Always Coming Home (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

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Peter Fitting, "The Turn from Utopia in Recent Feminist Fiction," in Feminism, Utopia, and Narrative, edited by Libby Falk Jones and Sarah Webster Goodwin, The University of Tennessee Press, 1990, pp. 141-58. Similarly, as in many of her earlier novels, Le Guin structures her narrative around a journey which involves her protagonist in two contrasting cultures. For the first time, however, her central figure here is a woman, Stone Telling, who is somewhat of an outsider in both cultures because of her mixed parentage. Her mother is of the Kesh--an egalitarian, agrarian, peace-loving culture which centers on celebrations of nature and a philosophy of generous giving. Her father, however, is a roving warrior from the Dayao or Condor culture--a rigidly patriarchal, militaristic culture which is destroying itself and its neighbors through its blind monotheism and greed. The Kesh use technological inventions of civilization such as writing, steel, guns, electricity, trains, and a computer network (see below). However, unlike one of their neighboring societies – the Dayao or Condor People – they do nothing on an industrial scale, reject governance, have no non-laboring caste, do not expand their population or territory, consider disbelief in what we consider “supernatural” absurd, and deplore human domination of the natural environment. Their culture blends millennia of human economic culture by combining aspects of hunter-gatherer, agricultural, and industrial societies, but rejects cities (literal “ civilization”). In fact, what they call “towns” would count as villages for the reader – a dozen or a few-dozen multi-family or large family homes. What they call “war” is a minor skirmish over hunting territories, and is considered a ridiculous pastime for youngsters, since an adult person should not throw his life away. Patricia Linton, "The 'Person' in Postmodern Fiction: Gibson, Le Guin, and Vizenor," Studies in American Indian Literatures, Fall, 1993, pp. 3-11. A warning: If you read solely for plot, Always Coming Home might seem an exercise in Never Reaching the Point, and I’d encourage you to read The Lathe of Heaven or a volume of Earthsea in its stead. This novel represents a culmination of the anthropological or societal bent in Le Guin’s fiction. Le Guin’s first three novels were republished as Worlds of Exile and Illusion— worlds, not tales or stories. The Left Hand of Darkness alternates plot chapters with bits of Winter’s lore and excerpts of its stories; while The Dispossessed, “An Ambiguous Utopia,” announces its social interests in its very subtitle. Always Coming Home doesn’t abandon narrative, but it comes close: This is a book that aspires to placehood.

letter responding to the chapter about The Left Hand of Darkness in David Ketterer's book, New Worlds For Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature, see Le Guin, Ursula K. (July 1975). "Ketterer on The Left Hand Of Darkness". Science Fiction Studies. SF-TH. 2 (6): 139. Le Guin didn’t write about Kesh culture; she created it and presents it to her readers, with the relevant glosses, much as her anthropologist parents presented the Native American cultures they studied. Indeed, though they’re inhabitants of a post-post-apocalyptic future, some Kesh beliefs and traditions resemble those of various Native American nations. In essays included in this expanded edition, Le Guin writes of the pains she took to make the Kesh their own culture—she had no intention of transplanting an existing society into The Future, changing a few names, blurring a few details, and announcing her great invention—and of the scrupulousness with which she avoided what, thirty-odd years after the book’s initial publication, we’d label cultural appropriation. Anyone with dreams of worldbuilding should read these essays. Midway through her career, Le Guin embarked on one of her most detailed, impressive literary projects, a novel that took more than five years to complete. Blending story and fable, poetry, artwork, and song, Always Coming Home is this legendary writer’s fictional ethnography of the Kesh, a people of the far future living in a post-apocalyptic Napa Valley. Living on the coast" and "coming inland" are terms for the mandatory post-puberty chastity and taking on a partner, respectively. In the Local Tongue: One of the recorded Kesh songs sounds quite mystical and impressive, fitting with others in the album. Translated into English, it is the singers quite explicitly propositioning someone for sex.

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In 1985 in Ursula’s home in the Napa Valley, Elinor Armer and Ursula K. Le Guin dreamt up an archipelago of islands – the Islands of the Uttermost Parts – where music was used for purposes beyond listening and was even more essential than it is in our world. Le Guin wrote the words describing each island and Elinor scored them; both drew maps and spoke the poems. The musical excerpt used in the programme describes the island The Pheromones, where “music is sex (scored only)” and we can hear Ursula describe the island The Antioriental Shores, where “music is shadow (spoken only)”. I never did like smart-ass utopians’—On Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin” by Mazin Saleem, Strange Horizons (26 November 2018)

Interrupted Intimacy: Stone Telling describes how she traveled to another town in her childhood. Her cousins there tended to have fun at night by interrupting amorous teens. Bangs and Whimpers: Novelists at Armageddon” by Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich, The New York Times (13 March 1988) Dreaming of Things to Come: Stone Telling described a vision she had of her father's corpse. When he shows up later, she believes her vision to be false, but later, when they must part ways as she escapes the Dayao people, she realizes a chance for it to come true will come soon.A holistic approach to the fiction of Le Guin that does not separate her science fiction from her fantasy. Explores all of her major fiction to date in broad terms of visions, praise, myth, and magic. Crafting the Hinge in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home” by Sandra J. Lindow, The New York Review of Science Fiction (2 April 2022)

Balancing Death's Books: The Brave Man is the story of a person who offered to die instead of his wife after she had a very difficult miscarriage.Always Coming Home is a 1985 Pastoral Science Fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin describing an After the End future.

The Immodest Orgasm: The teller of the Visionary's story talks at one point about her aunt and uncle making a lot of noise in their lovemaking every night.

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Intangible Time Travel: In "The Visionary", a vision of some strange people is described by the narrator. A footnote explains these were likely native Californian tribes which were forcibly relocated in the mid-nineteenth century. New Child Left Behind: Stone Telling was such a child, daughter to a military commander passing through the Valley.