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A review by jarrahpenguin
Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places by Ursula K. Le Guin
4.0
Dancing at the Edge of the World is a jumbled collection of Le Guin's essays, speeches, journal entries, and book and movie reviews written between 1976 and 1989. The book is mostly in chronological order but not grouped together by format or topic. Le Guin herself notes that many people might only want to read the pieces on particular themes like writing, travel or feminism, and so she offers a legend in the table of contents to indicate the topics of each piece.
The result is an uneven read, with some staggeringly good pieces - particularly on writing and narrative - but also a number of speeches or journal articles that make you feel you probably had to be there at the time to appreciate it. Likewise the book and movie reviews can be difficult to appreciate if you're not familiar with the texts she's reviewing, but her review "Close Encounters, Star Wars and the Tertium Quid" (1978) is a hilarious must-read.
These pieces were the other highlights of the book for me:
- "Places Names" (1981) - a moving poem-journal of a road trip from Oregon to Georgia and back.
- "Reciprocity of Prose and Poetry" (1983) - Le Guin's thoughts on the distinction between poetry and prose. Thoughtful and inspiring.
- "Theodora" (1985) - Le Guin writes about her mother, who came to her writing career late in life.
- "The Fisherwoman's Daughter" (1988) -Several versions of one speech cobbled together into a thorough, fascinating examination of what it means to be a writer and a mother, and the societal expectations and constraints on women writers in general.
If you want to know more about Le Guin in the 1980s this book will deliver a lot of insight. But if a piece just doesn't speak to you, I'd say it's ok to move on to the next one.
The result is an uneven read, with some staggeringly good pieces - particularly on writing and narrative - but also a number of speeches or journal articles that make you feel you probably had to be there at the time to appreciate it. Likewise the book and movie reviews can be difficult to appreciate if you're not familiar with the texts she's reviewing, but her review "Close Encounters, Star Wars and the Tertium Quid" (1978) is a hilarious must-read.
These pieces were the other highlights of the book for me:
- "Places Names" (1981) - a moving poem-journal of a road trip from Oregon to Georgia and back.
- "Reciprocity of Prose and Poetry" (1983) - Le Guin's thoughts on the distinction between poetry and prose. Thoughtful and inspiring.
- "Theodora" (1985) - Le Guin writes about her mother, who came to her writing career late in life.
- "The Fisherwoman's Daughter" (1988) -Several versions of one speech cobbled together into a thorough, fascinating examination of what it means to be a writer and a mother, and the societal expectations and constraints on women writers in general.
If you want to know more about Le Guin in the 1980s this book will deliver a lot of insight. But if a piece just doesn't speak to you, I'd say it's ok to move on to the next one.