The Word for World is Forest
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 Cover of first edition (hardcover) |
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| Author | Ursula K. Le Guin |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science Fiction novel |
| Publisher | Putnam Publishing Group |
| Released | 1976 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-399-11716-4 |
The Word for World is Forest is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in 1976 and based on her 1972 novella. It details an early effort by the people of Earth to expand into a galaxy loosely tied together by the Ekumen. The Terrans establish a logging colony and military base named "New Tahiti" on a tree-covered planet whose furry, big-eyed inhabitants have formed a culture centered on lucid dreaming. Terran greed spirals around native innocence and wisdom, turning the ancient society upside down.
[edit] Plot summary
"The Athshean word for 'world' is the same as their word for 'forest'." Raj Lyubov, one of the novel's major characters.
Colonists from Earth take over a planet that the locals call Athshe, which means "forest," rather than "dirt," like their home planet. They follow the 19th century model of colonization: cutting down trees, planting farms, building mines, and enslaving indigenous peoples. The natives are ill equipped to comprehend this, since they're a subsistent people who rely on the forests, and have no cultural precedent for tyranny, slavery, or war. The invaders take the land of these tiny forest people without any resistance.
Their innocent, ingrained obedience and the fact that they never seem to sleep makes them seem to be ideal slaves, practicing what in humans is called polyphasic sleep. One of the worst slave-masters is Captain Davidson (who is not the leader of the Terrans -- a common misconception), who regularly beats the "creechies", as he calls the Athsheans. But the fact is that they take a few dreamless catnaps spread throughout the day, and go into a state of lucid dreaming at will, and quite often. They also see the "dream-time" as a world just as real as the "world-time," and hate hallucinogens which the humans use, because they have no control over the dreams generated by the "poisons." Most of the "yumens" make no effort to understand this, and drive them harder when they catch them "daydreaming." Deprived of REM sleep, the slaves' mental and physical health deteriorates. The only human who begins to understand this is Corporal Raj Lyubov, who saves several slaves from grisly deaths at Davidson's hands. When a tiny native woman is raped by Davidson, and dies of her wounds, her husband, Selver, begins to dream of war.
No one had dreamed of war before, but Selver is able to share his dream, and sing his plans with the rest of his people. The revolution upends the Athshean culture, but succeeds in ending Terran domination. For the atrocities he has committed, Davidson is exiled to an island of bare rock, that had been a thriving forest village before his rule, to be given food and medicine but no human contact for the rest of his life. The rest of the humans (except for Lyubov, who was accidentally killed in the revolt) return home on the next ship to arrive.
The novella version, originally published in Again, Dangerous Visions, was a winner of the 1973 Hugo Award for Best Novella. Le Guin has stated in her introduction to the novel that the Vietnam War was a major influence on this work. Her original title was The Little Green Men, but Ellison changed it with Le Guin's reluctant consent.
An evidently relevant touch is the presence of Vietnamese among the oppressor humans, presumably intended to convey the point that today's oppressed might turn into tomorrow's oppressor.
A copy of The Word For World is Forest is visible at the bedside of the character Joker in a scene set in Vietnam in Stanley Kubrick's film Full Metal Jacket.
[edit] Footnotes
[edit] References
- Le Guin, Ursula K. (1976). The Word for World is Forest. Putnam Publishing.
| Ursula K. Le Guin's Ekumen series | |
|---|---|
| The Dispossessed | The Word for World is Forest | Rocannon's World | Planet of Exile | City of Illusions | The Left Hand of Darkness | Four Ways to Forgiveness | The Telling | |
