How about THIS... We mourn the LOSS of a Writer, if you want to debate Religion, Feminizm, Politics, or orientation, do it in ANOTHER thread.

Sorry to burst your bubble LootHunter, but Ursula herself said:

"My first feminist text was The Left Hand of Darkness, which I started writing in 1967."

You literally could not be more wrong.

Well, it's not ME, who started all this and said that she wants "a mature discussion about these sort of things".
When did she said this? Literally, what year?

ninjad

Well you could literally have googled the quote and found this information yourself, but sure I will help you out.

The interview took place in 1993.

It was published in "Conversations with Ursula K. Le Guin" by Carl Howard Freedman in 2008. The interview is called "Coming back from the silence". The paperback is available on amazon.com for $25.

It was also published in "Talking on the Water: Conversations about Nature and Creativity" by Jonathan White.

You might also find the interview "I am a woman writer, I am a western writer: an interview with Ursula Le Guin" interesting.

Any thing else I can do for you?

You wonder why I go temporarily insane on the forum because I have to put up with this!

This is what is ruining ACTUAL GAMING FOR ME!

STOP STUFFING YOUR SJW PROPAGANDA DOWN MY THROAT FFS!

And that's my point.

It was always amazed me how people like you could easily ignore the unconvenient facts. Like Ursula's own quotes from the very same interview: So yes, maybe to the end of her life she indeed became feminist and racist, who was thinking that "history is not a science, it's an art". But she was not came here untill later, after she had written her books that people so fond of.

First and foremost, my sincere apologies to the sensible people who came here to pay respect to one of the great writers with whom we happened to share part of our lifetimes.
OoooooKaaaaaay... To make things clear, I am a fan of noone (with just one exception, but in that case my reasons are of personal nature), but I believe I know when and how to show respect to a great person passed.
Since it seems you turn a blind eye when people speak of your ideology, your "holy cow", I'll try to give... or rather, make up another example, an analogy, if you will.
Imagine Albert Einstein dying sometime in 1945. The whole world mourns the passing of a great mind, a brilliant physicist who revolutionalized science and left a mark in history of all humanity. But right at the funeral a person comes up and says: "Yes, he was a brilliant man whose greatness is beyond doubt, but you are forgetting that he also was a Jew and he sympathised with Jews so let us remember him as such. Oh, and on a side note, while we have all gathered here to pay respects to a great Jew, let us discuss the forming of Israel". Technically the speaker would be correct and technically the problem of a people not having a country was indeed a serious matter. But would it be respectful to Einstein to use his name to push their agenda even before he was buried?
What you are trying to do here is tell us (metaphorically speaking, of course): "Let us remember Einstein as a Jew, let us remember Leonardo da Vinci as a left-handed person, let us remember Tove Jansson as a LGBT person".
While people want to pay their respects to Einstein's scientific genius, Leonardo's artistic marvels and Tove Jansson's talent.

So would you kindly stop this? At least for the time being and in this particular thread.
Well, that is a more direct message. +1

Any recent news? Is she still dead? I told you. (S)he should have written all her books in Finnish, then there wouldn't have been such a problem.

Maybe then I would have also read any of her books... (yeah yeah I am sure they are already translated to Finnish, if they really are so well-known as you people make them to be, and I am the only person in the world not even heard of this writer nor Earthsea, Left Hand of Darkness etc... I guess I have been too busy playing video games all my life.)

Has any of her books been made into movies? Maybe I'd watch them instead, with Finnish gender-neutral subtitles of course.

WHAT?!? How come I didn't know that? Maybe it takes one to know one or something.

I guess that explains why Moomins didn't have genitals, and used drugs in some early books.

Interesting, I believe The Left Hand of Darkness is on my To-Read list of novels, perhaps I'll get round to reading it one day...

I'm 36 and I was intoduced to feminist ideology about a year ago. Though it doesn't make me a feminist, obviously. Again, you still missed that part in "Afterword" where Le Guin directly tells that when she was writing Left Hand of Darkness she wasn't thinking that male pronounce opress women.
You are the prime example.

1. Suggesting people should not post the deceased's own words or discuss the deceased's views on topics is not what I would call "paying respect". It is the opposite. Just because you or others might be uncomfortable with her views, doesn't mean they shouldn't be noted and celebrated as much as anything else in her life.

2. How would someone saying "He was a Jew and he sympathised with Jews so let us remember him as such" be a bad thing?

3. Albert Einstein's was a supporter of Labor Zionism but was opposed to the idea of a Jewish State - he wanted a Jewish homeland in the British controlled Palestine. I would expect that he would not have a problem with that being discussed at his funeral. What is the point of advocating for something (whether its controversial or not), if it is off limits when one dies?

4. Your example is, in my opinion, not a good one. I think a much better example might be Amos Oz. He's an author and he is someone who was a big supporter of the foundation of the State of Israel (unlike Einstein). Now, at his funeral, would it be more disrespectful for people to say "He is a Jew, but let's not talk about his support of the nation state of Israel, lets talk about the novels he wrote" or "He is a Jew, and he supported the nation state of Israel, lets talk about that, as well as his novels, and anything else." I would say the former would be far more disrespectful.

If you ignore Usula Le Guin's views and opinions, you ignore her as a person. You are not mourning the loss of a person - you are mourning the lost opportunity of further work being produced by that person. Ursula Le Guin was a person who not only wrote books but also had strong opinions. You only have to read the obituary in the guardian to see that her views on feminism were a "not inconsequential" part of her life. She was much more than her novels.

I am not sure if you have ever spent much time with an older person who has dedicated a significant amount of his or her life to a particular topic. They tend to want their legacy to be continued. I would say Ursula Le Guin was very passionate about social justice issues, particularly race (moreso than gender in my opinion but I might be biased there). I would have thought if anything, she would want these social justice issues to continue to be discussed.

For me, as a young boy with African heritage growing up in Australia, I found it particularly encouraging to read stories where so many characters weren't just plain white people. Characters I found it easier to identify with. No doubt you have already read this article she wrote but I think it gives a good insight into the person she was and what she was passionate about:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/12/a_whitewashed_earthsea.html

Now as I say, for me I think race played a significant part in her writing, but I also cannot ignore the importance of gender and feminism in her (later work) - including her fifth novel - The Left Hand of Darkness.

Ursula Le Guin was a wonderful human being. Not just because of her novels. Not just because of her essays or her poetry. Part of what was special about her was her challenging of norms. Her courage to include non-white characters as the protagonists in her stories, her courage to challenge gender norms. You might not like that those things she is being remembered and celebrated for those things, but they are a big part of who she was as a person and I loved her for it.
OK, so you were introduced to feminism before she was. Nice one. It's pretty late in life to be introduced to a pretty basic concept, though, isn't it?

I'm not sure what part you think I missed in the afterword. What part in the afterword talks about you being a feminist?

What has that got to do with the book being her first feminist text? It can be her first feminist text and she could also not believe that male pronouns (not pronounce) oppress women. I think a lot of feminists might hold that view. The two things aren't mutually exclusive.

So was Hitler.

/thread

Oh dear,a fight.