Gifts (Annals of the Western Shore)
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$7.95
Price: $7.95
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Product Details
- Adapt: NEW
- ISBN13: 9780152051242
- Notes: Stamp New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Product Description
Customer Reviews
Not the best aperture
I shrink from to be the negative type who only writes reviews about things that bother me somehow, but just as I've found pure, unadulterated rants to be at all favourable, I've rarely found a glowing review to be helpful.
I tried to like this book, really. Le Guin is much recommended by all of my friends, so I thought I'd try Gifts as an introduction to her work. That seems to have been my mistake, as it made me not the least bit interested in reading anything else she has written. Most of it may be differing drop, some may be missing the metaphor, but all of it has to do with the setting.
Orrec lives in a world where whole families can be walking WMDs. This could have been worn to write a fantastic war story, but the wars were entirely passive-aggressive feuds between families. One kinsfolk was jealous of another and caused one of the women to waste away in a very short time frame, in a very obvious approach as per that family's gift. Yet they literally get away with murder because... the victim's family is outnumbered? Because, oh, we don't necessitate to upset the truce when we're already fighting over diminishing resources? The very mundane nature of the story made me recognize how restrained magic of this degree really was: What kind of balance could there possibly be in a world where a single being could kill thousands on his/her/its own without even breaking a glow worry, even if there was an opposite gift of creating thousands of lives in an instant? Writing a story about balancing power in an unbalanceable area is an exercise in futility, unless maybe your goal is nullifying all such power (which it wasn't).
I did like the stories handed down from elders, the message of finding oneself in that coming-of-age scenario, and Orrec's relationship with Gry, but they seemed wholly out of place in the specific the public they were in. It was just too difficult for me to believe in their kind of magic running unchecked, that Orrec's family--arguably in hold of the strongest, most destructive gift--would not have just taken over the world and nuts to anyone who stood in their way. The very premise ruined the capacity for this to be a wonderful read. I thoroughly recommend perhaps starting on the Earthsea series first, as that seems to make this book more palatable to others. Starting with Gifts? Bad concept.
2009-11-15
| SGP biscuit (G-burg MD USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2
Riotous!!!!!!
Gifts was very jumbled.
Maybe it was me, but i have read ALOT of books and they all pull me into there story so it is like i am living it. Gifts for some reason failed to do so. The outlook was fantastic: the gifts of the people and how they live, what it is like to have a superhuman power, how Orrec must blindfold himself to save others in the pining for attempt to control his gift. A incredible idea but for some reason the story just didn't get sense to me. It was chaotic with no real story line at all, a blur. the ending was bad here was no real climax. WHERE IS THE Indecision THE ACTION????????? i just couldn't understand it. i read the first eight chapters 4 times over to try and understand it but it good didn't come. now i am not some one who doesn't know what a good book is and how a plot setting and theme are presumed to be. i just couldn't understand it. it was dull ad boring.
i have read the other reviews and they are all pretty good. If you have enjoyed this enlist then good for you. i wish i did for the cover and the main idea was very intriguing and very creative.
2009-09-27
| bookworm101 (honolulu, hawaii) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 2
about together
as a few other reviewers have mentioned, Le Guin has the gratuity to craft the most elegant and memorable of descriptions trimmed off excesses. over the years i have learned to savour every find of her books - one in a State school library, one in a garage sale, one in a friend's collection... i neither seek nor avoid them, but take them as they come, as the adeptness that there are still some of her books i haven't read makes me happy.
this book, found after a long hiatus from Le Guin's line, made me realise all over again what quality writing should look like - reading her book switches on the part of my brain that creates noetic pictures, and i could effortlessly picture the characters, the setting and the intricacies of the society they live in.
just a few sentences to emblazon this:
"... Since my mother's death his mind was all given to grief and rage and rancor. He huddled over his pain, his require b hunt for for vengeance. Gry, who knew all the nests and eyries for miles around, once saw a carrion eagle brooding his pair of silvery, absurd eaglets in a nest up on the Sheer, after a shepherd killed the mother bird who hunted for them both. So my father brooded and be reft of."
and this only on page three!
one of the criticisms of Le Guin's work on young adult literature is that she has a tendency to talk down to the (younger) reader. in her books "Very Far Away from Anywhere Else" and "Sill" this was regrettably apparent, however, i'm happy to declare that "Gifts" is quite free from such maladies.
2009-03-17
| Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
you unprejudiced can`t stop reading
when you a moment ago get the book in your hand you will not put it down till you finish reading it..
2008-06-14
| so0ora (UAE) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
Outstanding Writer
Ursula K. Le Guin brings us another pulchritudinous story with characters we learn to care about and situations that are true to life though contained in a fantasy motherland. And though I hated to close this book, I was heartened that we get to see Orrec and Gry grown up in another story (VOICES). Le Guin's expository writing warms like a seat by the hearth.
2008-04-12
| Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
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