The Catwings Series by Ursula K Le Guin and S.D. Schindler

   

Ursula K Le Guin is one of the authors I consider one of my favourites. Her Earthsea series is absolutely amazing and I particularly love her lesser known series ‘The Annals from the Western Shore’. Something about those sweeping fantasies moves me incredibly.

But this review isn’t about those books. This is about a little series called Catwings that I discovered in my bookshop days. I bought them on the spot (well three of the four – all that was in available at the time) and sat them proudly next to her young adult books on my shelf. At that time, while I wanted to own these little chapter books, I didn’t read that sort of thing very much, so they have sat, untouched, for 6 or 7 years now. These days, I know the joy a well written chapter book can bring, so one night when I finished reading a more substantial sci-fi, I got out of bed and went and got them and read all three in a row.

What are they about? Cats with wings. Couldn’t you tell?

Why do they have wings?

“Mrs Jane Tabby could not explain why all four of her children had wings.” - The first sentence of the first book. But, it is unimportant. We grow with the kittens, learning to use their wings, trying to survive in the city. Then Jane sends her children away to find a safer place to live. That’s when the adventures begin.

These are gentle fantasy chapter books for imaginative children, especially if they like cats.

In each book we meet a new friend and come up against a new challenge.

I must admit I wasn’t as profoundly moved by them as I have been by her other writings, but I believe she achieved her goal with these books. They really are charming.

3.5 Silver Stars

Find them on Goodreads:

Catwings

Catwings Return

Wonderful Alexander and the Catwings

Jane On Her Own

 9, 10, 11/40

The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

I’m a little unsure where to start with this review, so much so I almost wasn’t going to write it.

This is not a reflection on the book, but, if anything, a reflection on the audio book. I used a long trip for work to listen to the book, because it was my selection for Bookclub and I wasn’t sure where I was going to find the time to read it in amongst all my work and uni reading.

In retrospect, I would have been better to make the time to simply read it.

The story itself, as I suspected it would be (being a giant fan of Ursula Le Guin’s other writing) was fantastic. It was so fully realised and well constructed that, as usual, I was easily caught up in it.

The story, that is.

The audio book was the worst one I have ever listened to. It was clearly a digital recording taken from cassette tapes that sounded muffled and fuzzy, as if I were listing to a radio play on a wireless in some by-gone era. But on top of that, the quality and volume of the voice changed dramatically, and frequently, sometimes mid sentence. Further, the reader was not altering her voice at all for character, or emotion, or dramatic effect, so it took me a while longer than usual to differentiate who was saying what and which characters were which. She did, however, pause for breath in the most odd places, not where one would naturally pause if they were reading (aloud or in your head) which again threw me off.

Leaving that aside, I’ll now talk about the genius who was betrayed by this recording.

As with her other titles that I have read, Le Guin has made a perfectly tangible world for the reader to discover. This time set on a planet called Gethen where androgynous humans have a very different way of life to any that we know. Each person is gender neutral (or hermaphroditic) for most of the time, yet for 2 days out of every lunar cycle they enter ‘kemmer’ where they assume either male or female sexual organs in order to mate. To quote the book: “the mother of several children may be the father of several more.”

In this way, Le Guin has created a society where gender politics have been removed completely. It makes for a very interesting reflection of the nature of social gender constructs and how heavily they affect the way we think about people. Superbly done, the story is seen through the eyes of an outsider, a human from future earth. This way we are able to process what we are being shown in a way similar to our own constructed reality, yet with the scientifically and politically neutral commentary of the emissary.

One thought that I did have as I was listening to it, and after I had finished, was that it lacked the subtle, understated poetics that her writing for young adults has. This might have been because of the audio book, but others at bookclub found it hard to get into and somewhat uneventful. I’ll admit it was slow in places, and it took me a while to understand what was going on because of all the names and politics and relationships etc, took a while to be explained. But for those that love character development and don’t need too much action, then I’m sure there’s something in it for you too.

In the end, I’m glad I have read it. Judging by the quotes and reviews I’ve read, The Left Hand of Darkness is at the centre of the adult Sci-Fi and Fantasy canon. Personally, I prefer her Young Adult fiction, but I enjoyed this one all the same.