Four Ways to Forgiveness
{5/5} “Peace was the true life, the life of working and learning and bringing up children to work and learn. War, which devoured work, learning, and children, was the denial of reality.”
Four Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in 1995
In “Betrayals” Yoss’s daughter and her family have gone off world and she will never see them again — meanwhile she takes care of Abberkam, a disgraced chief, when he’s ill. In “Forgiveness Day” Solly, an Envoy of the Ekumen on Werel, gets kidnapped along with her guard Teyeo. In “A Man of the People” everyone in Stse does what they’re supposed to do — when Havzhiva meets a historian he realizes that other things are possible. In “A Woman’s Liberation” Rakam was born into slavery — when she gains her freedom she works to make all people free and equal.
This is a collection of 4 stories, all taking place on Werel and Yeowe, worlds of the Ekumen.
They’re about people connecting with other people they initially have difficulties with.
Le Guin’s use of language is beautiful, and she has important things to say. She understands humans, both their good and bad qualities.
One more quotation: “All knowledge is local, all truth is partial… No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge… Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole.”
I’ve read 18 of Le Guin’s books. I previously reviewed her novel Lavinia.