Gifts
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
'She's showing no signs of losing her brilliance. She is unparalleled in creating fantasy peopled by finely drawn and complex characters... GIFTS has the simplicity of fairy tale and the power of myth' GUARDIAN
'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER
Orrec, the son of the Brantor of Caspromant, and Gry, daughter of the Brantors of Barre and Rodd, have grown up together, running half-wild across the Uplands. The people there are like their land: harsh and fierce and prideful; ever at war with each other.
Only the gifts keep the fragile peace. The Barre gift is calling animals. The women of Cordemant have the power of blinding, or making deaf, or taking away speech. The Rodds can send a spellknife into a man's heart. The Callems can move heavy things - even buildings, even hills. The Caspro gift is the worst and best of all: it is the gift of undoing: an insect, an animal, a place ...
Orrec and Gry are the heirs to Caspro and Barre. Gry's gift runs true, but she refuses to call animals for the hunt. Orrec too is a problem, for his gift of undoing is wild: he cannot control it - and that is the most dangerous gift of all ...
GIFTS is Ursula Le Guin at her best: an exciting, moving story beautifully told.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Le Guin's (the Earthsea Cycle) fantasy, a brilliant exploration of the power and responsibility of gifts, begins as 16-year-old narrator Orrec reflects upon recent events. Emmon, a runaway Lowlander, comes to Caspromant, where Orrec's father is Brantor, or "master." Orrec and his childhood friend, Gry, from neighboring Roddmant, explain to Emmon the history of the Uplands, where various family lines live side by side, each of them with a hereditary "gift." Gry and her mother have the gift of calling animals to the hunt; for Orrec's family, the gift is "undoing" (which can cause instant death with just a glance). Orrec explains to Emmon that these act as defenses, "That's what the gifts are for, the powers so you can protect your domain and keep your lineage pure." The teen wears a blindfold because he believes his gift is "wild," that he could cause destruction unwittingly. Le Guin insightfully chronicles the hero's gradual awakening to the other consequences of gifts and the pressure on each generation to manifest them. "By not using my gift, by refusing it, not trusting it was I betraying it?" Orrec asks himself. Gry discovers she has the ability to train animals and refuses to use her "gift" to call them to the hunt; she wonders aloud to Orrec, "I wonder if all the gifts are backward.... They could have been healing, to begin with." And what of Orrec's mother's skill for storytelling, which she cultivated in her son? Should that be discounted because she is a Lowlander? As Le Guin poses these questions, she also explores universal coming-of-age themes, examining one's identity and falling in love. Emmon, as outsider, offers the protagonists another perspective and an alternative. This provocative novel may well prompt teens to examine their own talents, and to ask whether they simply accept those "gifts" assigned to them by others or whether the "gifts" are their true passions. Ages 12-up.
