City Of Illusions (Hainish Series)

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Summary: City of Illusions
Review: A man crawls out of the woods, naked, hungry, without knowledge, without spirit. The people who take care of him call him Falk. He is being educated, he gains knowlegde and spirit. He becomes a man of honour and truth. But who is he? After 5 years with his new family, he starts on a quest to find his true identity.

He is on Earth, in a far future. Earth that has conolized many planets, is now a barbaric world. The people of Earth are no more what they used to be. No more explorers, inventors, politicians, scientists. They became tribes, nomads and slaves.

He leanrs that he actually is a man from another world. And he IS human. He tries to find a way to win this 'battle' he is in.

This book tells of the value of truth and honour and of the importance to know yourself.

It tells a good sf story about the human race that is conquered by an alien race that used the lie as their main weapon. And this is not an sf story in which technology and space battles are the main ingredients, but everyday life, a long journey, weird lines of thought, psychological struggle and conversations that don't seem to make any sense.

I have read The Left Hand of Darkness as well, another wonderful book by Ursule LeGuin. They are on the same line of history in a far future. In both books, an individual will change the future of a whole world. In both books, honesty, honour, integrity, intelligence and courage turn out to be the way to conquer problems.

In this line of history, LeGuin has written two more books: Rocannon's World and Planet of Exile, and I can't wait to start reading them.

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Summary: Stylistic eloquence but weak resolution
Review: Here are the early glimmerings of a future mastery. Le Guin will come into her own with the Earthsea trilogy and earn pre-eminence with The Left Hand of Darkness. But here, in her first efforts, we can see the developing touch--the sure hand and the restrained voice already at work.

The City of Illusions is the last of a loose trilogy of works that the author calls the "Three Hainish Novels". Set in the same Hainish universe as two earlier works, this novel shares little with its predecessors, except for a hazy reference to a collective history and the common device of telepathy.

Still, it is pure Le Guin. The author likes large themes - in this case, truth, falsehood, and the crisis of identity. The protagonist is on a journey, both figuratively and literally, to find his true being - not just his being, but his true being - a subtle but important difference. When we are introduced to him, he is a blank with no identity and no past. He must painfully build a new identity from nothing; burdened with the belief that a previous lifetime has been erased. In searching for that past, he is forced to face the fear of a false self; a life based on a lie.

Such a psychological drama could have sunken into contrivance but for the skill of the author. Le Guin navigates this hazard by making the anguish of the protagonist real and immediate, and she avoids manipulation by revealing rather than directing.

Yet, for all the written skill, this novel does not fulfill its potential. It is unsatisfying - not severely, but enough to diminish the reading experience. For one thing, the plot is incomplete: it needs an epilogue to sate our curiosity. It is also incomplete in a more vital and thematic sense: a large need is filled in a small way. When the human race is enslaved to aliens, what significance can we attach to the fleeting freedom of one man? The weight is all off kilter. The final passage ends on a note of hope, but is insufficient to redress the imbalance.

Though better than most science fiction, this book remains uneven. The austerity of the writing is cool and bracing; but the ideas lack expansiveness and the story lacks a resolution. While reading it, we set aside the immediate for the promise of things to come; but when that promise goes begging, we are so flustered by its unexpected absence that we lose sight of the vibrancy in the present. This book appeals more to stylists; less to seekers after an organic whole.

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Summary: Exploring Truth in the City of Illusions
Review: In City of Illusions, Ursula K. LeGuin shares an interesting insight about truth. In a war where lies are used as weapons, she says that the most powerful counteragent is truth. The liar will not recognize truth as such, or trust it, and will thus be suspicious of everything. To use a lie against a liar is to fight on the enemy's domainÐa great tactical advantage for the liar. Similarly, to use truth against falsehood will confuse the enemy. In either case, the side or sides using lies will inevitably become so mired in falsity that no real victory can be declared indefinitely. If the side of the liar appears to win, it will only be undermined eventually by lies from within. It is a tenuous victory at best, and very hollow and unfulfilling to keep power solely by subtle word-twisting.

How tempting it is, though, in real life, to attempt to use a lie to gain a tactical advantage. Le Guin shows the validity of maintaining integrity and refusing to lie. One slip of the tongue may not destroy an empire, but a slip of the tongue can be the stumble that can send one down the slippery slope from which there is no ascencion. City of Illusions is just thatÐa city set not on a hill, but in a gorge, attempting to hide from the light that may reveal it to be what it is, a foundation of falsity that can crumble when struck by anything unwilling to immerse itself in the lie. Is integrity a realistic idea in the real world? I believe it is the only thing that will endure. Anything less is simply attempting to build a society, or a city, or a life on a foundation of illusion.