Ursula K. Le Guin

When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters. Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.

The Word for World Is Forest

This is the third Hainish cycle book I read (the others are The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness). This has some of the same elements of the universe: Ursula's precise yet beautiful writing, the use of sci-fi as allegory, political philosophy and really good characters.

And then there are things that distinguish this book from the others. I feel like Le Guin is angry in this book. Not because her voice sounds angry, but the way that certain elements and characters of the story are framed makes me think that. And also the fact that this is a story written in the context of the Vietnam war, which she very publicly opposed.

The result is a powerful story of conquest and colonialism, but also of friendship, and how they can be difficult but worthy, and of environmentalism and loss. This book is short but it has a lot. It's just beautiful and imaginative and emotional. I loved it.

Eduardo Sorribas

This is the third Hainish cycle book I read (the others are The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness). This has some of the same elements of the universe: Ursula's precise yet beautiful writing, the use of sci-fi as allegory, political philosophy and really good characters.

And then there are things that distinguish this book from the others. I feel like Le Guin is angry in this book. Not because her voice sounds angry, but the way that certain elements and characters of the story are framed makes me think that. And also the fact that this is a story written in the context of the Vietnam war, which she very publicly opposed.

The result is a powerful story of conquest and colonialism, but also of friendship, and how they can be difficult but worthy, and of environmentalism and loss. This book is short but it has a lot. It's just beautiful and imaginative and emotional. I loved it.

Stephen Campbell

I kinda feel like I've been punched in the stomach.

** spoiler alert **
           there's so many things insane about this book. the first is that the athshean culture is meant to symbolize vietnam, or at least colonized cultures in general. athsheans are depicted as uber-natural, whimsical, entirely nonviolent, and completely separate from human negative emotion. 

this is the woman who said, "But I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior – women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?"

if she can apply this thought to gender, she should certainly be able to apply this to race and ethnicity. unfortunately, those from marginalized nations are just as prone to misogyny, ethnic discrimination, and other types of violence as much as the white man. they are humans with the full extent of human emotion and action. as an asian, i can certainly tell you that misogyny has existed here long before the british came. le guin could have written a sympathetic victimized nation without the primitive noble savage trope; she is certainly a talented enough writer for that.

my next gripe with this book is that the athsheans are described as a matriarchy, with a mostly gender-neutral or gender-equal society. as you read on, however, they have very distinct gender roles—women are political leaders because they are apparently more thoughtful and empathetic; their nature is described exactly as it would be on a very misogynistic earth. 

the supposedly matriarchal athsheans, in their quest for independence, somehow ignore the males who have been raping and enslaving them for years to instead slaughter the female sex slaves who have done absolutely nothing. because they are, obviously, a matriarchy. the few males they capture in their raids, they let go. because they are a matriarchy. the athshean leader mentions this is because the women would allow human reproduction, which is an odd thing to say because if they killed all the males (the slave traffickers and rapists, mind you), the women would not be able to reproduce on their own. it would have had the same effect, and would have actually been better in terms of the rebellion, as the women, unlike the male soldiers, would have no means of retribution. yet these oh so matriarchal beings decided to mass murder women instead. 

i suppose this could be a point about how women, even in the most matriarchal and feminist societies, will always be reduced to their biological capacities for gestation, but this doesn't make it any less irritating to read.

finally, the ending. the athsheans spend the whole novel trying to find davidson, the hitler of the book. in the end, they let him go. they actually let him go. they spend the whole novel murdering innocents, but let hitler go because killing him would make them just as bad. as bad as hitler. he's obviously imprisoned somewhere on some island, but i genuinely have never read such an anticlimactic ending. 

then there's a whole spiel at the end about how violence has forever changed the ooh la la dreamy whimsical culture of the athsheans. about how now, after defending themselves from hitlerites, they've maybe become just as bad and was it worth it? i'm sure this probably isn't meant to be the main takeaway from this book, but come on. 

i'm sure that being forced to become a killer within the span of a few months to defend your home from colonizers takes a psychological toll. i'm not arguing against that. but it is very odd for a white woman to write an antiviolence gandhi monologue into a novel about imperialism, especially when her audience is also mostly white. i don't like the idea of white people promoting antiviolence protest as the only morally correct means of defense against imperial violence, in the safety of their homes when poc are being tortured and killed for daring to exist. 

one thing that i genuinely do like about this novel is the portrayal of davidson. i think that most people don't like him being completely evil with no redeeming qualities because it does come off as quite cartoonish. however, in the context of this book specifically, it works. davidson is meant to represent american soldiers in vietnam, and i think there is enough media representation of the "poor veterans who suffered so much because of their choice to kill children aww. look how traumatized they are" variety. i like that he is entirely evil because that's what their breed is. you can't look at my lai and abu ghraib and every other atrocity they cover up and simultaneously pretend these creatures have an ounce of humanity in them, because they do not.

2.5 stars.

Ryan LaFerney

The world lost an amazingly talented author this year. Ursula K. Le Guin (October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018) passed away earlier this year, leaving behind a prolific portfolio of work. She worked mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction, and authored children's books, short stories, poetry, and essays. Her writing was first published in the 1960s and often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality, and ethnography. Many of today's sci-fi and fantasy authors owe a debt to Le Guin.

 Winner of the Hugo Award in 1972, The Word for World Is Forest is a science fiction novella by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the United States in 1972 as a part of the anthology Again, Dangerous Visions, and published as a separate book in 1976 by Berkley Books. It is part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle.

In The Word for World is Forest, Le Guin injects her own sense of outrage and activism concerning the Vietnam War and environmentalism to tell a story that’s just as intriguing and relevant in 2018. It wasn't new at the time and isn't new today: the premise of how we find ways to justify the advantage of brute strength be it over a human or an entire nation, and how we desire to find justice for underdog and the oppressed has always been with us. It is, in many ways, the human story. With The Word for World is Forst, Le Guin asks: What happen when we introduce evil into a hitherto innocent and passive culture? 

The novella is set on a forested world known as Athshe. Humans (yumens) have arrived at the planet and set up a colony in order to log the vast forests. Along the way, the colonists enslaved the planet’s natives, the Athsheans, to help with their efforts. Due to their treatment, the traditionally non-violent aliens rise up against their human oppressors. While they do succeed in getting the humans to flee the planet, the Athsheans now have to contend with the legacy of violence in their culture. Can they go back to their non-violent ways? In her afterword in the anthology, Le Guin noted that writing the story “was a little like taking dictation from a boss with ulscers. What I wanted to write about was the forest and the dream…But the boss wanted to talk about the destruction of ecological balance and the rejection of emotional balance. He didn’t want to play. He wanted to moralize.”

The story is indeed a moral one. The novel contrasts good and evil very explicitly, unlike other Hainish cycle works such as The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed, which are more complex. The Word for World Is Forest for as timeless as it is, is also very much a product of its time. The novella came right at the beginning of the environmental movements in the United States in the early 70s, and as opposition to the Vietnam War was at its heights. Le Guin used the story to examine two diametrically opposed cultures and the point at which they clash, with echoes of both movements clearly sketched out in the book. Her conclusions are thought provoking and serve as a form of indictment to her outrage over the Vietnam War and environmental regulations .

 What is interesting however is that Le Guin, with her sharp mind and a knack for anthropology, understands that the present world hinges on political negotiations much more than the idea of justice. She knows that in reality there are scars that do not heal, and that the reaction to every action does not just go away after it has served its purpose, that can never be the same as though nothing had happened - because it did happen, after all. So the question is how does a corrupted culture move forward once its been drastically changed through violence? What happens when cultures interact? To quote Le Guin : "--the anthropologist cannot always leave his own shadow out of the picture he draws--".

The morals may be black and white in this story that is because evil does exist. There is a thing as a moral compass that guides us to treating each others and the environment with respect. Or at least, I'd like to think so. I think Le Guin did too.

It’s interesting, reading The Word for World is Forest in the era of Trump, especially as politicians promise to roll back environmental regulations and dismiss the research conducted by scientists. It remains not only a product of its era but also a highly relevant story in the 21st century.

do you guys remember the girl on twitter who said "i miss when writes could write write" and they got harassed by the mafia boss novel girls (who really thought they were doing something)? me the whole time reading this.

this is my fourth le guin read this year and i am, frankly, nearly running out of praises to sing to her. to be brief, many of the metaphors for colonisation and especially the commercial white-saviour narratives have a lot to learn from 'the word for world is forest'. it is short but to the point and really, really packs a punch.

le guin's world-building is creative and her background in anthropology shines through the intricacies with which she examines both the host world and its inhabitants and the terran colonisers. beyond this cerebral intelligence, a strong emotional intelligence also shines through the story.

do you guys remember the girl on twitter who said "i miss when writes could write write" and they got harassed by the mafia boss novel girls (who really thought they were doing something)? me the whole time reading this.

this is my fourth le guin read this year and i am, frankly, nearly running out of praises to sing to her. to be brief, many of the metaphors for colonisation and especially the commercial white-saviour narratives have a lot to learn from 'the word for world is forest'. it is short but to the point and really, really packs a punch.

le guin's world-building is creative and her background in anthropology shines through the intricacies with which she examines both the host world and its inhabitants and the terran colonisers. beyond this cerebral intelligence, a strong emotional intelligence also shines through the story.

excellent execution on all levels.

Das Wort für Welt ist Wald

Kaya

Von der Atmosphäre erinnert es mich an Kafkas Strafkolonie.

Anna Berg

vins

4.5 stars. 'Tis a nuanced book about colonialism and its consequences that would make for a great discussion/conversation. Probably the most accessible book of hers I've read yet, next to The Disposessed. Though your reading and enjoyment of Le Guin's Hainish cycle books really rely on where you are in your political journey... Writing-wise, not so much a character writer, she is, but none of them feels archetypical; her character voices are sharp and grounded throughout, with gorgeous prose as always.

The Word for World is Forest

My first exploration in the world of science fiction and i kinda enjoyed it! i’ve never really read any science fiction and so having to read this for class made me a bit apprehensive but it turned out amazing! also the story itself was really interesting and the commentary on the vietnam war and the perspective the story gave me on colonization was really eye-opening

The Word for World Is Forest

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