Product Details
The Beginning Place

The Beginning Place
By Ursula K. Le Guin

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Product Description

Fleeing from the monotony of his life, Hugh Rogers finds his way to "the beginning place"--a gateway to Tembreabrezi, an idyllic, unchanging world of eternal twilight. Irena Pannis was thirteen when she first found the beginning place. Now, seven years later, she has grown to know and love the gentle inhabitants of Tembreabrezi, or Mountaintown, and she sees Hugh as a trespasser. But then a monstrous shadow threatens to destroy Mountaintown, and Hugh and Irena join forces to seek it out. Along the way, they begin to fall in love. Are they on their way to a new beginning...or a fateful end?

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #142454 in Books
  • Published on: 2005-03-01
  • Released on: 2005-03-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Mass Market Paperback
  • 240 pages

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Magical...lyrical...an uncommonly graceful fantasy-romance."--Time Magazine on The Beginning Place

"Like all great writers of fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us, hearts eased, to our own."--The Boston Globe on The Beginning Place


"Magical.lyrical.an uncommonly graceful fantasy-romance." (Time Magazine )

"Like all great writers of fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin creates imaginary worlds that restore us, hearts eased, to our own." (Boston-Globe )

About the Author

Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of more than three dozen books for children and adults. She was awarded a Newbery Honor for the second volume of the Earthsea Cycle, The Tombs of Atuan, and among her many other distinctions are the Margaret A. Edwards Award, a National Book Award, and five Nebula Awards. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Hugh lay with his shoulders against the fallen true, struggling to breathe, to get air into his lungs. The world slipped and whitened around him. When it began to steady, when the pain in his chest lessened, he became aware of the warmth and weight pressed against him, against his left side and arm. "Irena," he said in a voiceless whisper, giving that warmth a name, pulling himself back with the name, the presence. She was crouching doubled up, her face hidden. "It's all right," he said.
"It's gone," she said, "it's gone."
"Is it gone?"
"It went on."
She had sat up but her warmth was still next to him, and he turned his face against her shoulder.
"It's all right, Hugh. It's all right now."
After a long time his breath came evenly again. He raised his head, and sat up. Irena drew away a little and tried to comb the leaves and dirt out of her hair with her fingers, and rubbed her wet cheeks.
"What now?" she said in a little, husky voice.
"I don't know."

Customer Reviews

"Magical...Lyrical..."yes5
I found this book accidentally, a few years ago (as an adult) and read it based on my previous reading of the 'standard' Le Guin (read in college): "The Dispossesed" & "The Left Hand of Darkness".
This is a story of a young person growing up -or fighting against growing up in the conventional societal sense.
I was rapidly taken in by the story and mesmerized, I could hardly put it down. Somehow this book touched my soul.
Maybe because I also was once a grocery clerk... .

It seems to be a polarizing book, some other reviewers were lukewarm or disliked it, I guess that makes it special if it can speak in different ways to different people.
I recommend reading "The Beginning Place", and see for yourself.

Fantasy Book opens my eyes!4
In this book, Hugh is the main character. He is a 20 year old man who lives with his mom. His mom verbally abuses him. One day he gets mad and runs out and tumbles going through a gate. It transports him into another dimension. In the dimension, he learns what love is all about. He also finds a girl who is just like him. The girls world is in darkness and they need to kill a beast to help them. Will he survive or die trying? Read and find out.
I did like this book because it relates to other realms. I love fantasy and this book contains a lot. It's a very good book although I would only recommend this book to 9th graders and up, because it does contain some sexual contents.

Rich in imagery and compact in layered meanings5
The Beginning Place appeals to those of us who have ever felt desperately the need to get away from the mundanities and fears in our lives. Le Guin is extraordinarily skillful in showing Hugh and Irene's search to break free of restraints and fears; and she does it with a very complicated yet compact metaphor for their maturation. The book is beautifully written, lyrical... it is literature for those science fiction/fantasy fanatics who have forgotten what good writing is really about. It begins with a modern world and rapidly takes you into the alternate reality world, about which you really learn only enough to wish there were more detail. It is a short book, but so full of meaning it's best read several times. One of my all-time favorites.