*NOTE: I mentioned I would post this essay here on my blog in case it failed to be published elsewhere. If in case I see another opportunity to submit it, I will take it down from here*
Remembering Wizards
On January 22, 2018, a notable author died. There are cultural icons that pass away and their effects on the collective psyche vary. This time it was Ursula K. le Guin’s death that affected the literary collective. Not only a towering figure within speculative fiction but among the mainstream community too. Shortly after news of her passing, social media posted personal anecdotes from readers, authors, from the aspiring to the famous, from science fiction/fantasy publishers to mainstream media outlets. Le Guin’s power lay in her words that covered topics such as feminism, sociology, activism, publishing, children’s books, literacy, and politics. Le Guin candidly wrote about the windswept and dynamic islands of her Earthsea series and was outspoken in her extensive essay collections.
During the 1990s while I attended Miami-Dade Community College, fresh from a creative writing course, I decided to take my writing seriously. Since being on the Dean’s List, I was allowed to take a specialized elective. Taught by Prof. Tixier, a white woman with short hair more pepper than salt, bright eyes behind constantly tilted glasses, walked with a slight stoop and spoke with a smoker’s voice. I was the class’s only senior and the only student remotely interested in the topic; the other students behaved as disinterested as I was enthusiastic.
When I shyly revealed to Prof. Tixier that I was an aspiring writer and showed her a manuscript, that’s when she introduced me to famed mythologist, Joseph Campbell and fantasy/science fiction author, Ursula K. le Guin. She asked if I had heard of A Wizard of Earthsea, and I replied I had heard of the series in passing. Because my pride got the better of me, I rushed to the campus bookstore afterward to see if there were any Le Guin titles in their paperback section. Outside the bookstore was a bargain table and, behold, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, a Le Guin short story collection! It was kismet!
Inland Sea’s provocative prose read like crystals, especially the collection’s title story for I love rhythmic titles. A Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a glittering tale of leaving home and second chances. Within the trappings of a society that practices a culturally complex form of polygamy, the protagonist becomes an astronaut to get away from the mundane only to encounter time-bending redemption before returning home, forever humbled and appreciative. Already a fantasy/science fiction fan for more than a decade, I voraciously tore through the collection’s other titles that were anthropological and philosophical in scope. I wanted more from this writer and sought out other titles. After I completed and passed Prof. Tixier’s course, I found the complete A Wizard of Earthsea at my local used bookstore and nearly crowed from delight.
In the now-closed bookstore chains, either Super Waldenbooks or Border’s, I purchased an essay collection titled Dancing at the Edge of the World and learned about Ms. Le Guin’s academic parents and how she felt indebted to her father, a famed anthropologist. She openly stated his influences on her writing and it shows. Le Guin’s sci-fi/fantasy cultures are candid, finely detailed, believable, and given a respectful objective touch whether human or alien. Her characters are diverse, not only by ethnicity but in beliefs and by sexual orientations and identities. In The Left Hand of Darkness, a novel that deals with gendered politics from the standpoint of the lone human visitor on a planet with evolved humanoids who change sex while in estrus, I’m ashamed to say years after reading that I learned the protagonist happened to be a black man. So used to Eurocentric speculative fiction books and cinema, it angered me to know I had not recognized someone whom I may have resembled!
When the SciFi Channel adapted her Earthsea into a TV mini-series and they whitewashed the cast except for the mage (played by Danny Glover) who trains the protagonist, Ged (he, himself white-washed), Le Guin became the first writer I witnessed to openly denounce her book’s adaptation in the spec-fic press, stating this was the channel’s ‘interpretation’ and not a true adaptation. She turned her back on the mini-series, telling fans to read the actual books!
In another essay, Le Guin spoke about the difficult decision she had to make as a 20-something college woman when she realized a youthful and romantic relationship was fading and she was pregnant. She often brought up this chapter in her life to speak about women’s rights and the right to choose. Because of her hard decision, she later explained she was able to meet the right person (the husband who survives her) and have the children she wanted.
Ursula K. le Guin has written extensively how pop culture portrayed female characters, especially the speculative fiction field’s inability to create credible female protagonists while it reiterates destructive stereotypes. She wrote male protagonists who weren’t the testosterone-driven kind from other sci-fi/fantasy stories, but thoughtful, sensitive, focused, and chaotically complex. Ms. Le Guin has been documented in countless journals, interviewed in numerous magazines, and though she is often controversial and scathing, her words are couched in irony and humor. Her discussions on various topics remain long in the reader.
After Le Guin’s death, a Twitter writer friend, another black woman and writer in SFF, mentioned that, while reading The Lathe of Heaven, Le Guin’s portrayal of the protagonist’s love interest, a black woman lawyer, made her ‘feel seen’. There was a social media discussion explaining that while other white writers did not often get black and brown characters ‘right’, Ms. Le Guin succeeded. As we fans and admirers struggle on how to live with the void she left, I remember the conversations with Prof. Tixier already long gone, that led to my becoming a fan of Ursula K. le Guin: not just by her incredible wordsmithery, but as a celebrated author, social commentator, and champion for women’s, civil, minority, and indigenous rights.
