, but without the spirit I'd expect from Le Guin.
Orsinia is a fictional Central European country, and Malafrena covers the early 1800s and occupation by the Austrian empire. The trials of landed country families provide a backdrop to fomenting rebellion in the city. There's not much more to say, except that it took a long old time to get through.
After Malafrena, the Orsinian Tales were a breath of fresh air. Character, time, and place were impeccable, throughout the centuries. These small stories were solid, and grounded, and so much bigger than they were. The loss that pervades through many of them feels almost personal. Brilliant, and immensely satisfying.
Orsinia is a fictional Central European country, and Malafrena covers the early 1800s and occupation by the Austrian empire. The trials of landed country families provide a backdrop to fomenting rebellion in the city. There's not much more to say, except that it took a long old time to get through.
After Malafrena, the Orsinian Tales were a breath of fresh air. Character, time, and place were impeccable, throughout the centuries. These small stories were solid, and grounded, and so much bigger than they were. The loss that pervades through many of them feels almost personal. Brilliant, and immensely satisfying.
Read
August 21, 2023Okay, DNF, but I may come back. I love Le Guin’s writing so much… and her long introduction here is wonderful… but the first extended tale is not for me. I appreciate what it is doing—an homage, almost a pastiche of Tolstoy or Dostoevsky and other Russian authors, placed in a fictional eastern-European country sometime in the 1800s. A wealthy family, a country under foreign rule, etc. It’s a great idea, and I don’t mind that it has less of the poetry I come to Le Guin for. it’s more literary? Maybe? But I could not continue at present.
Okay, came back and dove into the other Orsinian tales, short stories. This is modern supernatural stuff, moody— really well written. Dan Mills.
Okay, came back and dove into the other Orsinian tales, short stories. This is modern supernatural stuff, moody— really well written. Dan Mills.
May 27, 2020
Przyzwyczajony do pisanych lekkim piórem niezwykle bajkowych i fantastycznych opowieści dość trudno było odnaleźć się mi w tej dość realistycznej, wyimaginowanej, środkowoeuropejskiej krainie, gdzie ważne problemy stają się niezwykle istotne, a życie codzienne jej mieszkańców nacechowane jest licznymi, dość zwykłymi kłopotami, które mogłyby dotyczyć każdego, w dowolnym miejscu na świecie. Dobre powieściopisarstwo dalekie jednakże od tego, do czego przyzwyczaiła nas autorka. Brawa dla Wydawnictwa Prószyński i Ska za kolejny pięknie wydany tom twórczości tej niezwykłej autorki.
April 19, 2019
I have already reviewed Malafrena separately, so this review applies to the other contents of this volume. I didn't love Malafrena, but I admired the crap out of it. That basically applies to the rest of the book. You get songs, stories and what amounts to a coda to the country of Orsinia. It's not my favorite Le Guin work, but I'm very glad I read it.
April 29, 2019
A tedious read. It was Ursula K. Le Guin. the left hand of darkness. the disposed. earthsea.
Beautiful evocative description of scene and place. The story lines failed to rise to the level of craft that went to building images in the mind.
Perhaps it is just my lack of interest in the romance of the era.
There were gems in the short stories. The Fountains. The Lady of Moge. Imaginary Countries
Beautiful evocative description of scene and place. The story lines failed to rise to the level of craft that went to building images in the mind.
Perhaps it is just my lack of interest in the romance of the era.
There were gems in the short stories. The Fountains. The Lady of Moge. Imaginary Countries
January 13, 2024
I felt like crying upon finishing the book — be it leaving Orsinia, or knowing that its only ambassador has left us and the tie is forever severed... I love the time I spent there; I do hope to go back in a few years, and revisit the old places.
September 3, 2025
I took me awhile to get through this tome but it was worth the effort. She is an outstanding writer am she has created a fully imagined world located somewhere in eastern Europe where all these stories take place.
June 3, 2018
Le Guin's regular old fiction is as stunning and heartfelt as her sci-fi and fantasy, written with compassion and a grasp of progressive politics that should be a shining example to the world.
April 14, 2022
I tried something different from my usual genres but 22 pages in, wasn’t invested and decided not to force it.
January 6, 2025
Was kind of skeptical at first bc I don't think historical fiction is her strong suit, but it's less like historical fiction and more like a fantasy novel except instead of magic they have Ideology
June 25, 2025
this was so hard to get through……i hate to say it but i think i’ve found the one le guin book i genuinely don’t like
October 5, 2025
Classic LeGuin… a nice compilation of this series… like coming back to chat with an old friend!
December 8, 2016
“For any act done consciously may be defiant, may be independent, may change life utterly.
But one can only act thus if one knows there is no safety… One must wait outside. There is no hiding away from storm, waste, injustice, death. There is no stopping, only a pretense, a mean, stupid pretense of being safe and letting time and evil pass by outside. But we are all outside, Piera thought, and all defenseless. There is no safe house but death.”
– from Malafrena, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin says in the introduction to this collection that she began writing about Orsina because she fell in love with the 1820s. I am ignorant enough of history to not have known much about the revolutions of 1820, but thanks to this book I am tempted to fall in love with them as well. Le Guin wanted her first novel to be set in this period, but felt too unsure of her knowledge of European history to choose a real setting. Hence the creation of Orsinia, an imaginary country “not too far from Czechoslovakia, or Poland.” The primary work of this collection, Malafrena, is that novel, first drafted in 1952 and finally published in 1979. The accompanying short stories are also set in Orsina, but skip around in chronology. Various revolutions hover on the temporal horizons of almost every story. Some countries are like that.
I picked this book up because I was familiar with Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthseabooks, but Orsina is a completely different animal, similar only in the depth of its history and the extraordinary detail of its imagining. Heart and soul, Malafrena is a European novel of the nineteenth century. It calls up comparisons to works like Les Misérables and The Brothers Karamazov. I have not had the willpower or stamina to read a great many novels of that period, but this one is unmistakably from the same family. I don’t know how much traction it will ever gain when it has been so far displaced from its rightful time, but I adored it.
Malafrena is probably the best novel I’ve read this year- or at least, I loved it the most. It’s the story of a young man who leaves his ancestral estate in the mountains to help start a revolution in the capitol. Like the Neapolitan Novels, which I read earlier this year, Malafrena is the story of a country wrapped up in a story of individuals, where people, politics, and patriotism are too entangled to ever separate. Le Guin handles distance very well– I remember noticing this in Earthsea too– you never feel close to the characters, it is never intimate, but you trust them and can see that they are good people and their quietness on the page somehow makes them exponentially more fascinating. Itale, the lead character, is a man you can fall in love with, because no matter how much you trust him you can never quite figure out what’s going on in his head. Enough said about Malafrena. If you’ve ever liked any nineteenth century lit (not Dickens, the continental stuff) you should give it a shot, or if you like revolutions (ergo, you are a romantic, full stop).
My only criticism of this collection and of Le Guin’s work in general is that it is almost never funny. A true nineteenth century novel would have some clownish side characters for comic relief, and lord knows I’m not asking for that, but it can be a bit exhausting to live in such a serious, earnest, heartbreaking world all the time. The strongest of the short stories are the few with a touch of humor: “Conversations at Night” with its incredibly accurate family bickering, the awkward, sweet courting in “Brothers and Sisters,” and the family in “Imaginary Countries,” who occupy the same summer house but live vastly different lives in it, according to their ages and inclinations.
At the end of “Imaginary Countries,” the family of five throws all their luggage into a car and heads back to the city for the winter. As the car pulls away, they peer back at the summer house, trying to remember and hold on to some of its magic. I felt much the same when I came to the end of this book.
“But all this happened long ago, nearly forty years ago; I do not know if it happens now, even in imaginary countries.”
But one can only act thus if one knows there is no safety… One must wait outside. There is no hiding away from storm, waste, injustice, death. There is no stopping, only a pretense, a mean, stupid pretense of being safe and letting time and evil pass by outside. But we are all outside, Piera thought, and all defenseless. There is no safe house but death.”
– from Malafrena, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin says in the introduction to this collection that she began writing about Orsina because she fell in love with the 1820s. I am ignorant enough of history to not have known much about the revolutions of 1820, but thanks to this book I am tempted to fall in love with them as well. Le Guin wanted her first novel to be set in this period, but felt too unsure of her knowledge of European history to choose a real setting. Hence the creation of Orsinia, an imaginary country “not too far from Czechoslovakia, or Poland.” The primary work of this collection, Malafrena, is that novel, first drafted in 1952 and finally published in 1979. The accompanying short stories are also set in Orsina, but skip around in chronology. Various revolutions hover on the temporal horizons of almost every story. Some countries are like that.
I picked this book up because I was familiar with Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthseabooks, but Orsina is a completely different animal, similar only in the depth of its history and the extraordinary detail of its imagining. Heart and soul, Malafrena is a European novel of the nineteenth century. It calls up comparisons to works like Les Misérables and The Brothers Karamazov. I have not had the willpower or stamina to read a great many novels of that period, but this one is unmistakably from the same family. I don’t know how much traction it will ever gain when it has been so far displaced from its rightful time, but I adored it.
Malafrena is probably the best novel I’ve read this year- or at least, I loved it the most. It’s the story of a young man who leaves his ancestral estate in the mountains to help start a revolution in the capitol. Like the Neapolitan Novels, which I read earlier this year, Malafrena is the story of a country wrapped up in a story of individuals, where people, politics, and patriotism are too entangled to ever separate. Le Guin handles distance very well– I remember noticing this in Earthsea too– you never feel close to the characters, it is never intimate, but you trust them and can see that they are good people and their quietness on the page somehow makes them exponentially more fascinating. Itale, the lead character, is a man you can fall in love with, because no matter how much you trust him you can never quite figure out what’s going on in his head. Enough said about Malafrena. If you’ve ever liked any nineteenth century lit (not Dickens, the continental stuff) you should give it a shot, or if you like revolutions (ergo, you are a romantic, full stop).
My only criticism of this collection and of Le Guin’s work in general is that it is almost never funny. A true nineteenth century novel would have some clownish side characters for comic relief, and lord knows I’m not asking for that, but it can be a bit exhausting to live in such a serious, earnest, heartbreaking world all the time. The strongest of the short stories are the few with a touch of humor: “Conversations at Night” with its incredibly accurate family bickering, the awkward, sweet courting in “Brothers and Sisters,” and the family in “Imaginary Countries,” who occupy the same summer house but live vastly different lives in it, according to their ages and inclinations.
At the end of “Imaginary Countries,” the family of five throws all their luggage into a car and heads back to the city for the winter. As the car pulls away, they peer back at the summer house, trying to remember and hold on to some of its magic. I felt much the same when I came to the end of this book.
“But all this happened long ago, nearly forty years ago; I do not know if it happens now, even in imaginary countries.”
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