Abstract
Ursula K. Le Guin's 1980 portal fantasy The Beginning Place has received a fraction of the critical attention that most of her other novels have attracted over the years. This short book's many enigmas, often structured by self-consciously Jungian symbolism, are best understood as operating in service not to a strict Jungian framework, but rather to a broader metafictional evaluation of fantasy and an articulation of Le Guin's own preferred approach to the reading and interpretation of fantasy. At times, The Beginning Place moves beyond meta-fantasy to become an anti-fantasy that does not shy from critiquing some dimensions of both commercial fantasy and the potentially limiting interpretive responses of some of the genre's readers.
Publication Date
2024-2025
Volume
1
Issue
1
Copyright
©2025 Timothy S. Miller
Recommended Citation
Miller, Timothy S.
(2025)
"Returning to The Beginning Place: Le Guin’s Forgotten Anti-fantasy Four Decades On,"
UKL: The Journal of Ursula K. Le Guin Studies: Vol. 1, Article 3.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ukl/vol1/iss1/3
Included in
Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons
