A review by paracyclops
Very Far Away From Anywhere Else by Ursula K. Le Guin

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ursula K. Le Guin is one of very few writers whose work consistently leaves me with a strong sense of recognition. She often set out to represent certain forms of experience, the marginal, outsider, non-conforming, unconventional kinds that seem to have characterised my own life, and when I read her representations I feel seen. I don't think those are easy kinds of experience to represent convincingly. I think it takes a lot of imagination, a lot of attention to detail, and a lot of technique—and when writers less accomplished than Le Guin attempt the task, the results often strike me as clichéd, heavy-handed sequences of trite truisms. Very far away from anywhere else is a very short novel in the mimetic tradition (i.e. it's not science-fiction or fantasy), although the literature of the fantastic plays an important part in the story, in that one main character is a worldbuilder (the other is a composer, which is arguably another species in the same genus). It's a simple, subtly told account of a friendship blossoming into love between two American teenagers, both of whom have decided not to seek membership in any of the social groups to which teenagers are supposed to belong. It's set in the 1970s, so the protagonists have neither the additional complications of social media, nor the opportunities they afford for finding your tribe outside your immediate geographical context. Instead they find each other, which is unknown territory for introverted teenagers, and the story concerns their attempts to work out what they've found. Le Guin's consummate technique and profound empathy makes it a deeply affecting tale. This is usually regarded as a minor work in her oeuvre, largely because it's not SF or fantasy, I suspect, and it seems to be out of print. For me, it's vintage Le Guin.