Remembering Ms. Le Guin

The Oregonian, 23 Jan 2018 –

Ursula K. Le Guin, a longtime Portland resident who influenced a generation of writers worldwide and whose name became synonymous with superlative speculative fiction, died Monday at her Portland home. She was 88.

Ursula K. Le Guin was a little bitty person possessed with a gigantic imagination and the words to bring it to life. I heard a reporter say she was Portland’s “greatest author” and I have no reason to argue with that.

I came across my first Le Guin stories when I was a teen-ager and reading every bit of science fiction I could lay my hands on. I don’t recall exactly what I read, but I don’t think there were as many rocket ships, zap guns, or chummy robots, in her stories. And yet they satisfied. I probably didn’t even begin to understand them.

After I moved to Portland I found myself looking into her stories again. I saw Blue Moon Over Thurman Street, a book that she and photographer Roger Dorband had put together describing her neighbors on NW Thurman and wondered what it would be like to live near such a talented person.

Years later we bought a vacation house and I found a paperback set of The Earthsea Trilogy in the bedroom. Obviously a relic from the previous owners. Was it a gift? A discard? Something they had overlooked when packing? I prefer gift. I read through them that first summer, then re-read them more slowly wondering how much “magic” I could scrape from each page. They are still on my nightstand.

When audiobooks became the rage I downloaded The Left Hand of Darkness from my library’s web site. Tucked into my mp3 player, it was my “reading material” for an entire summer of long evening dog walks. A win-win for me and my chocolate Labrador retriever, Andy.

The Le Guin book that I have turned to most often, and have even purchased multiple copies of, is a work of nonfiction. Her beautiful rendering of a Chinese classic, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way. I say “rendering” because she did not translate the Lao Tzu in the usual way; she cannot read or speak Chinese. Rather, she collated translations, and then rendered them according to poetic and philosophic principles known probably by her alone. I have since purchased and read several other translations, and I know that her words sometimes go off in new directions from what scholars say, but the power of her verse is unmistakable. Her presence is inked into every word, and if you can only own one copy of the Lao Tzu, this might be the one to keep.

I had never heard of the Lao Tzu before I saw her book. The discovery was an accident in several ways. My family had decided to visit to Broadway Books, then a brand-new neighborhood bookstore. Tao + Ching must have sounded just enough to my uneducated ear like Tai + Chi, a new practice that I had just taken up, so I slipped the book off the shelf and opened it. I found only an occasional reference to tai chi, but the few pages I read about the mysterious Way made me curious. I took it home.

The Lao Tzu has followed me and led me ever since. For a long period I stuffed it into my carry-on for airplane flights. Reading about the Way somehow calmed me through the anxious moments of takeoff, landing, and turbulence.

Many years ago I went to Wordstock, Portland’s annual book festival, and stood in line to meet Ms. Le Guin after her speech. I told her that her writings on the Tao had raised deep questions for me and I wondered if it would be possible to correspond with her from time to time regarding them. She turned her head to the side, thought for a long moment, and then firmly, but gently (and, now I think, quite wisely) said, “No. I don’t think that would be possible.” My hopes had not been very high, so my disappointment was not so deep. Later I came to feel as though it was better to rely on the words she had written than to demand explanations to fill the cracks.

Sometimes when my hike through the Lower Macleay Trail would lead me into a neighborhood high above NW Thurman I would imagine her sitting, maybe writing, somewhere nearby. I never thought to look for her address online, but today, with this paragraph under my fingers, I checked the internet and found an online link that connected her to 3321 NW Thurman. Who knows?

Over the years I also saw her around town, waiting at the symphony, exiting a car, talking to companions. Even though she was the biggest celebrity I associated with Portland and Oregon when those moments arose I left her in peace. Why worm my way into a brief conversation when she had already written so many words for me to read?

A final note: many of the accolades for Ursula K. Le Guin have rightly focused on her fiction, but she was a clear-eyed thinker and writer no matter topic what she tackled. A short essay that sticks in my mind is what she wrote about Ishi, the last Yahi. She was born long after Ishi had passed away and asserted that she was not the one to ask for insights into Ishi. Maybe it is appropriate that I can’t find the essay she wrote, but the story of Ishi is one that will always be linked with her in my mind.

Dear Ms. Le Guin, If you are spirit, then I hope there is ease and joy. You will not be forgotten. Thank you.