Ursula LeGuin

I'm taking a break from Augustine (I've read about 1/3 of his Confessions) to reread Ursula LeGuin's Tehanu. I read The Tombs of Atuan last week. I want to say that I think LeGuin is a master stylist, and her Earthsea series, of which these two are a part, is wonderful is this respect. I like The Tombs of Atuan and the other books in the Earthsea cycle, but I love Tehanu. As I've been preparing to teach it this week, all the things I loved about it first time around seem even more significant and meaningful. I suppose that has something to do with who I am this time around.

LeGuin deals with the complications created by relationships between men and women. I'd say that she so much has a grasp on what it means to be female, how it feels to be female, without slipping into stereotype. The way men and women (mis)communicate, how it feels for a woman to age, what it means for a woman to embrace traditional domestic roles: all of these LeGuin deals with skillfully, artfully, and interestingly.

There's so much more I want to say, but I don't know how. (SIDE NOTE: I've noticed recently that I avoid writing about the things that are most meaningful, and therefore most intimate, to me--my faith, for example.) It's hard to find words for these things that seem to get at the essence of who we are.

If anyone is interested in fantasy, I'd certainly recommend the Earthsea cycle.