Klausner’s Bookshelf
Midwest Book Review
February 2012
“The
Wild Girls.” Bidh informs the girls in their Allulu language that they
no longer are part of the Crown City. Chergos’ daughter and Dead Ayu’s
first daughter are now Dirt Girls who if smart will keep their cherry
intact until they marry wealth and begat Gods with their Crown husbands.
Renamed Vui and Modh, if they want to survive they must accept who they
are now and not what they were at the bottom of the food chain.
“Staying
Awake While We Read.” Ms. Le Guin’s condemnation essay makes a case
that corporate publishing firms care nothing about the golden geese and
the readers except as a sham; as all that matters is profit at any cost
to the literature.
“Outspoken Author Interview.” Terry Blissom
interviews Ms. Le Guin who revels at being an octogenarian with a strong
defense of being against the avarice power-mongers who destroy
environments in someone else’s neighborhood and send other people’s
children to fight their profitable wars whether it is 1960s and 1970s
Vietnam or Bush 41 and 43 Iraq.
‘The Conversation of the Modest’
is an essay that lives up its title as Ms. Le Guin espouses on what is
modesty in a world in which fifteen minutes of fame on social media is
sought and revered.
There is more to this interesting
compilation. The novella is timely with its fascinating look at the
tribes along the East River. While the rest of the strong collection
also focuses on Ms. Le Guin’s issues of concern for the past five
decades which include the environment, women’s rights in a capitalist
cast system and war only good for the moguls.
