Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin: By the Book

6 August 2015

The author, most recently, of the updated “Steering the Craft: A 21st-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story,” avoids “fiction about dysfunctional urban middle-class people written in the present tense.”

What books are currently on your night stand?

Salman Rushdie’s “Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights” (to review); “Sisters of the Revolution” (good anthology, got one of my stories in it, too); Harry Roberts, “Walking in Beauty” (for thinking about).

Who is your favorite novelist of all time?

I can’t do all time, I don’t even believe in it. It depends on which time, doesn’t it? If I’m reading Austen at the time, it’s Austen, but if I’m reading Tolstoy, it’s Tolstoy. If it’s 1940 and I’m reading “Black Beauty,” it’s Anna Sewell, but if it’s 2010 and I’m reading “The Cave,” it’s Saramago.

Whom do you consider the best writers — novelists, essayists, critics, journalists, poets — working today?I always dodge this question, because it forces me into talking about literature as a horse race. Triple Crown winners vs. lame hacks? Nah. Of course I have opinions and favorites, but listing them seems tiresome, and anyhow, if I tried I know I’d leave out half the people I really wanted to mention.

What genres do you especially enjoy reading? And which do you avoid?

I read mostly novels, any kind of novels, and poetry, and all kinds of nonfiction, especially some kinds of science, biographies, some history, and books about and by Native Americans, and Tierra del Fuego, and Darwinian adaptation — oh, give me a book and if it’s interesting, I’ll read it. Avoidance? At the moment, I tend to avoid fiction about dysfunctional urban middle-class people written in the present tense. This makes it hard to find a new novel, sometimes.

Ursula K. Le GuinCredit...
Illustration by Jillian Tamaki

Which fantasy novels do you consider the best of the genre?

Oh gee, “best” again. And “genre.” Ow. I’ll pretend you asked for a few of my favorite fantasies, O.K.? And I am applying the Dirri (Do I Reread It?) Test. So, for starters: “Alice in Wonderland,” “Gormenghast,” “The Sword in the Stone,” “The Jungle Books,” “The Lord of the Rings.”

And what are your favorite works of science fiction — stories, novels, film?

The Dirri Test filters out a lot of science fiction I’ve enjoyed very much. But Dick’s “The Man in the High Castle,” Arnason’s “Ring of Swords,” McIntyre’s “Dreamsnake” are among those that have passed it, and I expect Miéville’s “Embassytown” will soon join them.

What books might we be surprised to find on your shelves?

I don’t know, because I don’t know what you expect. Would finding all Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels be a shock? 

If you belong to a book club, tell us about it. If you don’t, tell us what your ideal book club would be like.

I belong to it! A bunch of intelligent people who love reading; will read anything, old or new (with a slight preference for fiction); and are really good at talking about what they read. They were reading one of my books and invited me to the meeting, and after listening to their discussion I asked if I could join the group. We get each other reading books we’d never read otherwise — I was the first S-F for some of them, and they put me onto Colin Thubron, among others.

Who’s your favorite fictional hero or heroine?

Well, probably Ged.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Your favorite books and authors?

I read everything as soon as I learned how to and never stopped. House full of books, town full of libraries. A pig in clover.

Have you ever gotten in trouble for reading a book?

I’ve been in some trouble from reading certain books, e.g. feminism in the ’70s, but so far have not been directly punished for reading anything.

If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?

I posted a blog entry on my website in June about being asked to write about “A Book That Changed My Life,” and why I couldn’t and wouldn’t. And can’t now.

If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

Poor man. Something as far as possible from Washington, D.C., and noisy self-righteous jackassery. “Mansfield Park,” maybe?

You’re hosting a literary dinner party. Which three writers are invited?

Please, oh please, can I just have Grace Paley and Bob Nichols back for an evening?

Disappointing, overrated, just not good: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

I put down a lot of books unfinished. They get sent to me to blurb, often with a note from the editor saying that this author has reinvented fiction and his book is going to put all previous books (including mine) in the shade forever, which maybe raises my expectations to an unrealistic level, or maybe just annoys me. Anyhow, I give them all a fair try. Most of them are pretty bad, and I don’t finish. Then out of the blue comes a Kij Johnson or a Helen Phillips, and life is good again.

Of the books you’ve written, which is your favorite or the most meaningful?

No favorites, but a certain tenderness for ones I feel have been relatively overlooked, like “Searoad,” and “Voices,” and “Lavinia.”

Which of your own books would you most like to see adapted for TV or film?

May I have an opera by Philip Glass instead, please? Whichever book he likes.

Whom would you want to write your life story?

I’ve already asked her.

What books do you find yourself returning to again and again?

Let’s arbitrarily limit it to poetry, which we have so far ignored. Housman, Shelley, Yeats, Hardy, Brontë, Rilke — for starters.

What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

At my age, nothing I haven’t done embarrasses me. Only some things I did do. And that was long ago.

What do you plan to read next?

Books!