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My correspondence with Ursula Le Guin began with my soliciting her, on behalf of Science Fiction Studies, for a testimonial in support of an application for a Canadian government grant. (She readily obliged. Twice.) Over the next two decades, we sporadically communicated, first on matters pertaining to SFS, then (mostly) about some (other) projects of mine. My Le Guin file contains twenty-five documents from her, all but three of them letters (another is a post card). Apparently she either didn't mind or else tolerated my continuing to be as importunate as I was at the start.
One thing that has surprised me in perusing our correspondence was the alacrity of her responses. Cross-border mail reached its destination more quickly in the last century than it does now (which is also to say that neither of us ever used email); but even so, the dates of her letters signal that she almost always answered mine within twenty-four hours of receipt. And I suppose that that evinces her conscientiousness rather than some ability of mine to engage her. (Her son tells me that these letters are 'stylistically typical [...] formal rather than [...] familiar but typical nonetheless.')1
Her letters are self-revelatory in a manner consistent with the paramount achievement of The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed (1974). In them, she doesn't just allow us to understand what Genly Ai and Shevek are thinking and feeling but how. Each is self-interrogating; their selfconsciousness as given is roughly comparable to Hamlet's.
Ursula's letters possess the same kind of self-consciousness that her creations exhibit. But, two other qualities which are not as evident in her published work, yet which are discernible in her letters, are her modesty and self-deprecating humour.
I am of the view that many of her letters are, in themselves, notable examples of the epistolary genre. I don't know whether that judgment is accurate or even how extensive my pertinent reading is compared to others'. I leave that verdict to the reader.
Ursula thought that we'd actually met in person once. Unfortunately for me, we never did. I can't account for her mistake for certain. But I can say for sure that her letters do convey a sense of the kind of person she...