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General SF&F Chat > Le Guin conundrum….(please help!)

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message 1: by Helena (new)

Helena | 3 comments Hi folks - so, I was approached by my supervisor at uni, who knowing that I was a Le Guin fan, asked me to find a specific reference she'd remembered somewhere among her works. I shamefully cannot find it, and appeal to you good people to help me out!

I am trying to find a bit in Le Guin's work where there is a specific point at which all moment's of a man's life are seen at the same time. I have found several things that skirt around this theme, but my supervisor recalls a very specific instance of this happening. Any pointers/ avenues for inquiry would be extremely gratefully received.
Thanks,
H


message 2: by Jim (new)

Jim (jimmaclachlan) | 2369 comments Could it be from The Lathe of Heaven when George Orr is dreaming?


message 3: by Helena (new)

Helena | 3 comments Thanks Jim - I have thought perhaps L.o.H, but my supervisor seems to recall a very specific instance of looking at a man's face and seeing him as all ages at once, which I cannot recall from Lathe, but I will have another dig. Thanks a lot for the suggestion Jim :)


message 4: by Jim (new)

Jim (jimmaclachlan) | 2369 comments No, I don't recall a specific instance of that, either. There's something like that at the end of A Wizard of Earthsea, but not quite. It's where Ged confronts his monster.

At first it was shapeless, but as it drew nearer it took on the look of a man. An old man it seemed, grey and grim, coming towards Ged; but even as Ged saw his father the smith in that figure, he saw that it was not an old man but a young one. It was Jasper: Jasper's insolent handsome young face, and silver-clasped grey cloak, and stiff stride. Hateful was the look he fixed on Ged across the dark intervening air. Ged did not stop, but slowed his pace, and as he went forward he raised his staff up a little higher. It brightened, and in its light the look of Jasper fell from the figure that approached, and it became Pechvarry. But Pechvarry's face was all bloated and pallid like the face of a drowned man, and he reached out his hand strangely as if beckoning. Still Ged did not stop, but went forward, though there were only a few yards left between them now. Then the thing that faced him changed utterly, spreading out to either side as if it opened enormous thin wings, and it writhed, and swelled, and shrank again. Ged saw in it for an instant Skiorh's white face, and then a pair of clouded, staring eyes, and then suddenly a fearful face he did not know, man or monster, with writhing lips and eyes that were like pits going back into black emptiness.


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