I found the following story about Le Guin in Joanna Russ’ “Letter to Susan Koppelman” from To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction. It’ll make a great opening to my Le Guin Module final paper.
Years ago at an MLA conference I saw a young man, a graduate student, read a paper on one of Ursula Le Guin’s science-fiction novels. After he had finished and it was time for discussion, a handsome, middle aged woman at the back of the room rose and said emphatically, “You’re wrong. I didn’t.” It was Le Guin (171).
Le Guin might have a similar problem with my analysis of her novel The Word for World is Forest, but I’m not necessarily making definite claims about her intent. However, I am using textual analysis to find meanings in her choice of character names. I’m eight pages into the paper. Only twelve pages left to go, so I’m going to head back to the library for further work in a moment.
