Episode 64: Dreams and Shadows: On Ursula Le Guin's 'A Wizard of Earthsea'

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2020

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In her National Book Award acceptance speech in 2014, Ursula K. Le Guin intimated that, far from being superseded by digital technology, fantastic fiction has never been more important than it is about to become. Soon, she prophesied, "we will need writers who can remember freedom -- poets, visionaries, realists of a larger reality." In this episode, Phil and JF plumb the prophetic depths of one of her most famous books, A Wizard of Earthsea. A discussion of the novel's style and lore leads us into the politics and metaphysics of fantasy as developed by Le Guin and her predecessor, J. R. R. Tolkien. In the end, we realize that fantasy is not the literary ghetto it's been made out to be, but the sine qua non of all fiction. SHOW NOTES John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" Heidegger, "On the Origin of the Work of Art" Beowulf, An Anglo-Saxon epic poem Weird Studies, episode 41 -- On Speculative Fiction, with Matt Cardin Weird Studies, episode 61 -- Evil and Ecstasy: On 'The Silence of the Lambs' Weird Studies, episode 62: Like 'The Shining,' But With Nuns: On 'Black Narcissus' The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes (translated by J.F.'s mentor, David Staines) Sir Thomas Malory, La Morte d'Arthur Lewis Carroll, British fantasist Ursula K. Le Guin's acceptance speech at the National Book Awards, 2014 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and A Treatise of Human Nature Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Spectrevision Radio
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an arts and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martel.
0:20.8	For more episodes or to support the podcast,
0:23.3	go to weirdst. This is Phil.
0:53.6	Ursula Legwin is one of those people who seems to need no introduction.
0:58.5	But in case you don't know her, she's one of the two or three greatest modern writers of imaginative literature,
1:04.4	or speculative fiction, or whatever we're calling it.
1:07.9	Le Guin herself was uncomfortable with such over-particularizing labels as science
1:12.5	fiction or fantasy or young adult, which she saw more as advertising labels than as meaningful
1:19.2	terms for the kinds of stories she wanted to write. In the afterward, too, a wizard Verthsi,
1:25.2	the topic of today's episode. She writes that those sorts of stories
1:29.4	are not determined by the marketing needs of the publishing industry, but by the imaginative
1:34.4	worlds that come down to us from a very old tradition of storytelling. She writes, quote,
1:41.1	That is the tradition of fantastic tales and hero stories, which comes down to us like a great river from sources high in the mountains of myth, a confluence of folk and fairy tale, classical epic, medieval and renaissance and eastern romance, romantic ballad, Victorian imaginative tale, and 20th century book of fantastic adventure, such as
2:02.5	T.H. White's Arthurian cycle, and Tolkien's great book. Most of this marvelous flood of literature
2:09.2	was written for adults, but modernist literary ideology shunted it all to children.
2:14.7	And kids could, and did, swim in it happily, as in their native element,
2:19.2	at least until some teacher or professor told them that they had to come out, dry off,
2:24.2	and breathe modernism ever after, end quote. A Wizard of Earthsea is often called a fantasy
2:31.1	book for young adults, but you have only to read a few pages of it to see what a paltry understanding that is.
2:37.1	It's one of those books that feels like a hitherto undiscovered Beowulf, like the founding story of a national literature that belongs to a nation that happens not to exist.
2:46.4	Or perhaps it's like one of those imaginary objects from Borges' make-believe world of clun
	...

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