Re-read review: The Beginning Place, by Ursula Le Guin
I first tried to read this book when I was about 14 or 15 because I loved the Earthsea books and all of the Le Guin sci-fi that I’d tried. And my reaction was basically: “WTF kind of portal fantasy was THAT? How was this possibly written by the same person?” Trying it again, more than 20 years later, I can appreciate its virtues more, and the experimentation evident in the writing, even if I still don’t enjoy it on anything like the same level as her other books.
As mentioned, in structure this is a portal fantasy vaguely reminiscent of the Narnia books, in which two young people find a passageway from our world to a mysterious fantasy world where time moves differently. However, whereas in C.S. Lewis’s series the travelers are schoolchildren, here both protagonists are 20 years old. And, whereas the Pevensie kids and their successors spend most of each book in Narnia, interacting with and getting to know people from that world, a much larger chunk of this book stays in our world.
That is the key to getting your expectations in the right place to enjoy this book, I think. If you go in wanting exciting other-world adventures…you mostly won’t get it, and will be disappointed! What this book is actually trying to do is explore the anxieties of working-class “new adults”, and the way that this other world helps them figure out what they actually want and set their lives on a new track. But, as a result, the reader doesn’t get to escape the everyday world much at all, as we’re privy to the main characters’ worries about what job they can get if they don’t have car, where they should live if their roommates are fighting all the time but their stepdad is a perv who isn’t safe to be around, where they can find the time or money to pursue a degree, and so on. Both of these characters, Hugh and Irene, are initially drawn to the “Beginning Place” just beyond the “gate” because of its serene natural beauty: a forest in perpetual twilight, with a clear stream running through it. They treat this stream almost like it is a baptismal font, washing away all the pressures and worries they carry. Irene has been coming for longer, and in the first village up the road has found a kind of surrogate family to replace her own dysfunctional one. As a result, she is rather hostile to Hugh when she first comes across this “interloper” in her special secret country! By the end, though, they kind of become the supportive family they wanted – a role they can fill for each other better than anyone in the other world, because they understand each other in a way that someone growing up in such a different time or place couldn’t.
Anyway, that’s what the book is going for, I think, and I appreciate that part of it. But there is still a big issue that marred my enjoyment of it, and that is the pacing. The first half is SUPER slow, but that isn’t an issue in and of itself. The prose describing Hugh’s mundane life with his overbearing mom versus his experience with the healing woods of the Beginning Place is heavy on sensory experience, putting you there with him and building up the expectation that soon you’ll be able to feel more of this other world in the same way. And…that’s the problem. The part of the book that is the otherworld adventure is SUPER short and rushed. A bunch of stuff happens with almost no explanation. I can’t explain further without **spoilers**…so that’s your warning!
OK. So…the village of Tembreabrezi is threatened by a “closing of the roads”. They are cut off from trade because a rising sense of fear has made it impossible for any of them to walk more than a certain distance from the town. Irene and Hugh seem to be less affected by this, so are the obvious choice to help. It is implied that something like this had happened before and has to do with some kind of monster. What kind of monster, and what exactly did the guy who lost his hand do to solve the issue? No one will say. Why are the outsiders less affected? Who knows! Irene and Hugh hike up the mountain. Irene is more affected by the fear, while Hugh just seems to be getting disoriented. Why? We never find out. They at first run from the monster - which is a big blind, white, boob dragon thing – and then fight with and kill it in kind of a bizarrely easy way. Does this actually solve the issue of the roads? We never find out, because they never meet another person from that world! For that matter…why is it always twilight? Why do no humans or bird sing? Literally nothing is explained. And that is fine in a fairytale, but in a story that gives the main characters so much backstory, it feels weird.
Even if you know that the otherworld adventures aren’t the point, the rapid pace makes the changes that occur in Irene and Hugh’s relationship feel abrupt and unearned as well. For example, once he gets into the village, Hugh develops an infatuation with the blonde daughter of the local lord. We don’t really know what he thinks of the darker Irene’s looks, but she hasn’t been nice to him at all. So, if he isn’t thinking of her as an unpleasant harpy he’d be a more generous person than most! Meanwhile, Irene starts out thinking of the rather heavy-set Hugh in unflatteringly bovine terms. They do get to bond a bit as they confront and overcome the monster, but then we suddenly get this, as Irene is examining a bruise he got in the fight:
His mouth had softened and slackened, his face was intent, profoundly serious…She had seen on other men’s faces the same mask, that made them all alike, and had hidden her own face. Now unafraid, awed but curious, she watched him, and touched his mouth and the hollow of the temple by the eye as gently as she had touched the black bruise, wanting to know this pain and this desire.
Well, OK, not the most fetching way to describe male desire, and it would have been nice to get some hints that they were starting to consider each other attractive before this point, but nearly dying apparently makes people horny sometimes, so I can go with it. But then literally three sentences later:
As he entered her, as she was entered, they came to climax together, and then lay together…
Wait, WHAT? When did they even take off their pants? Also, I’m feeling confused that this was written by a woman. Not only does it seem weird that Irene would come that quickly with such a rushed procedure, it actually seems likely to hurt! That’s especially true if it is her first time (we don’t know for sure, but no previous boyfriends have been mentioned) and, even if it isn’t, she’s spent years dodging handsy dudes, including her own stepfather. That sort of thing can make you clench up even if you don’t want to! We find later that they don’t even kiss until some time later, so…yeah it really was as rushed as it sounded. Also, is Irene not worried about the fact they didn’t use any protection? Because in her situation I definitely wouldn’t want to get knocked up! The very end of the book is quite sweet, but it would have been better without this, in my opinion. Ursula Le Guin didn’t write a lot of sex scenes, but most were significantly better than this. Come to think of it, though, most of the ones that come to mind were published 5-10 years later – so it is entirely possible that this was her first attempt!
Overall recommendation: If you’re a Le Guin completist, you might want to check this out. Otherwise, I’m not really sure who I’d recommend it to.
