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What peace I had, what understanding I had, came from my love for the Waylord and his kindness to me, and from books. Books are at the heart of this book I’m writing. Books caused the danger we were in, the risks we ran, and books gave us our power. The Alds are right to fear them. If there’s a god of books it’s Sampa the Maker and Destroyer.
- Title: Voices
- Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
- Genre: Fantasy
- Year: 2006
Voices is the second book in the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy — but not to worry, knowledge of the first installment, Gifts, isn’t necessary for enjoyment of this book. While the central character and narrator of Gifts, Orrec, and his wife Gry are an important part of the story, Voices is narrated by a young woman named Memer, and takes place in Ansul, a city far from the Uplands in which Gifts was set.
Ansul is an occupied city, having been conquered by a force hostile to the local culture, and Memer has never known a life without her overlords. Indeed, Memer is a child of the war that took her city, a ’siege-brat’ born of rape, and she resembles the conquering Alds more than she does her mother’s people. The Alds are a ruthless, theocratic people of the desert that despise learning and literacy as ungodly — with the consequence that Ansul, once famed for its libraries, is a city in which books are outlawed and destroyed.
Memer, however, is a child in the household of the Waylord, the deposed and crippled one-time trade representative of the city and head of a family with a secret. In the Waylord’s house is a secret room, a room Memer discovered as a little girl, a room full of books and other surprises. Under the the tutelage of the Waylord, she becomes one of the only people her age able to read.
Into this world Orrec and Gry step, after decades of travel throughout the kingdoms of the Western Shore. Orrec has become a famous storyteller, a ‘maker,’ and he has arrived in Ansul at the ruler’s request — and also because he hopes to learn from the fabulous books the city was famed for possessing. Instead he becomes the focal point of a rebellion. Le Guin builds her narrative with a stately precision, but events soon attain a more breathless pace.
As in Gifts, with Voices Le Guin gives us a mature fantasy that puts the lie to the idea that, though classed as YA, these book are somehow unworthy of adult attention. If anything it takes a more adult view than most fantasy, showing us a world in which magic and oaths are put in proper perspective with human foibles and the need to compromise, politics are preferable to bloodshed, and even the hated enemy presents a nuanced and human face. The depth of wisdom displayed in Voices, along with the well-shaped cultural setting and the appealing characters, proves once again that Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the real giants of speculative fiction.
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hi bill! what did you think of this compared
to gifts? i do believe the first was my favorite
in the series.
I liked Gifts best as well, maybe because it was a more personal story, while Voices was more political? I loved how Voices played with fantasy tropes though — but both books feel very ‘real’ as a consequence to Le Guin not taking the easy path.
yes, i think you hit it on the head as to why i really loved gifts. it surprised me. and i love how quiet her storytelling is, but it is never less powerful to me. le guin doesn’t write fantasy with a lot of “car chases and explosions”. but damn, i envy her her prose and storytelling.
it would be a pity if this series is less read only because it’s filed
under young adult!!! thanks for the review!