Always Coming HomeUrsula Le Guin's Always Coming Home is a major work of the imagination from one of America's most respected writers of science fiction. More than five years in the making, it is a novel unlike any other. A rich and complex interweaving of story and fable, poem, artwork, and music, it totally immerses the reader in the culture of the Kesh, a peaceful people of the far future who inhabit a place called the Valley on the Northern Pacific Coast. |
Contents
A First Note | |
THE QUAIL SONG | 1 |
Towards an Archaeology of the Future | 3 |
STONE TELLING | 7 |
The Serpentine Codex | 43 |
Where It Is | 50 |
The Pattern | 53 |
SOME STORIES TOLD ALOUD | 54 |
The Bright Void of the Wind | 271 |
White Tree | 273 |
The Third Childs Story | 275 |
The Dog at the Door | 280 |
The Life Story of Flicker of the Serpentine of Telinana | 282 |
SOME BRIEF VALLEY TEXTS | 305 |
Pandora Converses with the Archivist of the Library of the Madrone Lodge at Wakwahana | 314 |
DANGEROUS PEOPLE | 318 |
Shahugoten | 57 |
The Keeper | 60 |
Dried Mice | 63 |
Dira | 64 |
POEMS | 69 |
How to Die in the Valley | 83 |
Pandora Sitting by the Creek | 95 |
FOUR ROMANTIC TALES | 96 |
The Miller | 97 |
Lost | 98 |
The Brave Man | 103 |
At the Springs of Orlu | 107 |
POEMS | 112 |
FOUR HISTORIES | 121 |
A War with the Pig People | 129 |
The Town of Chumo | 134 |
The Trouble with the Cotton People | 136 |
She Addresses the Reader with Agitation | 147 |
TIME AND THE CITY | 149 |
A Hole in the Air | 154 |
Big Man and Little Man | 157 |
Beginnings | 160 |
Time in the Valley | 163 |
STONE TELLING | 173 |
DRAMATIC WORKS | 202 |
The Wedding Night at Chukulmas | 203 |
The Shouting Man the Red Woman and the Bears | 213 |
Tabetupah | 218 |
The Plumed Water | 221 |
Chandi | 226 |
Pandora Worrying About What She Is Doing Finds a Way into the Valley through the Scrub Oak | 239 |
Dancing the Moon | 242 |
POEMS | 251 |
EIGHT LIFE STORIES | 263 |
The Train | 265 |
She Listens | 266 |
Junco | 267 |
CHAPTER TWO | 319 |
Pandora Gently to the Gentle Reader | 339 |
STONE TELLING | 340 |
Messages Concerning the Condor | 377 |
About a Meeting Concerning the Warriors | 381 |
POEMS | 387 |
From the People of the Houses of Earth in the Valley to the Other People Who Were on Earth Before Them | 404 |
THE BACK OF THE BOOK | 407 |
Long Names of Houses | 409 |
Some of the Other People of the Valley | 414 |
II Animals of the Blue Clay | 420 |
Kinfolk | 424 |
Lodges Societies Arts | 430 |
What They Wore in the Valley | 434 |
What They Ate | 437 |
Kesh Musical Instruments | 444 |
Maps | 450 |
The World Dance | 454 |
The Sun Dance | 462 |
About the Train | 469 |
Some Notes on Medical Practices | 471 |
A Treatise on Practices | 478 |
Playing | 480 |
Some Generative Metaphors | 483 |
Three Poems by Pandora Written Sideways from the Valley to the City of Man | 486 |
Living on the Coast Energy and Dancing | 488 |
Love | 493 |
Written Kesh | 494 |
The Kesh Alphabet | 496 |
The Modes of Earth and Sky | 499 |
A Note and a Chart Concerning Narrative Modes | 500 |
Spoken and Written Literature | 502 |
Pandora No Longer Worrying | 506 |
Kesh Numbers | 509 |
Stammersong | |
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Common terms and phrases
animals asked Bay Laurel began Blood Lodge Blue Clay called canyon ceremony Chandi child CHORUS Chukulmas Chumo Clown Society common place Condor Coyote Creek dancing place dark daughter Dayao dead deer digger pine Doctors Lodge drum Duhe dying earth Ekwerkwe eyes father fire Four Houses grandmother grass gyre heya heyimas hills household Houses of Earth human hunting Inland Sea Kamedan Kesh killed knew learned listen live looked Madidinou married mind Monkeyflower Moon mother Mountain never night Obsidian Orlu Ounmalin person quail rain Red Adobe River rock Sahelm Serpentine sevai shining singing Sinshan songs soul spoke spring stayed stone Sungazer Tachas Touchas talk Telina Telina-na tell Terter things thought told took town trees turned Valley wakwa Wakwaha walked Warrior wild Willow wind Wine woman women word Yellow Adobe