![]() After all, there’s nothing in the least pulpish about her moving exploration of gender, race, and love in The Left Hand of Darkness, while one has only to read the opening lines of A Wizard of Earthsea to recognize prose of assured and understated power: ![]() ![]() That we finally take ambitious “fantastika” seriously is due in no small part to Le Guin. Yes, Ursula Le Guin wrote science fiction and fantasy, but we’ve come a long way since people reflexively dismissed these two related genres as simply that Buck Rogers stuff or kiddie stories about elves. As I sit at this keyboard, the whole world, especially the science-fiction world, is mourning her passing-and a certain committee in Sweden is, I hope, kicking itself for having neglected to award her the Nobel Prize for literature. ![]() I suspect that Le Guin, who herself majored in French at Radcliffe, must early on have taken to heart Flaubert’s dictum: “Be regular and ordinary in your life like a bourgeois, in order to be violent and original in your work.” For there is no question about it: This humorous, outspoken woman, who once told a feminist conference that she actually enjoyed housework, was one of the essential writers of our time. ![]() Le Guin, who died on January 22 at the age of 88, lived most of her adult life in Portland, Oregon, where she and her husband Charles-who taught French at the local university-quietly brought up their three children. ![]()
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