"Ursula K. LeGuin - The New Atlantis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

The New Atlantis
Ursula K. Le Guin

Enthusiasts sometimes refer to science fiction writers as "the poets of our future," celebrating the
art of the best science fiction in describing futures that are not only logically extrapolated but
whose images and themes also move us on very basic levels. The following story is a superb
example: its grim future is set in counterpoint to a Utopian past that just might reemerge.

Ursula K. Le Guin is a writer of prose and poetry who has won high acclaim in both science
fiction and general literature. Her best known novels are The Left Hand of Darkness and The
Lathe of Heaven, which was adapted for presentation on PBS-TV early in 1980.

COMING BACK FROM my Wilderness Week I sat by an odd sort of man in the bus. For a long time
we didn't talk; I was mending stockings and he was reading. Then the bus broke down a few miles
outside Gresham. Boiler trouble, the way it generally is when the driver insists on trying to go over thirty.
It was a Supersonic Superscenic Deluxe long distance coal-burner, with Home Comfort, that means a
toilet, and the seats were pretty comfortable, at least those that hadn't yet worked loose from their bolts,
so everybody waited inside the bus; besides, it was raining. We began talking, the way people do when
there's a breakdown and a wait. He held up his pamphlet and tapped itтАФhe was a dry-looking man with
a school-teacherish way of using his handsтАФand said, "This is interesting. I've been reading that a new
continent is rising from the depths of the sea."

The blue stockings were hopeless. You have to have something besides holes to darn onto. "Which sea?"

"They're not sure yet. Most specialists think the Atlantic. But there's evidence it may be happening in the
Pacific, too."

"Won't the oceans get a little crowded?" I said, not taking it seriously. I was a bit snappish, because of
the breakdown and because those blue stockings had been good warm ones.

He tapped the pamphlet again and shook his head, quite serious. "No," he said. "The old continents are
sinking, to make room for the new. You can see that that is happening."

You certainly can. Manhattan Island is now under eleven feet of water at low tide, and there are oyster
beds in Ghirardelli Square.

"I thought that was because the oceans are rising from polar melt."

He shook his head again. "That is a factor. Due to the greenhouse effect of pollution, indeed Antarctica
may become inhabitable. But climatic factors will not explain the emergence of the newтАФor, possibly,
very oldтАФcontinents in the Atlantic and Pacific." He went on explaining about continental drift, but I liked
the idea of inhabiting Antarctica and daydreamed about it for a while. I thought of it as very empty, very
quiet, all white and blue, with a faint golden glow northward from the unrising sun behind the long peak of
Mount Erebus. There were a few people there; they were very quiet too, and wore white tie and tails.
Some of them carried oboes and violas. Southward the white land went up in a long silence toward the
Pole.

Just the opposite, in fact, of the Mount Hood Wilderness Area. It had been a tiresome vacation. The
other women in the dormitory were all right, but it was macaroni for breakfast, and there were so many
organized sports. I had looked forward to the hike up to the National Forest Preserve, the largest forest