The Word for World is Forest [Paperback]

Ursula K. Le Guin (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 6, 2010

The award-winning masterpiece by one of today’s most honored writers!

 

The Word for World is Forest

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. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Le Guin writes in quiet, straightforward sentences about people who feel they are being torn apart by massive forces in society— technological, political, economic—and who fight courageously to remain whole.” 
—The New York Times Book Review

“Le Guin writes with painstaking intelligence. Her characters are complex and haunting, and her writing is remarkable for its sinewy grace.”
—Time

“Like all great writers of fiction, Ursula K. L e Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us, hearts eased, to our own.”
—The Boston Globe

About the Author

Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of more than three dozen books for children and adults. She was awarded a Newbury Honor for the second volume of the Earthsea Cycle, The Tombs of Atuan. Among her many other distinctions are the Margaret A. Edwards Award, a National Book Award, and five Nebula Awards. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; Second Edition edition (July 6, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765324644
• ISBN-13: 978-0765324641
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #243,326 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 48 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Paradise Lost? February 6, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

On the planet Athshe, there is no word for war, there is no concept of murder, there is no language of hate. The world is one vast, green, gentle forest full of people who live between the world-time and the dream-time, who resolve their conflicts by means of ceremonial singing. Then the Terran League discovers Athshe's existence and a pattern of "colonization"-very similar to the exploitation of "primitive" cultures on Earth-begins to destroy the planet and its people; and, eventually, one young Athshean named Selver learns how to hate. On reading the back cover of "The Word for World is Forest" the novel struck me as being somewhat simplistic: good aliens live in tune with nature, evil destructive humans rape their planet, revenge ensues with tidy moral at the end. I was pleasantly surprised. The contrast between humans and Athsheans is much more than good-bad or nature-machine; the story is about more than the forced loss of innocence. Over the course of the novel Selver, whose wife was raped and killed by one of the human officers, becomes a god: he is the means by which new concepts are brought into the culture, and the concept which he learns and then teaches is war. The book is as much about the irreversible exchange of truly alien ideas as it is about anything.

Despite its seemingly formulaic premise, "The Word for World is Forest" is a thought-provoking and somewhat disturbing short novel written in Le Guin's usual poetic prose. It begins with the beautiful trick of transplanting the reader into the mind of the aggressor-Captain Davidson, the rapist and murderer of Selver's wife-and letting the reader absorb first his attitudes about the planet and its natives, then presenting the action from Selver's point of view, so that the reader finds all Davidson's stereotypes about the Athsheans suddenly shattered: a very effective switch, especially since it is obvious that Davidson is an unpleasant fellow, but so far there has been nothing to contradict his assumptions. The rest of the book will continue to change viewpoints in similar fashion, presenting different aspects of the action until finally, at the end, some resolution and understanding is discovered. The last line is both heartbreaking and irrefutable; it closes the book with the same strength with which it opens, and leaves the reader thinking. The book may not be as well-known as other stories set in Le Guin's Hainish universe, but it's a strong read whose points are subtle enough to keep the story from hitting the reader over the head with the moral but clear enough to raise questions. Also, like everything else Ursula Le Guin has ever written, it's done in language that reads like a dreamscape; which, considering the Athshean lifestyle, is most appropriate. "It doesn't take an old man or a great Dreamer to recognize a god! Where you go, fire burns; only the blind canot see it...I dreamed of you before we met here."

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Prime Le Guin November 28, 1997

By A Customer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

You can count on one thing after reading a Le Guin novel: a lot to think about afterward. This book tells of future Earthlings, who have invaded a lushly forested planet called Athshea. The natives are meter-tall humanoids covered in green fur, a peace-loving tribal culture. All the humans do seems destructive and senseless, and they decide they must find a way to make them leave. Obviously an analogy of European/American relationa/attitudes toward Third World nations; in anyone else's hands this could easily become mawkish and heavy-handed. Le Guin, on the other hand, transforms it into a powerful statement.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Still relevant July 10, 2010

By Harriet Klausner #1 HALL OF FAME

Format:Paperback

In the far future on the pristine world of New Tahiti is a wilderness Eden that Captain Davidson and other earthlings want to exploit for profit. He has already begun cutting down the trees. If it means the primitives die so be it as collateral damage often occurs when yumans conquer Mother Nature.

The native Athsheans are horrified over being massacred and enslaved. However, the vilest crime by the off-worlders is destroying the forest as their Word for World is Forest. Fearful of this new powerful God who is brutal on their former forest deity and on them, the Athsheans know there is little they can do but obey as violence is not in their make-up although Selver tries to lead an insurgency, which only further threatens his people's way of life.

This book was published over thirty years ago; long before Avatar. The story line is fast-paced while using a science fiction base to make a case that the "White Man's Burden" left Africa ruined and places like Tahiti devastated. Still relevant after all these decades, readers will appreciate Ursula Le Guin's classic novella of bloodthirsty avaricious outsiders destroying a peaceful Eden for profit.

Harriet Klausner