urbane, to comfort them

You know the theory for how to get a piece of cake or some such cut evenly between two people? Ask one of them to cut it and the other one to pick. That will give the cutter an incentive to cut evenly and not cheat.

But what if - I was thinking while slicing brussel sprouts in two for B.'s dinner - what if the person doing the cutting isn't very good at slicing exactly in half? Then the cutter will be cheating him/herself.

A couple weeks ago I reported on a survey of readers' favorite Tolkien novels, and since I was focusing on Le Guin for my trip to her museum exhibit, I might as well consider favorites in that area also.

I found a Reddit thread and another on this topic, and toted up the results. Much more widespread than with Tolkien; I found a total of 17 books chosen, not counting a few people who preferred to choose individual short stories. But the favorite seemed to be The Left Hand of Darkness, followed by The Lathe of Heaven and The Dispossessed. I'm pleased to see The Dispossessed high up; for a while back there I considered it, if not the best, the most under-rated major Le Guin novel. As for Lathe, I rather have the distinct impression that it got a lot more attention after the 1980 PBS dramatization than before.

But while I like all these books, my favorite is Always Coming Home. Like just about everybody on the Reddit threads who named it, my reaction on first reading it was to be blown away in amazement.

New work by an author or artist who's already a favorite of yours can be a challenge. The existing work you've absorbed, you know it well and it's a part of you. The new work you haven't, and my experience is that it often seems a bit inferior at first, even if on absorbing it fully you conclude that it's their best yet.

Only thrice in my experience with a currently-working author or artist whose work I already loved passionately, have I encountered a new work which so dazzled me on first encounter that I immediately concluded that this was their masterwork to date, better than anything that preceded it. Nor have subsequent events changed my mind. One of these was Steeleye Span's setting of "Tam Lin". One was Donald E. Westlake's Kahawa. The third was Always Coming Home.

I've written before, for instance here, about how, when I headed the local group to run Mythcon three years after ACH's publication and had Ursula as Guest of Honor, we constructed the entire convention around a celebration of that book, so I won't go into that more here.

Instead, I'll note some supplementaries. The books which originally sold me on Le Guin as an author I'd like were A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan. I picked those up in a library, I think, and saw the map of Earthsea and the diagram of the tombs (only in early editions, I find) and recognized their similarity to maps I'd drawn myself to occupy tedious hours in the classroom. "This author has seen within my soul," I thought, and that began a permanent association.

I also have a sneaking fondness for The Beginning Place, because I think I'm one of the few readers to have figured out the real purpose of that book. It's often criticized, but what the critics cite as a flaw is actually the point.

As for Le Guin short stories, I think my favorite is "Direction of the Road," for the sheer unusualness of its viewpoint.

Another thing I did in Portland was visit the Lan Su Garden, which was enthusiastically recommended in some guidebooks I consulted. Portland is sister cities with Suzhou, China, a city near Shanghai which is known for its classical scholars' gardens. So about 25 years ago, Portland imported a crew of artisans and a whole lot of Chinese building material to create this garden in the authentic style.* It occupies an entire city block, and it's not all or even mostly plants, though there are plenty of those. There are pathways paved with stones arranged in the shape of various flower petals; there are fish ponds and little bridges over them; and mostly there are what are called pavilions, free-standing buildings mostly about the size of a western living room, intended for various purposes. One is intended as the resident scholar's place; it has one smaller room for his study and workroom, and a larger one as his reception area, with furniture in the Ming dynasty style. An even larger one, with two stories, has been set up as a teahouse.

It's all quite charming - you can see a video tour at the above link - and the guided tour was informative. There's also a gift shop at which I bought a pair of golden butterfly earrings as a Valentine's present for B., which is why I am writing about it today.

*Meanwhile, artisans from Portland built a rose garden in Suzhou.