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andrew65's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.25
arthurbdd's review
4.0
Updated version of Four Ways To Forgiveness, adding in the novella Old Music and the Slave Women, which I think is the right call - not only does this bring all the stories of the twin worlds of Werel and Yeowe together in one place, but also it means that the story cycle begins and ends on the personal level, which perhaps is fitting. Originally released as part of the Library of America two-volume hardcover collection of the complete Hainish stories.
Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2023/05/01/le-guin-grasps-the-nettle/
Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2023/05/01/le-guin-grasps-the-nettle/
dinosaursatwork's review against another edition
2.0
Did you know that slavery is bad and that discrimination against women is not cool? Great, you already know the message of the book.
We could have long discussions about whether a white author should write about white people being enslaved by black people. Just in terms of enjoyment, I can say that this book was not for me - not because reading about slavery is not not enjoyable but because I thought that Le Guin didn't have much to offer besides the obvious.
Five Ways to Forgiveness comprises five stories, all of them too long in my opinion (it took me 20 days to read 250 pages) and all of them left me wondering why we needed this story.
<b>Betrayals</b> tells the story of an old woman taking care of a disgraced freedom fighter in a liberated slave planet (Yeowe). They become a couple.
<b>Forgiveness Day</b> tells the story of an Envoy and a warrior caste man who fought the liberation on the slave colony planet (now back on the "original" planet (Werel) where slavery is still in full force). They don't seem to get along but then get abducted by freedom fighters. They fall in love.
<A Man of the People</b> gives us new insight into how Hainish are living. We follow a countryside Hanish man who becomes an envoy on Yeowe. He gets into touch with women who want to fight discrimination since the liberation only freed men. He goes to a village where he watches how a couple of girls (one of them 6 years old) get raped in a ceremony of becoming an adult. 30 years later all is good and there is no sexism anymore. :) Also, he is married now.
<A Woman's Liberation</b> tells the story of an enslaved girl on Werel who is taught by her owner's son (and coincidental brother) what liberation is. The son fucks up liberating his slaves big time and almost all slaves die or end up in worse circumstances. Our main character is freed after two years of sex slavery and goes to the city where she becomes an intellectual. She insists that women should have rights and has to flee to Yeowe to avoid assassination. There, she is exploited as a worker but manages to get some support. She goes to the city where she meets the Hanish man from the previous story. She joins the university to publish about liberating women. More importantly, she also starts dating the Hanish man.
<Old Music and the Slave Women</b> tells us how Old Music, another Hanish man on Werel, gets abducted and befriends his captor's slave women. They try to survive days of political struggles and fighting.
Of these studies, I perhaps liked Betrayals best because it told the story of an old woman mostly alone in the marshes. However, I struggled with all of these stories. A constant question that came up was: Why is this story being told? Why are we focussing on these characters? How long do you have to keep a man and a woman in the same space until they start making out?
The stories gave me a lot of backstories of characters and, unfortunately, I didn't really care about them or the story. There was a spark missing. A deeper message apart from "oppression is bad" was lacking. On top of that, I don't think that writing about dark-skinned people enslaving lighter-skinned people is very subversive or clever.
Perhaps the deeper message here is to never meet your heroes: I was curious why we had so many Hainish protagonists in the Hanish circle. The answer is that they aren't more interesting than other alien races despite their millennia long history. And they also ritualize having sex for the first time when a child is 15, isn't that fun?
Likewise, this story made me dislike the Ekumen who is always "neutral". "Neutral" here means they don't pick sides in times of violence and oppression. Whose really to say that slave owners are bad? Surely there are good and bad people among slave owners and among slaves.
We could have long discussions about whether a white author should write about white people being enslaved by black people. Just in terms of enjoyment, I can say that this book was not for me - not because reading about slavery is not not enjoyable but because I thought that Le Guin didn't have much to offer besides the obvious.
Five Ways to Forgiveness comprises five stories, all of them too long in my opinion (it took me 20 days to read 250 pages) and all of them left me wondering why we needed this story.
<b>Betrayals</b> tells the story of an old woman taking care of a disgraced freedom fighter in a liberated slave planet (Yeowe). They become a couple.
<b>Forgiveness Day</b> tells the story of an Envoy and a warrior caste man who fought the liberation on the slave colony planet (now back on the "original" planet (Werel) where slavery is still in full force). They don't seem to get along but then get abducted by freedom fighters. They fall in love.
<A Man of the People</b> gives us new insight into how Hainish are living. We follow a countryside Hanish man who becomes an envoy on Yeowe. He gets into touch with women who want to fight discrimination since the liberation only freed men. He goes to a village where he watches how a couple of girls (one of them 6 years old) get raped in a ceremony of becoming an adult. 30 years later all is good and there is no sexism anymore. :) Also, he is married now.
<A Woman's Liberation</b> tells the story of an enslaved girl on Werel who is taught by her owner's son (and coincidental brother) what liberation is. The son fucks up liberating his slaves big time and almost all slaves die or end up in worse circumstances. Our main character is freed after two years of sex slavery and goes to the city where she becomes an intellectual. She insists that women should have rights and has to flee to Yeowe to avoid assassination. There, she is exploited as a worker but manages to get some support. She goes to the city where she meets the Hanish man from the previous story. She joins the university to publish about liberating women. More importantly, she also starts dating the Hanish man.
<Old Music and the Slave Women</b> tells us how Old Music, another Hanish man on Werel, gets abducted and befriends his captor's slave women. They try to survive days of political struggles and fighting.
Of these studies, I perhaps liked Betrayals best because it told the story of an old woman mostly alone in the marshes. However, I struggled with all of these stories. A constant question that came up was: Why is this story being told? Why are we focussing on these characters? How long do you have to keep a man and a woman in the same space until they start making out?
The stories gave me a lot of backstories of characters and, unfortunately, I didn't really care about them or the story. There was a spark missing. A deeper message apart from "oppression is bad" was lacking. On top of that, I don't think that writing about dark-skinned people enslaving lighter-skinned people is very subversive or clever.
Perhaps the deeper message here is to never meet your heroes: I was curious why we had so many Hainish protagonists in the Hanish circle. The answer is that they aren't more interesting than other alien races despite their millennia long history. And they also ritualize having sex for the first time when a child is 15, isn't that fun?
Likewise, this story made me dislike the Ekumen who is always "neutral". "Neutral" here means they don't pick sides in times of violence and oppression. Whose really to say that slave owners are bad? Surely there are good and bad people among slave owners and among slaves.
lindcherry's review against another edition
challenging
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Violence, Child abuse, Colonisation, and Sexual assault
virtualmolly's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Gun violence, Death, War, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Colonisation
booccmaster's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
morj's review
dark
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
gaiusgallus's review
5.0
Extremely compelling and human... Le Guin tells the (of course and always) incomplete tale of a people fighting for independence and freedom from slavery. Each story briefly touches the others but stands apart, mimicking the way an overarching history seems to be made of one decided narrative when really it is the minute and monumental interactions between individuals, all seeking their own ends. She touches on all the great tragedies of slavery and war, including the blunting of curiosity, the slave mindset, the destruction of an owner's humanity, and the turbulance that inevitably comes from co-opted/competing visions of liberation.
jcpinckney's review
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25