Funktious, 14 days ago

"The people in this book might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California."

Less of a novel and more of an anthology of the lives and communities of these people, the Kesh. Virtually no plot, but a gentle, immersive read that will make you think about the human condition, where we are and where we're going.

This quote from Richard Powers at the back of my copy sums up the importance of this book better than I could in my own words.

#books #bookstodon

Q. What does this novel have to offer for readers in ... the 21st century and beyond? A. The book is visionary in every sense of the word. It offers a profound glimpse into the shift in consciousness that our species will need to trigger if we want to stay around on this planet much longer. Le Guin was as attuned to humanity's great existential challenge as any novelist of that time, and it has required the passage of almost 40 years to appreciate the full extent of her vision. The Kesh are a people thoroughly committed to the project that Bruno Latour calls landing back on Planet Earth. When I read the book, I sometimes forgot whether I was reading ancient history or deep futurology. That's because Le Guin knew that the only way forward through the chief catastrophe of our time - the destruction of the planet by a pathological human culture - required the ability to look backwards and forwards at the same time. Human exceptionalism and commodity-mediated individualism have brought the living world to a precipice. To keep from plunging over, we'll need to foster a culture that finds meaning in love of local place and broad kinship with everything else alive. Le Guin saw in fine detail how our damnation lies in thinking of ourselves as self-creating and our salvation depends on cultivating a sense of interbeing. If we mean to survive as a species, we will have to learn how to become indigenous again. That is the incredible leap of imagination realized in Always Coming Home.