Four Ways to Forgiveness

Four Ways to Forgiveness
Author(s)	Ursula K. Le Guin
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science Fiction short stories
Publisher	HarperCollins
Publication date	1995
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
Pages	228
ISBN	0-06-105234-5
OCLC Number	32167377
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Classification	PS3562.E42 F68 1995

Four Ways to Forgiveness is a collection of four short stories or novellas by Ursula K. Le Guin. All four stories are set in the future and deal with the planets Yeowe and Werel, both members of the Ekumen, a collective of planets used by Le Guin as part of the background for many novels and short stories in her Hainish Cycle.

Contents

The four stories in Four Ways to Forgiveness are based on two planets named Werel and Yeowe, in a distant solar system. These planets are primarily inhabited by humans with slightly blue-tinged dark or light skin, black hair, and dark eyes. The stories start with the Ekumen in contact with both worlds and Yeowe recently freed from rule by Werel. Werel itself has a slave system that is expected to break down soon.

• "Betrayals" - The principal characters are Yoss, an old woman on Yeowe, a retired science teacher who had lived through the War of Liberation and a neighbour, Chief Abberkam, a disgraced leader from Yeowe's war of liberation, an opponent of contact with the Hainish envoys, living in a desolate area of the planet. Abberkam. Abberkam rescues Yoss's pet foxfdog, Gubu, from an accidental fire which destroys her hut; she then moves into Abberkan's house.
• "Forgiveness Day" - Solly, a woman of half-terran ancestry and space-travelling parents, faces problems as Envoy to the small kingdom of Gatay on Werel.
• "A Man of the People" - Havzhiva is a man who grows up on Hain, is educated there and then works for the Hainish embassy on Yeowe. It is the fullest account so far of life on Hain.
• "A Woman's Liberation" - Rakam, a woman born as a slave on Werel, tells of her life and her growing self-awareness.

The second, third and fourth stories have some characters in common. Havzhiva from story three works for Solly from Story Two. He is also the lover of Rakam in Story Four, mentioned but not named in Story Three. Both of them know Dr Yeron, and also Esdardon Aya, 'Old Music'. 'Old Music' is a minor character in Story Two, and the protagonist in the separate short story Old Music and the Slave Women in the collection The Birthday of the World.

The book ends with Notes on Werel and Yeowe, giving details of the two planets and their solar system. Note that this 'Werel' is not the same as the world called Werel in Planet of Exile and City of Illusions.

Themes

The common themes of the stories revolve around the concepts of freedom and slavery. For thousands of years, the dark-skinned owners of Werel held the light-skinned assets in slavery. However, in recent years, following the colonization of the second planet, Yeowe, things have begun to change on Werel. The Yeowans have gained freedom and are struggling to establish their own government and identity, and gain admittance into the Ekumen of worlds.

Publication history

The collection was first published by Harper Paperbacks (a division of HarperCollins Publishers) in 1995. Betrayals first appeared in 1994 in Blue Motel. The others appeared in the science fiction magazine Asimov's in 1994 and 1995.

Four Ways to Forgiveness was published in 1995 in a leather-bound, signed edition by Easton Press, who describe themselves as releasing 'works of lasting meaning, beauty and importance.'

Reception and critical analysis

Four Ways to Forgiveness has been referred to as a story-suite by critics, based on Le Guin's own use of the term to describe her deliberate inclusion of linked short stories in book form. Le Guin has remarked that the collections of stories could have been a novel had she focused on a few characters; instead she decided to focus on a work with many voices.

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Cadden, Mike (2005). Ursula K. Le Guin Beyond Genre: Fiction for Children and Adults (1st ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 0415995272. 

External links

• Four Ways to Forgiveness publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database