{"id":1067,"date":"2009-10-21T13:27:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-21T20:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/10\/eight-decades-of-ursula-k-le-guin.html"},"modified":"2009-10-21T13:27:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-21T20:27:00","slug":"eight-decades-of-ursula-k-le-guin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/2009\/10\/eight-decades-of-ursula-k-le-guin.html","title":{"rendered":"Eight Decades of Ursula K. Le Guin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/St9_oIKeyiI\/AAAAAAAAAdA\/fzs2RIQ8S1o\/s1600-h\/ursula04a1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_yrL6yfubw8g\/St9_oIKeyiI\/AAAAAAAAAdA\/fzs2RIQ8S1o\/s320\/ursula04a1.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br \/><span>TODAY one of the most innovative and intriguing writers in the english language marks her 80th birthday.  there aren&#8217;t many novelists who i enjoy as much today as i did when i was in elementary school; ursula le guin is one of them. <\/span><\/p>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/news\/arts\/la-ca-ursula-leguin10-2009may10,0,5322342,full.story\"><span>here<\/span><\/a><span> is the recent LA Times piece i wrote on her after visiting her in portland and re-immersing myself in her body of work and the debates around it. she was a very sharp, wide-ranging conversationalist i wish i could have spent more time with.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>and <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/books\/booksblog\/2009\/may\/21\/ursula-k-le-guin-realism\"><span>here<\/span><\/a><span> is a guardian piece in which i discuss her role (alongside berkeley high classmate philip k. dick, among others) in leading my generation of novelists away from realism.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ursulakleguin.com\/\"><span>le guin<\/span><\/a><span> is best known for her &#8220;earthsea&#8221; books, which are inspired by tolkien and carl jung and in turn inspired the harry potter novels. her two consensus science-fiction masterpieces are &#8220;the left hand of darkness&#8221; and &#8220;the dispossessed,&#8221; which grow in rereading. but her last novel, &#8220;lavinia,&#8221; which pursues a minor character from virgil&#8217;s &#8220;aeniad,&#8221; is wonderful as well. <\/span><\/div>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>(<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfwa.org\/2009\/10\/happy-birthday-ursula-k-le-guin\/\"><span>here<\/span><\/a><span> is a birthday note from the SFWA, and a characteristically wry note from sf writer robert silverberg.)<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span>looking forward to many more years of productivity from this american original.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>TODAY one of the most innovative and intriguing writers in the english language marks her 80th birthday. there aren&#8217;t many novelists who i enjoy as much today as i did when i was in elementary school; ursula le guin is one of them. here is the recent LA Times piece i wrote on her after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[35,181,104,186,146,279,137,307,345,29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-books","7":"category-fantasy","8":"category-genre","9":"category-philip-k-dick","10":"category-portland","11":"category-realism","12":"category-science-fiction","13":"category-silverberg","14":"category-ursula-le-guin","15":"category-west-coast","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/culturecrash\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}