Voices

4.5 stars
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

I'm happy to report that I enjoyed Voices much more than Gifts.

In this story of the Western Shore, we meet Memer, a 17 year old girl – a “siege-brat” – who lives in the occupied land of Ansul, a city of people who used to be peaceful, prosperous, and educated but who were overtaken 17 years ago by the illiterate Alds who consider all writing to be demonic. All of the Ansul literature, history, and other books were drowned ... except for a small collection of books that has been saved and hidden in a secret room in the house of Galvamand and can only be accessed by the last two people in the Galva household – Sulter Galva (the Waylord) and Memer, whose mother was a Galva.

One day, the Maker and orator Orrec, and his wife Gry, (from Gifts) come to town, stay at Galvamand, and recite to the people of Ansul and their Ald overlord, the Gand Ioratth. When Orrec recites ancient epics and poetry, including some of Ansul's own hymns, the Gand is moved, the Ansul people are stirred to revolution, and Ioratth's son and the Ald priests are stirred to wrath. The people of Ansul have to decide whether to revolt or to try to negotiate peacefully with the softening Gand. The situation brings up realistic (rather than fantastical) ideas about the nature of freedom, revolution, and whether it might sometimes be better to compromise, rather than fight to the death, with people who control your destiny.

The pace of Voices is slow and the entire story takes place in approximately a one-mile radius so there's not much action but, as usual for an Ursula Le Guin novel, the power is in the writing – it's moving and filled with insight into the human mind and our ideas of art, literature, culture, and patriotism. She doesn't just tell a story, but she gives us a full emotional experience and a lot to think about:

“My mother's name was Decalo Galva. I want to tell of her, but I can't remember her. Or I do but the memory won't go into words. Being held tight, jostling, a good smell in the darkness of the bed, a rough red cloth, a voice which I can't hear but it's only just out of hearing. I used to think if I could hold still and listen hard enough, I'd hear her voice.”

“I wonder if men find it easier than women do to consider people not as bodies, as lives, but as numbers, figures, toys of the mind to be pushed about a battleground of the mind. This disembodiment gives pleasure, exciting them and freeing them to act for the sake of acting, for the sake of manipulating the figures, the game pieces. Love of country, or honor, or freedom, then, may be names they give that pleasure to justify it to the gods and to the people who suffer and kill and die in the game. So those words – love, honor, freedom – are degraded from their true sense. Then people may come to hold them in contempt as meaningless, and poets must struggle to give them back their truth.”

It was good to meet Orrec and Gry again and to see how Orrec was using his talents. It wasn't necessary to have read Gifts first, but it gave me greater enjoyment to understand Orrec's past. I listened to Voices on audiobook. The reader was flawless and added much energy and emotion to the telling. I recommend this format for Voices.
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4 stars, Metaphorosis Reviews

Summary
Memer is a member of the house of the Waylord - the former title of a senior trade merchant of a country now overrun by conquerors who fear reading and keep women confined. The Waylord, crippled by torture, and Memer, the child of rape, are at the heart of what little remains of Ansul society. But a visit from a renowned traveling poet sparks change in all of them.

Review
Quiet and competent like its predecessor, Gifts, Voices is also a more complete story. That book felt to some extent like an introduction, and we do in fact return to its protagonists, Orrec and Gry, again here, though from the perspective of a new character. Memer is a teenaged girl in an occupied town, and Orrec and Gry are considerably older than when we last met them.

While the voice in the latter brought to mind Richard Lllewellyn, this later book recalled Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, and indeed the magic in Voices is less concrete than in Gifts; it's not clear that it is really magic at all. Le Guin obviously has her own voice, but these are the resonances these books struck. As with Stewart's fantasy books, Voices is very much about people and belief.

Le Guin's books are often political and sociological, and certainly the pervasive theme of this story is discussion and negotiation (as opposed to violence and conquest). But the magic of the approach is that Memer herself has to come to the realizations, and not only the obvious once, but some moderately nuanced ones. I would have liked to see Le Guin expand on some of these realizations a bit, and especially how Memer evaluates compromise (which flashes by fairly quickly), and her hints at real-world cultures are broad, but overall, it's very effective.

Overall, Voices is an effective, moving portrait of a young woman coming of age in a difficult period.

My first Ursula Le Guin book and a nice one to start with. The story and characters are believable and takes place between 2 revolutions. It can be difficult to deftly describe past events without being dull and without flashbacks while still showing how they influence current events in the book. This seemed to flow very smoothly and I really enjoyed it.