"Ursula K. LeGuin - The Island of the Immortals" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

the island of the immortals
URSULA K. LE GUIN
Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the best-known and most universally respected SF
writers in the world today. Her famous novel The Left Hand of Dark-ness may
have been the most influential SF novel of its decade, and shows every sign of
becoming one of the enduring classics of the genreтАФeven ignoring the rest of Le
GuinтАЩs work, the impact of this one novel alone on future SF and future SF writers
would be incalculably strong. (Her 1968 fantasy novel, A Wizard of Earthsea,
would be almost as influential on future generations of high fantasy writers.) The
Left Hand of Darkness won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, as did Le GuinтАЩs
monumental novel The Dispossessed a few years later. Her novel Tehanu won her
an-other Nebula in 1990, and she has also won three other Hugo Awards and two
Nebula Awards for her short fiction, as well as the National Book Award for
childrenтАЩs literature for her novel The Farthest Shore, part of her acclaimed
Earthsea trilogy. Her other novels include Planet of Exile, The Lathe of Heaven,
City of Illusions, RocannonтАЩs World, The Begin-ning Place, The Eye of the Heron,
The Tombs of Atuan, Searoad, and the controversial multimedia novel Always
Coming Home. She has had seven collections: The WindтАЩs Twelve Quarters,
Orsinian Tales, The Com-pass Rose, Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, A
Fisherman of the Inland Sea, Four Ways to Forgiveness, and most recently,
Unlocking the Air. Last year she published Steering the Craft, a slim book on the
craft of writing fiction. Her stories have appeared in our Second, Fifth, Eighth,
Twelfth, and Thirteenth Annual Collections. She lives with her husband in
Portland, Oregon.
In the quiet little story that follows, as sharply, exquisitely, and perfectly
drawn as a miniature on tortoiseshell, she shows us that everything has a
priceтАжand that the more valuable the object of desire is, the higher that price is
likely to be. . . .

****

S omebody asked me if IтАЩd heard that there were immortal people on the Yendian
Plane, and somebody else told me that there were, so when I go there, I asked about
them. The travel agent rather reluctantly showed me a place called the Island of the
Immortals on her map. тАЬYou donтАЩt want to go there,тАЭ she said.
тАЬI donтАЩt?тАЭ
тАЬWell, itтАЩs dangerous,тАЭ she said, looking at me as if she thought I was not the
danger-loving type, in which she was entirely correct. She was a rather unpolished
local agent, not an employee of the Interplanary Service. Yendi is not a popular
destination. In many ways itтАЩs so like our own plane that it seems hardly worth the
trouble of visiting. There are differences, but theyтАЩre subtle.
тАЬWhy is it called the Island of the Immortals?тАЭ
тАЬBecause some of the people there are immortal.тАЭ
 тАЬThey donтАЩt die?тАЭ I asked, never quite sure of the accuracy of my
translatomat.
тАЬThey donтАЩt die,тАЭ she said indifferently. тАЬNow, the Prinjo Archipelago is a
lovely place for a restful fortnight.тАЭ Her pencil moved southward across the map of
the Great Sea of Yendi. My gaze remained on the large, lonely Island of the
Immor-tals. I pointed to it.
тАЬIs there a hotelтАФthere?тАЭ