No Time to Spare
is a 2017 collection of essays by octogenarian Ursula Le Guin (died 1/22/2018).
The essays range from light topics like her cat to heavy ones like war, hunger,
and income inequality. The subtitle “Thinking about what matters” is well
chosen as Le Guin approaches each topic analytically often with surprising
results.
The collection opens with a skewering of the
privileged, elitist assumptions of a 60th-reunion questionnaire sent
out by Harvard, followed by the folly of You’re only as old as you think you
are. “Actually, I’ve never heard anyone over seventy say that.”
Later, in an essay on profanity in literature,
she retells the story about Dorothy Parker’s comment to Norman Mailer about his
use of fug in The Naked and the Dead, “Are you the young man who
doesn’t know how to spell fuck?”
In another essay, she demolishes the idea of economic
growth as a goal. Unending growth doesn’t work in in the natural world. “[The
current generation] has seen growth capitalism return to its origins, providing
security for none but the strongest profiteers.”
Cats? “I don’t look for much obedience from a
cat; the relationship isn’t based on rank or a dominance hierarchy as with
dogs and cats have no guilt and very little shame.”
A delightful collection in support of liberal
and egalitarian ideals by someone who grew up in Berkeley California and has
pet cats.
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