im surprised how many of the novel’s themes were left out of this week’s blogroll (an advantage of getting to write last!). first, no one said anything about race. this is partly a love story between a white man and black woman. there are also strong undercurrents of the nostalgia le guin feels for the radical black political movement of the late 60s (SNCC, black panthers, etc). on the love part, it seems that by endowing lelache with a multitude of animal characters; a crab, spider, snake, and treating orr as a jellyfish, le guin is saying something to the efffect that love can happen between anyone, even an aggressive terra firma animal with a passive aquatic one. (remember the sharp divide between land and sea in the opening). certainly there’s more to be said about environmental degradation and how this plays into postmodern thought, as well as drug culture, etc… im looking forward to our tuesday discussion. i loved this book!