Flashback Friday - The Word for World is Forest by Ursula Le Guin

“A forest ecology is a delicate one. If the forest perishes, its fauna may go with it. The Athshean word for world is also the word for forest.”

One of Le Guin’s strongest traits is her ability to fully create and flesh out both worlds and creatures in her works. The most obvious example of this is Always Coming Home which was recently re-published under Gollancz’s ‘SF Masterworks’ series. But one my personal favourites is another book in the Masterworks series, her 1972 short story The Word for World is Forest.

It’s set in a time where earth’s wood supply has been depleted to the point it has become an extremely valuable resource. This has led to the farming of other worlds for wood, chopping down the trees and destroying the ecology in the process.

To put the book into its original context, Le Guin reflects on more than trees and the damage we as humans create to the Eco structure of Earth, but also on to the wars we wage on each other, highlighting our fear and demeaning attitude towards other cultures which may seem barbaric to some, actually contains a differing wisdom.

The story contains two main groups set on the forest world of Athshe, the humans of Earth and the native Athsheans known by the humans as ‘Creechies’. The humans have more or less invaded the forest world, oppressing the Athseans who they regard as nothing more than unintellectual savages due to the language barrier and the jarring difference in their culture. Through the course of the novel we are told the story through multiple viewpoints, both racist and liberal humans, to the most docile or radicalised Athshean. These changes in viewpoint really carry the story and do wonders to flesh out the Athseans, whilst highlighting the difference in beliefs between the two races. There are even times you find yourself almost relating to the most hateable characters and you can see where their beliefs are rooted in misunderstanding and how their perception of what is happening is strongly influencing their views and actions which steadily tears a further gap between the two races.

The history minded of you may have noticed this book was published during the climax of the Vietnam War and you can definitely see the underlying commentary in the narrative if you look hard enough, but on top of all the political and social commentaries you get an exciting, interesting and fulfilling novel which carries the highly regarded Le Guin name with ease.

Is this Le Guin’s best book? Probably not. That is not to detract from it, Le Guin is one of my favourite authors and I always find it hard to draw away from Earthsea or The Dispossessed, but this is definitely one of the best books I’ve read to really make me reflect on our responsibilities to our planet and its inhabitants, as well as the way we perceive other cultures purely from their differences without looking towards our similarities.

Jamie Harper

Senior Bookseller, Bracknell

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