Ursula K. Le Guin: The Complete Orsinia
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The inaugural volume of Library of America’s Ursula K. Le Guin edition gathers her complete Orsinian writings, enchanting, richly imagined historical fiction collected here for the first time. Written before Le Guin turned to science fiction, the novel Malafrena is a tale of love and duty set in the central european country of Orsinia in the early nineteenth century, when it is ruled by the Austrian empire. The stories originally published in Orsinian Tales (1976) offer brilliantly rendered episodes of personal drama set against a history that spans Orsinia’s emergence as an independent kingdom in the twelfth century to its absorption by the eastern Bloc after World War II. The volume is rounded out by two additional stories that bring the history of Orsinia up to 1989, the poem “Folksong from the Montayna Province,” Le Guin’s first published work, and two never before published songs in the Orisinian language. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Series
4 released booksOrsinia is a 4-book series first released in 1976 with contributions by Ursula K. Le Guin.
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One of the greatest writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy, LeGuin's first novel was nothing of the sort, but instead a tale of a fictional middle European state in the 19th Century. She wanted to write about European history, specifically about that generation that “came of age in 1820 and broke their hearts in the revolutions of 1830”, but didn't know enough about Europe to confidently attempt such a book. So she made up a country, Orsinia, and told her tale there. That book was called A Descendance and was rejected. LeGuin returned to it over the years though, revising and rewriting until finally, in the late 1970s, it was published under the title of Malafrena.
The debt to Tolstoy is obvious. But the world building is superb. You really believe in this small country under the yoke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and an archaic governmental system. The story focuses on Itale Sorde, a passionate young man who leaves his middle class farming family to try and bring about change in the world. He starts a new newspaper with various like-minded intellectuals in the capital, Krasnoy and travels the country to report on conditions in the smaller towns and villages.
As ever with LeGuin, the main themes are of people striving to make a better world for themselves and others in the face of oppression. Thematically there are parallels to her great SF novel The Dispossessed and other works. But this is wholly a tale set in the 19th Century. There's a romantic streak running through the work, as there is with all great 19th Century literature, but this is no potboiler. Having said that I'm not sure the novel is wholly successful. History tells us that change was slow in coming so and that proves to be the case in Orsinia. Itale suffers for his ideals and in the end is forced to return home and is reconciled with his family. That is what is really at the heart of this book - home and family. A curiosity then, but one well worth reading.
The second part of this handsome Library of America edition, is the short stories LeGuin wrote set in Orsinia. These range back and forth across history, from the 12th century, the early 20th century, the years Orsinia spent as a Soviet dominated country after World War 2, right up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrowing of the Eastern Bloc dictatorships.
They are all quite wonderful. Tales of ordinary people in a mythical country, but mirroring the realities of the world we know. From the working class would-be composer of An Die Musik, to the students who see the dawn of a new era in the 1990s, these stories are full of heart, passion and the missed opportunities that can befall anyone. I much preferred them to the novel, as LeGuin is able to present a much more multi-faceted view of her imaginary country.
So, while this may not rank amongst her finest work, it is still LeGuin, and any LeGuin is worth your time.
