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A review by jiritt
Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin
4.0
Not my favorite Le Guin by any means but she is always a breath of fresh air after going through some staler reads.
“Man and non-man cannot work together. 600 years of failure should tell you that. Your folly was only their pretext. If they hadn’t turned on us over it they would have found something else very soon. They are our enemies as much as the Gaul or the Winter or the rest of this planet that doesn’t want us. We can make no alliances but among ourselves. We’re on our own. Never hold your hand out to any creature that belongs to this world.”
As they went up the street to enter his house she asked, “why did you enter Tevar to save the people?” It seemed a strange question to him. “Because they wouldn’t save themselves.” “That’s no reason, Altera.” “It is a reason, Rolery. You can’t just sit there watching the bastards kill off people slowly. Anyhow, I want to fight, to fight back.” “But your town. How do you feed these people you brought here? If the Gaul lay siege, or afterwards, in Winter?” “We have enough. Food’s not our worry. All we need is men.”
“Why is it that you don’t speak mind speech to the Gaul? Tell them to go, as you told me on the beach to run to the stack. As your herdsman told the Han?” “Men aren’t Han,” he said. And it occurred to her that he was the only one of the them all that spoke of her people and their own and the Gaul all as men.”
“…life tends to adapt, after all.” As he said this Wattick got a very odd expression and stared at her. She felt guilty since she had no idea what he had been explaining to her. None of the key words were words in her language. “Life, what?” She inquired timidly. “Adapts. Reacts. Changes. Given enough pressure and enough generations, the favorable adaptation tends to prevail.”
“It seemed to him then that the old man’s death and the young man’s victory were the same thing. Neither grief nor pride had so much truth in them as did joy. The joy that trembled in the cold wind between sky and sea, bright and brief in its fire. This was his fort, his city, his world. These were his people. He was no exile here. “Come.” He said to Rolery as the fire sank down to ashes. “Come. Let’s go home.”
“Man and non-man cannot work together. 600 years of failure should tell you that. Your folly was only their pretext. If they hadn’t turned on us over it they would have found something else very soon. They are our enemies as much as the Gaul or the Winter or the rest of this planet that doesn’t want us. We can make no alliances but among ourselves. We’re on our own. Never hold your hand out to any creature that belongs to this world.”
As they went up the street to enter his house she asked, “why did you enter Tevar to save the people?” It seemed a strange question to him. “Because they wouldn’t save themselves.” “That’s no reason, Altera.” “It is a reason, Rolery. You can’t just sit there watching the bastards kill off people slowly. Anyhow, I want to fight, to fight back.” “But your town. How do you feed these people you brought here? If the Gaul lay siege, or afterwards, in Winter?” “We have enough. Food’s not our worry. All we need is men.”
“Why is it that you don’t speak mind speech to the Gaul? Tell them to go, as you told me on the beach to run to the stack. As your herdsman told the Han?” “Men aren’t Han,” he said. And it occurred to her that he was the only one of the them all that spoke of her people and their own and the Gaul all as men.”
“…life tends to adapt, after all.” As he said this Wattick got a very odd expression and stared at her. She felt guilty since she had no idea what he had been explaining to her. None of the key words were words in her language. “Life, what?” She inquired timidly. “Adapts. Reacts. Changes. Given enough pressure and enough generations, the favorable adaptation tends to prevail.”
“It seemed to him then that the old man’s death and the young man’s victory were the same thing. Neither grief nor pride had so much truth in them as did joy. The joy that trembled in the cold wind between sky and sea, bright and brief in its fire. This was his fort, his city, his world. These were his people. He was no exile here. “Come.” He said to Rolery as the fire sank down to ashes. “Come. Let’s go home.”