Book Review: Powers

Ursula K. Le Guin
2007
Awards: Nebula
Rating: ★ ★ – – –

SPOILER ALERT

This book was only available in the Young Adult section of my library. And, after reading it, I can see why; this is definitely a book for teenagers.

I have really enjoyed some of Le Guin’s books, and others not so much. The books that I don’t like usually fall into one of two groups: those that are too dreamy and those that have too heavy-handed a Message. This book fell too far into both of these negative categories for me. (The Message in this particular book is that slavery is evil.) (Which, of course, it is.)

The story is about a young slave boy, Gavir, who has been brought up in a relatively benevolent household. He is able to be in denial, at first, that it is bad to be a slave, because his life seems to be pretty good. His masters are not overtly cruel; he is able to live with his beloved sister, Sallo; and he gets to go to school with the master’s children because he is being trained to be a teacher.

But eventually his little world starts falling apart and he starts to question the system. He is bullied by some of the less benevolent members of the household. His home is invaded by people from another country. And finally his sister is murdered, which is the last straw and makes him run away.

After he runs away, he lives in several different types of societies, including a city of freed men; a camp of runaway slaves in the heart of the forest run by a misogynistic megalomaniac; and the poor marshland settlements of his own people from whom he was stolen as a baby. This all conveniently exposes him to alternative governments and different attitudes towards women, work, war, and cooperation.

The Message, which, of course, Gavir eventually learns, is that a cage is still a cage no matter how gilded it is. That slavery is an evil institution, however disguised it may be, and a limited freedom is no freedom at all.

This is all very well and good a Message, but so obviously delivered.

And the characters are so black and white. Gavir and his sister are one hundred percent good, eager naïfs. They have unquestioning obedience to and reverence for their masters. They are hard-working and earnest. And the bad guys are uniformly awful bullies.

The story is also not all that exciting. Gavir’s story is the classic monomyth: he is born under mysterious circumstances, shows early evidence of supernatural abilities (he can see visions of the future), goes on a long journey or quest, encounters several father figures from whom he has to become independent, and has to have a showdown with an arch enemy to finally prove himself. But Gavir's life really isn’t all that difficult most of the time. He is in physical danger maybe twice, and in an actual physical conflict a couple more times, but these situations are all generally over in about a minute. Even his escape from slavery is easy.

And all of the pivotal events in the book are instigated and resolved by external forces without any action on Gavir's part. He is swept along by events, not directing of them. Even his final showdown is won essentially passively, by natural forces, not by anything special he does.


An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Cheeze Blog.