Graceful Dismissal

This post continues my theme of drawing wisdom from Ursula Le Guin’s Orsinian Tales.  You can check out some of my previous posts for a more detailed summary of the book and the story I’m presently drawing from, Conversations at Night.  Suffice to say it’s a story of unlikely love forming despite all sorts of adversity. 

They are in a poor part of a poor country.  They are economically and politically oppressed.  They feel trapped within their society.  The people around them do not have ample opportunities to make it in life and they have less. He is blind so he cannot fulfill his duty as a man to support a woman. Their families encourage them both to find other people.

Read more »

Truth without Irony

I’d like to continue my reflective commentary on Ursula Le Guin’s Orsinian Tales by making a few more observations about the fourth tale: Conversations at Night.

As I noted before, the story is about two people who live in a time and location of oppression. They are poor and struggling and yet they find each other. The man, Sanzo, was blinded in an accident at work, thus limiting his options and possibilities even more severely. Their love begins when the woman, Lisha, begins visiting him to read to him.

I would like to focus on another of the truths Le Guin showcases in the story.

In a conversation between Lisha and her mother the following dialogue occurs:

“The man is blind, Alitsia!”“I know,” the girl said, without irony.

Read more »