The Word for World Is Forest Read Online

The Word for Earth is Woods, Ursula 1000 Le Guin (1972)
Review past Cara Murphy

When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters.

Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. Only in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every accident confronting the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts there is no turning back.

Fix several centuries in the future, and role of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, The Give-and-take for World is Forest has been seen a response to the role of the United States in the Vietnam War. Peradventure it was at the time of writing, merely I consider this book to be peculiarly relevant to our own actions today regarding the environment, the destruction of our planet'southward natural resources and 'assimilation' of ethnic peoples. Certainly that was the theme that struck a chord with me and left a lasting impression.

Men from Earth accept arrived on the planet Athshe, renamed it New Tahiti, and are in the process of logging the abundant forest, sending the valuable timber back to a homeworld which has suffered environmental destruction. The indigenous population are referred to by many as "creechies" and used every bit forced labour. The arrogance of the humans is personified in the pivotal graphic symbol, Helm Davidson, whose bespeak of view opens the volume and sets the scene for the explosive events that follow.

"For this globe, New Tahiti, was literally made for men. Cleaned upwards and cleaned out, the dark forests cut down for open up fields of grain, the primeval murk and savagery and ignorance wiped out, it would exist a paradise, a real Eden." [p.12]

The native Athsheans – while sharing similar origins as humans, being 'seeded' millions of years previously by the Hain – are modest, dark-green-furred and live in natural harmony with their world. They have a matriarchal club, a civilisation of lucid dreaming and, prior to the arrival of humans, have no history of violence. Although the behaviour of the colonists, or 'yumens' as they phone call them, is of concern to the Athsheans, the idea of fighting back against the devastation and oppression is an alien concept to them. They don't understand the yumens and consider them to be backward and insane.

"But they merely dream in slumber, you said; if they want to dream waking they take poisons [hallucinogenic drugs] so that dreams go out of control, yous said! How tin people be any madder?" [p55]

Their globe, where the word for 'world' is the aforementioned every bit that for 'wood' is described in rich particular and shows Le Guin's talent for worldbuilding. When contrasted with the guild the colonisers have created, Athshe is indeed a utopia.

Although I think that The Word for World is Woods is not one of Ursula Le Guin's best books, it is well worth the few hours it will have to read. It lacks some of the depth seen in other novels such as The Left Hand of Darkness or The Dispossessed in my view; however, I institute the character of Davidson compelling. While he was the archetypal colonist; self-righteous, overtly oppressive and dismissive of anyone non like himself, his inner dialogue revealed an nearly sociopathic personality. He reminded me of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, slowly going mad in an unfamiliar environment. On the other manus, Selver, his Athshean adversary and nemesis, was a more thoughtful and introspective character who took no pleasure in condign the start of his kind to kill and murder. He led a bloody and ruthless defection simply lost a vital role of himself in the process. Both men are irrevocably changed by the events in which they played central roles.

What has stayed with me is the ecology thrust of The Word for World is Forest. Men (and the human colonisers are all male person) arrive on Athshe to plunder its forests with no consideration for the native inhabitants or the consequences of removing the trees from the land. It sounds very familiar to u.s. today, with the Amazonian and Indonesian rainforests beingness cut down and replaced with soya and palm oil plantations. But we practise not have a New Tahiti to exploit. Ursula Le Guin has described a lush and fertile earth, 1 where the trees are the lifeforce of the land and the inhabitants recognise this. The Athshean social club lives in harmony with its surroundings, respecting the land and the creatures that live effectually them. Le Guin makes a very interesting signal… that the give-and-take for world in the Athshean language is woods, whereas the give-and-take for world in ours is earth.

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Source: https://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/the-word-for-world-is-forest-ursula-k-le-guin/

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