Let's Do the Heron Dance

Up on my SF book shelf, there's a hardback, Gollancz 1986 1st edition copy of Ursula Le Guin's Always Coming Home. Such is the stature of this book in my mind that taking it down just now to peruse its pages again, I was somewhat disappointed by its size. I'd almost expected to stagger backwards from the weight of it as it slid off the shelf. In my mind, it had grown HUMONGOUS, but I suspect now that had more to do with the content than actual physical size. It's one of those books that, if you love them, they infiltrate your neural pathways and stay with you forever on a cellular level. Always Coming Home is big, and it is a challenge to get through at times with its different styles of writing, poetry (gasp!!!!), songs ( and it isn't even Tolkien) and factual cultural information about a future tribe of people called the Kesh, interspersed with the adventurous tale of a woman called Stone Telling, but most people seem to agree it's well worth the effort. This book initially confused me when I first read it many years ago, but I was mesmerised nonetheless and, thank goodness, stayed with it. Always Coming Home helped expand my ideas of what writing SF could involve, and it taught me that you can experiment with the genre and have fun with it. Then there are also the illustrations by Margaret Chodos, which made reading the book a real treat ( I mean, there were pictures! In a serious science fiction book! How cool was that?)

All in all, how can you not love a book that starts with the jaunty line: The people in this book might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California.

Anyway, the reason I've brought this up is because over at Book View Cafe, where they're presently having a bit of a Ursula Le Guin palooza to celebrate the publication of three new books by hers truly, this caught my eye:

Le Guin’s classic novel was originally published with a cassette tape, Music and Poetry of the Kesh, Music by Oregon Shakespeare Festival Resident Composer Todd Barton, words by Ursula K. Le Guin, who performs many of the selections.

I didn't find out there was a cassette of music until years after I read the book (there was no quick Googling back then). The fact is that that I didn't get one (cheated! I want my money back), and I've never caught up with this olden days, multi-media addition to the Kesh package. Fortunately, I can now pop over here and fix that deficiency, although I should probably reread the book and once more submerse myself in all things Kesh before I do so.

Who knows? Come some Winter's day, you may find me swanning about the house, making wild Keshian moves to the mystical tunes of a future California dreaming...