Few books make me sigh and despair at the tightening grip of age and the decay of hope as this one did. Ursula K LeGuin's tale, Planet of Exile, tells the story of two races under the threat of a multitude of enemies - the barbaric collective known as the Gaal, the impending changing of seasons - and for one of these races, a Planet that die does not allow for them to comfortably, or successfully throw the ladder of their genetics down to future generations.
With each chapter, it feels, and is painfully shown that the plight of each group could not possibly wander further from the path to hope to that of despair but... it does. Slowly, gently. The threat of the loss of wonder and small joys in existing grip cold, relentless and tight.
On Planet of Exile where ever it night be, the farborn know they're part of something greater, but they are unable to intervene in any meaningful way. Life has made their knowledge of the other planets and federations fade, while the clansmen with which they forge an alliance are unable to read, nor grasp abstract concepts like planning for the future - they do not see time as a continuous line through which they travel.
The Tevaran, are named as hilfs - highly intelligent life forms, but they still have much to learn. The central Farborn character, in the opening chaapters of the book, meets the Tevaran girl, Rolery. She is an analogue for the entire Tevaran race awakening within the world as the Gaal relentlessly lay siege, descending from the north like a mudslide down the mountain in a bid to escape the coming, lethal, many thousands of days and nights of winter.
Planet of Exile is a interesting and engaging novel, and it crosses multiple themes. There is certainly the anthropological study of various societies interacting with one another, trying to get along. Then there is a love story. Along side there's brutal living conditions, hard work, despair, resilience, and tough characters each with their own ideas about what to do against the threats.
This world has little charm. It is filled with mountains of exhaustive tasks, risk, peril and danger. Every character appears to be vulnerable, fragile and very real.
There are a few sub plots regarding internal tensions, knowledge transfer and the ethics of using certain tools against the barbaric invasion.
The tale that weaves all of these things together is a rewarding but troubled read. As I tried to impose my own hopes upon the characters and the world, I, too, could not find immediate solutions to their problems and concerns.
As a result, each page was a vicarious struggle and a torture. My response - instead of gratefulness at the modern convieniences of contemporary life - was instead a despair at just how fragile order, supply chain, and peace happen to be.
Therefore , Planet of Exile is a tale that does well to paint a tableau of wonder and gratefulness, like a banquet, but sprinkled with the poison of inevitably. Hope runs its course, infecting the tale and spreading through my transient mind, leaving me with a strong sense of caution and urge to preserve.
LeGuin leaves me with impossibility and a finality that feels uneasy but comforting, for I know that the future is more than this moment, that moment, and the next - but after all that, nothing but death and darkness remains.
