Ursula K. Le Guin: Always Coming Home (Loa #315): Author's Expanded Edition: 4 (Library of America Ursula K. Le Guin Edition)

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Bernardo, Susan M.; Murphy, Graham J. (2006). Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp.19–20. Self-Disposing Villain: The Dayao collapse due to inability to maintain their Awesome, but Impractical bomber force. Crazy Cultural Comparison: A lot of the aspects of the Kesh culture are alien to us, most prominently their attitude to property and wealth. When Stone Telling describes the Condor people, with customs closer to a western society (a highly conservative one), she treats them as madmen.

Just as her science fiction classic The Left Hand of Darkness envisioned a world in which gender and sexuality were fluid, so Always Coming Home imagines a world in which its human people — highly sophisticated and technological in many ways — dance their world and tread on it lightly. It is a world in which women and men dance together as equals and animals are the other people who live in this valley. Mood Whiplash: "Chandi", a play which has a man's fortune reversed like that of Job (a comparison actually made in some editions). Blinded by the Sun: The story of Junco, who spent a day staring at the sun trying to learn the secrets of the universe. The doctors only managed to restore his peripheral vision.Ursula’s father was the renowned anthropologist A.L. Kroeber who is best known for his work on Western Native American Indians. He worked extensively with Ishi, the last survivor of the Yana Native American Indian group whose life is collected in the books Ishi in Two Worlds, written by Theodora Kroeber, and Ishi in Three Centuries, co-edited by Karl Kroeber and Clifton Kroeber. In her short essay “Indian Uncles”, Ursula K. Le Guin describes the fact that she never met Ishi and instead describes her relationship with Juan Dolores and Robert Spott, a Papago and Yurok respectively, and how they influenced her world-view.

In some ways, this book seems to represent a major departure in the fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, whose many works of science fiction and fantasy have established her as one of the major contemporary writers in those genres. Unlike most of her earlier works, ALWAYS COMING HOME is not set on a distant planet or in an enchanted land, nor are there exotic aliens or wizards featured in her cast of characters. Mistaken for Gay: That was one of the possibilities discussed by the Valley people when they saw the Dayao army — for them, it was unimaginable that such a large group of people would contain no women. 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.Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Stone Telling describes how, when the Dayao start suffering defeats and food shortages, a lot of their commoners start running away. She follows soon. Bernardo, Susan M.; Murphy, Graham J. (2006). Ursula K. Le Guin: A Critical Companion (1sted.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-33225-8. 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.

Francis Molson, "Ethical Fantasy for Children," in The Aesthetics of Fantasy Literature and Art, edited by Roger Schlobin, University of Notre Dame Press, 1982, pp .82-104. Lillian M. Heldreth, "To Defend or to Correct Patterns of Culture in Always Coming Home," Mythlore, Autumn, 1989, pp. 58-63, 66. Explores how postmodern authors deal with issues of individuality, self-representation, and relationships with machinery and technology. Linton sees humanity losing a war against technology. Arc Symbol: Heyiya-if, a hinged spiral reflecting the world view as described above, with the left arm representing Earth and the right Sky. The Kesh include it not only in things like their drawings; their cities are laid according to it, with the left arm containing living houses (in case of the largest town, several arms were needed), the right arm, the heyimas (multifunctional public structures), and the hinge being some sort of spring or waterfall.One poem has a story of a man whose penis was tired of constantly being forced to work, so it cut itself off and ran away. In addition to poems and folk tales, Le Guin created verse dramas, records of oral performances, recipes, and even an alphabet and glossary of the Kesh language. The novel is illustrated throughout with drawings by artist Margaret Chodos and includes a musical component—original recordings of Kesh songs that Le Guin collaborated on with composer Todd Barton—bringing this utterly original and compelling world to life. The book is mostly centered around the Kesh People who live in nine towns in the Valley of River Na, what we nowadays know as the Napa County, California, near Mount Saint Helena (a sacred location to them). They are a simple, utopian society with low population, technology limited to the level they can maintain comfortably, and no government in the sense we know it. Bangs and Whimpers: Novelists at Armageddon” by Michael Dorris and Louise Erdrich, The New York Times (13 March 1988) Print publication of Slaughter's interview with Le Guin. Discusses her use of feminism, nature, and Utopias in her work and where she plans to go in her future fiction.

Rape as Drama: The Miller raping a woman (a case of incest) is treated as one. Not so much in other cases described: both Stone Telling and Shamsha fell pregnant from a rape, and Shamsha didn't even see it as something serious enough to tell others, nor saw a reason to abort the child. The Rape, Pillage, and Burn actions of the Dayao, on the other hand, aren't taken lightly. Child by Rape: Hwette from Dangerous People is revealed to be one, courtesy of her mother's boyfriend, who didn't take the breakup lightly. Averted by Stone Telling, who claims she did an abortion after her Dayao husband invoked Marital Rape Licence once. Utopia: Discussed, especially in the Framing Device when Pandora talks with a Kesh woman and complains about how "utopians" are a bother. The Kesh are at least partially In Harmony with Nature, wealth is determined by generosity, homophobia and sexism are minimized, and there is no need for police or an army, but there's also superstition, violence, and cruelty. Klingon Scientists Get No Respect: The people of the Valley are highly suspicious toward Millers, which includes all people working with advanced machinery and electricity. These people also don't have a House assigned to them as a group, which means no one protecting them in case of a screw up.

I Owe You My Life: Inverted in the Valley, at least with medicine. A doctor who saves a person's life is considered to be the one in debt, being akin to a parent now. One doctor was forced to swap towns due to all the debts in the old place. In the new one, he concentrated on animals and terminal patients.