In terms of quality alone, it is difficult to speak of development in the fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin. Her writing has been good from the start. She has published short stories of high quality, selectively, over a period of thirteen years. Since 1966, she has written nine novels. Even the worst of these, The Lathe of Heaven is imaginative and ambitious, far superior to most SF being produced today. There is little doubt that Le Guin is one of the best writers currently working in the science fiction and fantasy genres. Apparently at the height of her powers, she promises much.

Nor has her world view changed or altered significantly since the beginning…. [Her best fiction] examines the possibility of balance between the individual and his world. Le Guin has always believed strongly in such balance, in the dynamics of polarity. Taoism is not an interlude; it is and has always been the strongest single force behind her work, the mold that shapes novel after novel, and binds them one to another in a coherent pattern of human history. Her use of oriental wisdom is highly personal, the creative adaptation of a philosophical system to a literary genre long dominated by a harshly western vision of evolution and technological progress. (p. 3)

To study Le Guin's novels is to study a complex organism that is growing and expanding harmoniously according to a central law of balance. This growth takes two forms. First, there is a shift in focus away from the celebration of balance and toward the problematics of balance, a shift which brings the individual closer to the center of this world, as maker and breaker of equilibrium. From novel to novel, man's relationship to the whole, and the nature and composition of that whole, become increasingly complex. Second, to render this complexity, there are important changes in form. Le Guin's later novels are much more elaborate, more concrete, more realistic. In place of vaguely stylized "worlds," we find carefully drawn societies; instead of "heroes," multifaceted, believable characters. Le Guin rapidly abandons the classic impersonal narrator, so dear to many old pseudo-epics and space operas, and begins to experiment with point of view. First a story is told from the limited perspective of one mind, and then through two or more centers of consciousness; diaries, interpolated tales, elaborate fictions of the editor, all have their place. Simple linear storytelling gives way to flashbacks, skillful juxtapositions of narrated time. Here, on this level, we may speak of synthesis. For what is happening, and will probably continue to happen in Le Guin's fiction, is an interesting merger of genres—the literature of speculation, science fiction and fantasy, with that of personal relationships and manners, the so-called "mainstream" novel.

From the start, Le Guin's writing is a fiction of ideas—or rather, of one idea: change in permanence, the dynamics of equilibrium. Her early novels are important because they lay the foundations of an historical vision from which she has not yet deviated. The two poles of that vision are, on one hand, celebration of balance and cosmic order, and on the other the difficulty of men to predict, to control the "way" this order will go. Even the best of intentions may go awry, bringing about the opposite result. Each of her novels presents a "problem," an inbalance to be stabilized, things apart that must be brought together. To do so takes effort; there must be will to order, and a hero. But if this is not to become a vicious circle, a comedy of errors where each new deed only wreaks more havoc, there must be some knowledge too. In Le Guin's universe man develops as he grows wiser.

The first novel, Rocannon's World (1966), and to some extent the second, Planet of Exile (1966), are exercises in paradox. What seems insignificant, misbegotten, hopeless, turns out in the end to yield unexpected riches. As individuals, the heroes play surprisingly little part in this process. They persevere, trust in things, but have little more than a token need to trust in others, and almost none to trust in themselves. In her third novel, City of Illusions (1967), a significant change occurs. The battlefield shifts from the external world of stock heroic adventure to the hero's mind itself. This internalization leads to new emphases; it increases the weight of personal responsibility, and with it the possibility of human evil arising from the burden of choice, the acceptance or rejection of the limits of existence. In these early novels what is called "evil" remains primarily an external factor, the fruit of ignorance, something to be converted or destroyed. But gradually, subtly, the spectre of self-delusion grows until, in her later novels, it turns things inside out. There, instead of demonstrating that untold "good" may come from the most insignificant act, Le Guin warns that even the smallest deed, foolishly or maliciously done, can cause untold harm. (pp. 4-5)

Le Guin's saga does not follow the pathway of linear progression. No advance is permanent, no conquest stable. One thing brings about its opposite. The only certainties are balance and change. Two major themes in [the first three Hainish] novels indicate quite clearly the course of Le Guin's thought: telepathy, and the League of Worlds. (p. 7)

[In] the early Hainish novels, parochialism, cultural isolation, and xenophobia strike at the very heart of the League, despite its plans and laws. Without mutual understanding, fear and fanaticism take over. The Shing, the "alien," simply incarnate what is a human failing, and make it an absolute. They allow no physical contact with men; mentally they are cut off by the lie. Like Agat's colony, they too are dwindling in number; in spite of this, they would remain apart, willfully and perpetually. Their famous Law is, in reality, their means of cutting themselves off from life…. (p. 10)

Le Guin's "future history" differs greatly from the Heinleinian variety, where each episode is a decisive step in man's conquest of the universe. Here both man and technology are defeated; "survival of the fittest" is not a matter of guts or guile, but rather of adaptation, of knowing the limits of self and others, of reaching other minds, communicating with them but not coercing them. The rugged individuality so championed by other writers is never glorified by Le Guin. To be an individual in her universe is to be whole, and that can only happen when man accepts his responsibility as part of a balanced universe. The greater his role in that universe, the more urgent the need for understanding self and the limits of self.

Each of these three early novels celebrates balance—they are pearls on a string. In each of them two "principles" are at work—polar forces which generate and sustain their inner dynamic. The first could be called "elusiveness of control," its counterweight "fortunate paradox." What first seemed the right move, then turned out to be the wrong one, now by some unpredictable twist reveals itself to be correct after all, on another level altogether. The technique of dramatizing these intricacies of change in permanence is fully worked out in Rocannon's World—this is no "apprentice" piece. Later works will elaborate these techniques and explore their significance, but will not alter them in any fundamental way.

From novel to novel, mankind is growing up. As he does, more emphasis naturally falls on the individual. Balance becomes less a matter of the machine righting itself, and more a burden thrown on the hero. Rocannon is emmeshed in forces external to himself. Convention does not ask that he ponder self, but that he act. However, in City a shift has clearly occurred. Although this novel superficially relates a quest leading to the destruction of an unknown enemy, the difference in focus is striking. (pp. 10-11)

City of Illusions displays an even more elaborate, and nearly bewildering, profusion of binding symbols and paradoxes. However, the profusion of signs serves a precise thematic function. In a novel about illusion and reality, the hero's task, like ours, is to break through the shimmering surface to truth.

Paradox thrives in CI: The Shing are rulers ruled; reverence for life is really fear of death. And the patterns of imagery are even denser. Jewels and sun, reflected light and real light, patterning frames and the frame of heaven, illusion and reality, fill the novel from its first to last pages. All are shadows to one degree or another; the clear light of truth is never seen. (p. 15)

These early novels, however skillfully written, remain verbal skeletons, too stylized and bound by the conventions of the space adventure to be truly effective. In The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin takes a bold step, for here the Hainish saga is transposed into concrete terms—recognizable societies, with men instead of symbols.

The Left Hand of Darkness is far more complex than its predecessors; in terms of sheer technical skill, it is Le Guin's most satisfying work to date. A delicate balance of ideas and passions is maintained throughout. The storytelling process is intricate. Over all lies an editorial framework, intermingled with interpolated tales, documents, diaries, and constant shifts back and forth in narrative time. This richness of texture does not impede the forward movement of the story, or the sheer suspense of the main plot. The popularity of this novel … is due at least partially to a striking central idea, a world whose people are androgynous. Also, this was the first time Le Guin dealt specifically with societies as such, and attempted explicit political commentary. This book is, however, more than a trick or a trend, but a well-crafted novel in its own right. It is also part of the Hainish cycle, continuing the League saga beyond the Great War into a time of consolidation; and can only be fully understood when read in this perspective. Once again, an ethnologist-observer, Genly Ai, comes to claim a planet for the organization of worlds. The basic pattern is the same, but what Le Guin does with it is profoundly different. (pp. 16-17)

Left Hand confronts men with viable, living societies. The vague, impersonal forces represented in the earlier books—nature in the raw or barbarian hordes—are still present, but play a secondary role before the precise social mechanisms of Winter. Some critics have spoken of a disparity between public and private "imperatives" in the novel: for the first time in Le Guin's work, union between men and the fixing of a bond of mutual trust are no longer automatically the basis for restored harmony in the public sphere. (p. 19)

Le Guin is not competing with Orwell or Hemingway. Her social analysis is acute, but its purpose is not indignation or reform. She has no social program, offers no panaceas. Nor does she, at the other extreme, give us characters who turn their backs on seemingly hopeless social chaos, and go off to the wilderness to carve some private relationship out of confrontation with the elements. Ai and Estraven are forced by society to cross the ice; there is no other way. They do not flee one society to return to another (both are inadequate), nor do they take refuge in each other. Paradoxically, they make their journey to renew society, but on a deeper level, at the roots. (p. 20)

The theme of roots and rootlessness is central to Le Guin's work. It has grown steadily in importance from novel to novel, culminating in the recent confluence of three favorite images—tree, root and dream…. This combined imagery lends a certain universality to her work that was never before present. From the start, her heroes have invariably been aliens of one sort or another, cut off from their roots….

At work in Left Hand is an intricate system of paradoxes: limits are freedom, freedom represents limits. To move in a circle is to progress; to progress is to return to move in a circle. Estraven seems to get nowhere in his political efforts, to be going in circles; but on another deeper path he is moving toward something of great public significance. His conservative return to the roots turns out to be the most revolutionary, far-seeing act in the novel. Circumstances in the social realm do not limit or prevent human contact between himself and Ai, they bring it about. (p. 21)

Things are not what they first seem. The wondrous balance of the earlier novels, which became almost an end in itself, has shifted. Individual man is placed squarely at the center of LHD [Left Hand of Darkness]; he must not only discover the fundamental rhythms of life, but commit himself to them and work toward equilibrium. Men are responsible for upsetting the balance; the visionary seeks to right it. Thus, Estraven sees, while Ai, the professional observer, is blind.

Vision is necessary to penetrate the complex patterns of imagery in this novel. Light and darkness, shadow and snow, are things of constantly shifting valence, ambiguous, inscrutable, and yet essential. They are not mere bindings—one follows Rocannon's jewel like a bouncing ball. This time they are interwoven solidly into the fabric of Gethen's institutions and culture. Ambiguity is no shimmering surface, a frame of illusion to be shattered; on the contrary, freedom lies, if anywhere, in embracing it. Nor is it a sign of nature's indifference to man. It is, rather, the ambiguity of a world order which, for man's ultimate salvation, defies that simple moral interpretation which would make white a "good" or an "evil." It is an order of primary substances which resist man's attempts to preempt or enclose them in systems, ideologies, or religious principles. In LHD, the heroes come in contact with the bases of things—cold, warmth, ice, visible darkness. (p. 22)

The ambiguity present in this book is the true state of things, according to Le Guin. Only in complexity does balance function; to simplify this process, or elevate one factor above all others, is to disturb the ongoing dynamic. Like the actions of the Shing, it is undoubtedly the result of profound misunderstanding. But here, in the world of real states and governments, ignorance is quickly perverted into a most tenacious evil. Meshe is not just blind; he also forces others to believe that he sees. The Ortoga are not merely incredulous; they show Ai a will to incredulity. In Left Hand man is put to the proof, and he shows us how serious his undoings can be. But if man takes things beyond the point where they can right themselves, then the only thing that can ever correct them is another man. The responsibility for order is henceforth in his hands. Estraven finds this task, his life's work, extraordinarily difficult. Where Rocannon simply followed his calling, Estraven must pass through a labyrinth of political intrigue. Wit is not enough to carry him forward; he must also have another guide, the muse Ai invokes at the beginning of his tale—imagination. (p. 25)

The earlier novels ended on a note of hope for the human race. Whatever losses were sustained were recoverable in the balance. Left Hand ends with a different mood. There is no "jewel of mourning," no epic funeral. What remains is a tale, and the imperfection of human friendship in the inconclusive world of man's affairs. (p. 30)

The Earthsea Trilogy has generally been ignored by commentators on Le Guin. Some may have been deterred by the silly publishing classification which designates the books as "children's literature." More likely, though, the trilogy has simply seemed a world apart, self-contained, obeying the laws of the high fantasy genre, and having little in common with the Hainish "mainstream." Such logic may apply to writers whose world view is incoherent or inconsistent, but not to Le Guin. Earthsea does stand apart to the extent that it forms a carefully balanced whole. But, more essentially, it creates a universe which is parallel to that of the Hainish novels, one in which major themes are not simply mirrored or reflected, but carried forward and developed in new ways. The problems of individual responsibility, of folly, evil and the search for selfhood, are examined throughout these books in all their purity. (p. 31)

The difference between the Earthsea novels and the others of the same period is, most fundamentally, one of style. In an essay written in 1973, "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie," Le Guin talks about writing fantasy stories: one's writing style, she says, should be neutral, with few modernisms or archaisms sprinkled in; it should attempt to create a world never before seen in the clearest, most direct language possible…. Earthsea is a work of high style and imagination. The Farthest Shore is a work of genuine epic vision.

Ged is a fully developed hero, and interestingly, one of a new sort. Le Guin's earlier heroes were scientists or statesmen. Ged is a "mage." In her essay, "Dreams Must Explain Themselves" (1973), Le Guin tells us her mage is an artist—the trilogy is an artist-novel. Traditionally, the artist is the most private of heroes; the struggle to create is primarily a struggle with self, with one's own powers and the need to control them and their consequences. The scientists and "observers" of earlier novels occupy an intermediate position between men of action and the artist. But in Le Guin the pull is always toward action. Both Rocannon and Genly Ai are drawn into an active role through contact with a man of action. Ged is a loner. (pp. 33-4)

In "Dreams Must Explain Themselves," Le Guin describes the thematic progression of the three Earthsea novels. Wizard deals with the hero's "coming of age." It is a novel of initiation and apprenticeship. The subject of Tombs is "sex"; it relates a "feminine coming of age." In broader terms, its theme is love. The third novel, Farthest, is about death, "a coming of age again," says Le Guin, "but in a larger context." This is the hero's last and greatest adventure. First an apprentice, then a master, Ged-grown-old now takes a new apprentice with him, thus completing the epic chain. (pp. 34-5)

The central theme of all these novels is the nature of human evil. The exploration takes place within the same limits as always: the universe is still a creative, dynamic balance, Yin and Yang, not a Manichean contention between light as good and darkness as evil. Evil is still explicable as a mis-understanding of the dynamics of life. What has become awesome, however, is the power one man, each man, wields, potentially and actually, to disrupt the balance. The setting in Left Hand is realistic; here it can only be called allegorical. (p. 35)

In a sense, Le Guin reaches her farthest shore in Earthsea. The geographic layout of this fantasy world is an exact parallel of her Hainish universe. In both, action has tended to take place, not at the center, but rather in the outlying reaches…. Three of the four earlier Hainish novels are situated on worlds at the fringe of the known universe (even the Earth of City is no center but a wasteland). Left Hand is the far point, both in terms of time and space; thereafter, Le Guin begins to work backward. Both Word and "Vaster" still take place on distant planets, and their time is pre-Rocannon, before the discovery of mindspeech. The Dispossessed represents a retreat in spatial terms as well, from the periphery of the Hainish universe to its core. The twin planets are the Cetian worlds, oft mentioned, but never before seen. In linear time, TD [The Dispossessed] represents the extreme point of retreat toward our present that Le Guin has yet explored. Terra has undergone eco-disaster, so we are definitely somewhere in the future. The event around which the novel revolves is the discovery of the theory of time which led to creation of the ansible, the faster-than-light communication device which first made the idea of a League possible. (p. 46)

[The Dispossessed] goes farthest of all Le Guin's novels in investigating the problem of evil in a fundamentally monistic universe…. [In] extending her world view into the realm of specific social speculation, Le Guin inherits certain problems as well. Goodman was troubled by the possibility of "unnatural" behavior: How can such a thing exist if nature is and always has been? Where could it have come from? Le Guin has, as we have seen, faced the same problem from the start in her Taoist universe. However tenacious and dangerous, evil has always been quantitative in nature—anti-natural actions, anti-kings. But is a qualitative evil possible; is there something in human nature itself which is unteachable, irremediable? Le Guin resists what Theodore Roszac calls the "satanic temptation." But in her strenuous, almost Puritanical probing of man's social conscience, she pushes her monist vision to new tensions and depths.

The problem in TD is not so much whether man can regulate himself; it is rather that he regulates himself naturally, and too much. The classic utopian question is asked here: What is the maximum personal freedom consistent with collective order? TD is less the story of social norms than that of the exceptional individual, Shevek. In any society, even the freest, his demands for freedom are excessive. Shevek's difficulties in realizing self are compounded; not only must he struggle against the self, but more fundamentally, against the walls men build around him. (p. 47)

Le Guin has called TD an "ambiguous utopia." The physical setting alone, as compared to that of Left Hand, reveals the complexity of the problem. We find little easy balance or fortunate paradox here. In LHD, there were two societies; surrounding both were the planet, a common nature, and a common culture in which men could seek their roots. Social reality may not be solid, but the base is. TD has two separate worlds, two distinct natures, two radically different societies. The only thing they have in common is that both are inhabited by men. Furthermore, Le Guin gives a twist to the simplistic utopian dream of the perfect society in a perfect setting. Urras, the world with the capitalist society, is lush, green, and bountiful. Anarres, the anarchist planet, is harsh, moonlike, and barren. (p. 48)

Where will Le Guin go from here? One can only speculate. A likely direction is inward, away from the collective drama, toward the individual which lies at its roots. The award-winning story "The Day Before the Revolution," written as a sequel to The Dispossessed, is perhaps symptomatic. Le Guin again goes back in time to relate the story of Odo, founder of the anarchist movement. Interestingly, the piece does not deal with her birth nor the revolutionary years, nor even with the writing of the Principles during her creative period. It recounts her death….

The focus in this story is harshly realistic. Le Guin reaches behind the facade of ideals to reveal the basic drives that move humanity. Odo acknowledges sex and vanity; she acknowledges the private happiness sacrificed and lost. As a true anarchist, she refuses the static situation, and questions everything. In her old age, however, this has simply become testiness. Odo discovers the true limits of change—death. But there is no heroic rushing into it this time; her body just fails, and she is forced to accept. (p. 57)

The short story remains a short story, the perfect instrument for probing in depth within a larger framework. It tells nothing as to the nature of Le Guin's next large frame. But it does represent a far point. In the dynamic of change in permanence, the balance has come down hard on the side of human mutability. (p. 58)

George Edgar Slusser, in his The Farthest Shores of Ursula Le Guin (copyright © 1976 by George Edgar Slusser), The Borgo Press, 1976.