Akaciefrøenes forfatter

by Ursula K. Le Guin, Karsten Sand Iversen (Translator)

Novelle. Science fiction om en gruppe "therolingvistikeres" arbejde med at oversætte forskellige dyrs nedfældede tekster.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fantasy, Poetry, Philosophy

17 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

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

[Márcio · Rating 5 out of 5]

O presente conto faz parte de uma antologia publicada na década de 1990 , The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF, contendo diversos contos de ficção-científica, de forma a apresentar uma evolução do gênero. É também o conto no qual Vinciane Despret se baseia para escrever Autobiografia de um polvo: e outras narrativas de antecipação.

Ursula K. Le Guin tinha uma capacidade ilimitada de pensar formas de expressão de vida, além da humana e o fez durante toda a sua carreira literária. Aqui, não é diferente, e Le Guin, por meio de sua mente especulativa, cria o conceito de therolinguística, que estuda a escrita dos animais e plantas. Atualmente, há cientisticas que vêm observando interações químicas entre plantas que podem ser descritas como uma forma de linguagem. E mesmo os demais animais, além do animal humano, possuem meios de comunicação e expressão, apenas que não os consideramos dignos de serem considerados comunicação ou coisa do gênero. Pobre de nós, humanos.

A consciência, entendida como a capacidade de vivenciar, experimentar ou compreender aspectos ou a totalidade do mundo interior pelo ser humano. deu-nos o sentido de razão. Infelizmente, isso parece que nos fez crer que somos deuses ou semi-deuses perante toda as demais espécies, animais e vegetais, e delas dispormos como bem entendermos.

Como escreve na resenha ao livro de Despret, eu acredito que a forma de expressão humana não é única, que os animais também possuem consciência, personalidades etc., apenas que possuem outras formas de se expressarem que nós não entendemos (ou não temos interesse ou não queremos entender), mas isso não significa que o único meio de expressão válido seja a vocalização ou a escrita manual humana, e que sejamos, nós, seres humanos, o centro de todo o universo e que podemos destruir ou criar ao nosso bel prazer, sem pensar nas consequências aos outros seres e a nós mesmos. Podemos ser muito, mas enquanto não percebermos que a vida é simbiose, de que dependemos uns dos outros para seguir, acabamos sendo nada.

[X]

Fun!

[Martín · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ursula ets perfecta i tenies el cervell enorme

[Jane Messer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here again that combination of ephemerality and reimagining ecosystems, including literary ecosystems, which is such a part of Le Guin’s aesthetic and philosophy. I wonder if she made a decision not to travel to the Antarctic herself, but to only know it vicariously, and then imagine it? She uses the genre of the factual report to such great effect in these bizarre, hilarious and yet also wondrously true Journal of Therolinguistics speculations on the extremities of what we understand as language. In graceful metafictive manoeuvres, Le Guin privileges poetry, both verbal and kinetic, over narrative. Fifty years before Suzanne Simrad’s How Trees Talk, Le Guin was imagining the languages and communications of all of the nonhuman: animal, plant and geological. If we can just pay attention.

[K's Bognoter · Rating 4 out of 5]

AKACIEFRØENES FORFATTER af Ursula K. Le Guin er en sjov lille tekst, en pudseløjerlighed, men lige så tankevækkende, som den er kort. Og ikke uden aktuelle og relevante budskaber for vor tids optagethed af klima og økologisk balance.
Læs anmeldelsen på K's bognoter: https://bognoter.dk/2019/12/26/ursula...

[Lilith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a beautiful little piece! Thinking about speculation and science and what kinda of worlds we can imagine within science and nature

[Cody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun short read about different kinds of communication. Makes me want to read more of her Sci Fi!

[Tobias Cramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I disse tre små tekster gør Ursula Le Guin én ting soleklart: Science Fiction har et langt større potentiale end man tror. Genren forholder sig nemlig alt for ofte kun til STEM-delen af videnskabens verden. Det er rumskibene og gravitationsbølgerne, lange formler og kitler der er i hovedsædet, når man tænker på denne genre, men Le Guin skriver også sociologisk og lingvistisk Science fiction.

Teksterne i Akaciefrøenes forfatter beskæftiger sig alle med at afkode forskellige dyrs litteratur: myrerenes, pingvinernes og delfinernes sprog. Det er underfundige og radikale tekster, der tydeligt retfærdiggør, hvorfor Ursula Le Guin genoptrykkes i rivende fart i disse år. Hun var en økokritisk forgangskvinde med sand originalitet og opfindsomhed.

[sofie · Rating 3 out of 5]

aha

[Juliana.]

"El autor de las semillas de acacia y otros extractos del diario de la Sociedad de Zoolingüistas"
...
Lástima que no haya otras ediciones. El punto es, el lenguaje. Pues que se le va a hacer si para el animal humano todo habla...¿Cómo es posible conocer el mundo sin lenguaje? Mis pensamientos van en la misma línea, así peculiar y cuidadosamente dispuestos como las semillas con los de Le Guin: "el lenguaje es comunicación" y sí, el arte es comunicación también-- el lenguaje es temporal... y suena muy necesario, a pesar de solo parecer una insinuación: es imprescidible aprehender esos otros lenguajes y hacer de ellos algo atemporal

[Lulu Joe Kestner · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is amazing how intensely you can fall in love with a text in just seventeen pages. My feelings towards The Author of the Acacia Seeds is quite similar to that of She Unnames Them, only fonder. This quiet, scientific abstractness, that Le Guin creates, spoke to me in a way that surprised me quite a bit and I found it beautifully written and sort of funnely interesting. I found It with very few words made it easy for me to imagine a different world or time, one I’d like to see.

[Nathaniel Breindel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book details scientific authors in the next century studying various languages of different animals. Basically, it's discovered that nearly every animal on earth can communicate in one way or another, so a whole new field of science is born. It's a quick and interesting read, I hope to find more books like this one.

[Mya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting short story about the theory of language intertwined with nature. I find the idea of communication that Le Guin presents to be fascinating as well, is language subjective? Or rather passive?

[Emily Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short story about the secret languages of animals we haven't even tapped into yet

[Carla Ruby Bang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Klassisk Le Guin, der sparker benene væk under mig

[B. Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, very weird, but also brilliant. I'm taking a class called Posthuman Things and this is one of our first readings. I'm sure I'll appreciate it even more after a discussion.

[John Cates]

Printed in the 1974 "fellowship of the stars" story collection - edited by terry Carr - the theme of the stories in this collection is friendship between human and apien beings

[Mikayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this! I've read five of Le Guin's books, multiple short stories, but none has interested me more than this simple study of the language and art of non-human beings.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful little short story, perhaps there's art to be found in everything!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really neat read. A like the idea of a literary ecosystem using non traditional mediums <3

[frida · Rating 5 out of 5]

bare helt vildt god

[Carole]

Read in collected stories.

[Alejandrina Aguirre Barba]

<3

[babi]

again another short story i had to read for uni :))

[River · Rating 4 out of 5]

A delightful little short story contemplating the language of animals and plants, projecting humanity onto them. Very engaging refreshing little morning read.

[&#x1f36e; Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO FUN WHAT????

[Adam Meek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Doolittle meets Noam Chomsky

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Pep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hmmmm! Is everybody here missing the point of these snippets? I would have thought that LeGuin is overtly taking the mick out of pretentious academics, an obvious target being her anthropologist father!

I may be wrong, of course, as her great volume of work lacks any single other indication of a sense of humour, and some considerable degree of seriousness bordering on pretentiousness.

Perhaps this piece of work might be ascribed to the satisfaction of some sort of drunken challenge; certainly it only marginally matches the criterion (“theme of friendship between human and alien beings”) which Terry Carr set for inclusion in the "Fellowship of the Stars" anthology in which this first appears.

I found it amusing, unlike a lot of her other po-faced work.

[Abram Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if animals had real language? Not just dogs and dolphins and not just basic communication, but a form of poetry specific to their lives and form? This short story imagines an academic discipline of understanding animals from the animals' perspective. You won't look at ants the same way again.