Opinions about this novella vary widely.

There are those who find it undeserving. But there are others, who, like me, find it rich and different; a parenthesis to reality.

Much as the characters living the story, the reader travels through a portal to encounter a new world. Yet, it's hard to know why we find ourselves there, among the terrified villagers. And it's even harder to understand what's happening.

One of the portal-crossers is a young man. He has barely explored the edges of this new realm when a fellow crosser comes to kick him out. The second crosser has been there many times. In fact, she knows the place well. Better than her own home, you could say. But for some reason unknown, and for a long period, the portal has remained closed to her. That's until the young man is also allowed to cross, opening the portal for the two of them.

This is a story you will read fast, but you will not forget it as quickly. Much is left to the reader's imagination to decide. Why these two young people? Why now? And what really is that menace hiding in the high mountains, deep within a cave?

Significantly, the answers to such questions can only come from the reader, because the genius of this book is that the portal in the story is also a portal to our fears, our stories.

This book was published in America with its original title: The Beginning Place. However, later editions for the UK sport a different title: Threshold. While both titles are fitting of the book, I think the first one, the one selected by Ursula herself, reflects the meaning and deepness of the story much better.

This is a story about the threshold within us, those places we are afraid to look into, to travel to, and the places where we are allowed to dream and see ourselves in the best light.

A favorite of mine, I would exhort you to read it instead of trying to make your mind from other people's opinions (and that includes mine).

The story takes us on a journey that is both mysterious and captivating. The characters' experiences in the new world make us question our own fears and dreams. The unknown menace adds an element of excitement and anticipation.

Whether you prefer the title The Beginning Place or Threshold, this novella is sure to leave a lasting impression. It challenges us to look within ourselves and explore the thresholds that we often avoid.

So, pick up this book and let it transport you to a world of wonder and discovery. You won't be disappointed.

Reading a book is often considered a more immersive and engaging experience compared to listening to it. When we read, we have the opportunity to fully absorb the details, imagery, and emotions presented in the text. We can pause, reflect, and reread passages that strike us. In contrast, when we listen to a book being narrated, there is a risk that the narration may take away from the story rather than adding to it. The narrator's voice, tone, and pacing can sometimes influence our perception of the story in a way that may not align with our own imagination. However, it's important to note that listening to a book can also have its advantages, such as allowing us to multitask or enjoy the story while on the go. Ultimately, the choice between reading and listening depends on personal preference and the specific circumstances.

I'm truly not understanding the bad reviews.

Why is it that some people seem to not appreciate this book? This book is truly a masterpiece. It is both timeless and ephemeral, with a writing style that is haunting and taut. The emotions it evokes are a complex blend of hopefulness and hopelessness, which build up to a crescendo.

COME ON, PEOPLE!

I had the pleasure of reading this book and it brought me to tears. I was so happy that someone finally had the ability to take a tiny granule of what I have felt in life and beautifully smooth it out on a page.

Get over yourselves, and just read the book, goddammit. You will be amazed at the depth and beauty that lies within its pages.

I've noticed that many individuals who generally have an affinity for Le Guin's works don't have a liking for this particular book. This was one of the reasons I hadn't read it previously. The other reason being the dreadful cover of the edition in my library. I'm well aware that I shouldn't keep allowing bad covers to deter me from books that otherwise hold appeal. However, when I have such an extensive to-be-read (TBR) list, sometimes I resort to rather arbitrary reasons for choosing one book over another. Now that I've finally read it, "The Beginning Place" definitely isn't making its way onto my list of favorite Le Guin books.

Nonetheless, I still believe it has something special to offer. The story unfolds at a slow and quiet pace. The closest it gets to an action sequence is over in a flash, amid confusion and unpleasantness. I have a penchant for quiet stories, and I'm extremely eager for alternatives to the over-the-top, heart-pounding action that often dominates fantasy books. I know I can count on Le Guin to deliver.

This is a small yet beautiful tale about the need to escape and the limitations of escapism. Both Irene and Hugh discover the beginning place independently, driven by their desperate need for it. But their access to the gateway is intertwined because, in the end, what they truly require is each other. You venture into the woods to undergo a transformation and gain self-awareness, which is significant and beneficial. However, in the final analysis, it's just as crucial to know when it's time to leave the woods and return home.

I truly adored this novel. LeGuin's imagination never fails to astonish me. It's somewhat like an outdoor hiking trail version of a "Wardrobe" (similar to the one in "The Lion the Witch, & the Wardrobe"). Through this "Wardrobe", one can access an alternative life in a twilit world where time nearly stands still.

Mysteries and questions are plentiful in this book. If unanswered questions trouble you, "The Beginning Place" will likely bother you a great deal. There are numerous roads not taken within its pages. There is a wealth of meaning to be gleaned between the lines. Lord Horn made me envision Christopher Lee in "Wicker Man". However, the "romance" aspect of the novel is the least significant part. I feel it's included merely to make the ending more cheerful. "The Beginning Place" was a quick read for me, yet I believe I should peruse it again.

July 2021 update: I re-read it partly to fulfill a challenge for my Local Library's summer reading program and partly because I had the inspiration to pen a song based on the book. Upon re-reading, I've determined that Lord Horn more closely resembles the late great Max von Sydow. If anything, Master Sark is more like Lord Summerisle.

Another book that took me longer than I expected to read was this one. In this case, it was because I found myself luxuriating in the language. Le Guin - at least since _Left Hand_ and _Wizard of Earthsea_ - was always an acute writer. But here, she may have reached, at least, a local peak. The sentences and paragraphs are beautiful, building meaning leisurely but purposefully.

Oh, and there's a story. Hugh Rogers discovers a gateway to an "evening country," a place where it is always twilight and time passes more slowly than in our world. Eight hours there are approximately an hour here.

However, Irena (Irene Pannis) has been visiting this place for years and is not happy to find a stranger camped beside her special spot. It only gets worse when Hugh is welcomed by the people of the place as the hero they have been waiting for. Their roads are filled with fear, and only "Hiuradgaz" can save them. And, to add insult to injury, they expect Irene to act as his guide and interpreter as he searches for the source of the fear and deals with it.

That's actually more than half of the book right there. It starts slowly, builds to a rather astonishing crescendo, and ends with a long coda that brings peace to Hugh and Irene.

Only one Le Guin novel is left. ...sigh...

[Really more like 3.5, unfortunately]

For its initial two-thirds, “The Beginning Place” presents a clever and captivating twist on the typical portal fantasy. What makes it stand out is that both of its main protagonists, Hugh and Irena, are adults. Adventure and excitement are furthest from their thoughts. Irena has been visiting Tembreabrezi for years, hoping to find a semblance of the home life she never had. For Hugh, the allure lies solely in the peace he experiences, far removed from his dead-end job and perpetually disappointed mother. However, beneath the peaceful veneer, something sinister lurks. Le Guin masterfully crafts an atmosphere of gradually intensifying menace. Irena, in particular, discovers that the gaps in her knowledge of Tembreabrezi - the aspects of the language and history she was previously able to navigate around - are now becoming increasingly prominent. There are several outstanding scenes where it becomes evident that what she thought were English equivalents for words in the Tembreabrezi language are merely approximations, or that the Tembreabrezi word itself is a shorthand for a more complex concept, resulting in meaning frustratingly eluding both her and the reader. The problem plaguing Tembreabrezi is both interesting and unique: a sense of intense, all-encompassing fear that prohibits passage and is drawing ever closer to the town, with only the visitors from a different world remaining immune. Le Guin excels in描绘 the effects of the fear's approach on the town's inhabitants and is brilliant in exploiting the distance created by the fact that the reader must rely on Irena's distinctly imperfect understanding of events for their own comprehension.

Unfortunately, once Hugh and Irena embark on their quest, Le Guin's usually dependable imagination deserts her, and the story reverts to the tired clichés of portal fantasy. In the end, the problem is a monster that needs to be slain with a sword: it's not even a particularly interesting monster, and there is no attempt to explain the connection between the monster and the fear. After that, Hugh and Irena go from grudgingly tolerating each other's presence to being deeply in love in an instant: I suppose fighting the monster could be the kind of traumatic experience that might cause such a transformation, but given that just a few days earlier Hugh was (or at least thought he was) head over heels in love with one of the inhabitants of Tembreabrezi, I found it (admittedly, on a second or perhaps third reading) a bit difficult to believe. Their nightmarish return to Earth, with a severely injured Hugh who can barely walk, is well-written, but for the most part, the final section of the book is a significant disappointment. It's one of the risks of attempting to take an established story form and breathe new life into it: the story itself constantly strives to return to its familiar patterns, and if the author isn't cautious, they will end up following suit. Even Ursula K. Le Guin, it seems, is not immune to this.

There is a threshold that few can surpass. Beyond it, a world wrapped in twilight, eternally silent where time flows more slowly and where people in search of escape can find a place of their own.

It is the first novel of this undisputed queen of the fantastic, and it has been a very particular encounter. Let's start from the fact that I felt a bit intimidated by the style and I expected an intense story that would sweep me away in a few pages. Instead, I found myself as if pushing a cart: at first, it starts slowly with a lot of effort and once it gets going, it seems almost light and you want to put more force but if you exaggerate, you'll be out of breath and fall to the ground. All this to say that this book is not a quick and easy read. In fact, it is a deep novel that needs its time. When I tried to speed up the reading (a bit out of curiosity to finish it and a bit out of haste to understand where the story wanted to take me), I had to stop to reread and sometimes I preferred to close it and reread the part the next day.

It is a story constructed with wise complexity where a simple description can convey much more than what is actually written. I won't give you examples, suffice it to say that it is an intense reading that needs its reading time. It is not a simple fantasy adventure that fills the free time of idle readers. It is something that comes very close to genre literature, something that many academics would discredit as B-series narrative.

Although it is not a quick and easy book, it is self-contained and that's a good thing because if the ending had been open, I don't think I would have continued to read the subsequent episodes. I think it's a good story, without the need to say more (although this world is far from being fully revealed).

The characters are curious. They are not the usual girl and the umpteenth cool hero. They are normal people, with real problems and a backstory that explains them. I appreciated Irena but also Hugh himself (even if in the first chapter he seemed too much of a wimp to me) because they are outside the classic canons and they make you love them with their life experience and their dreams that are then more similar to those of any person.

In conclusion, four stars (it would deserve five but it was really a heavy book). Highly recommended to those who are looking for a good and self-contained read, to those who are looking for the way to a world of their own that helps them find their true path home.

I am once again sending my love to Detail Publications with its back cover that gives away spelling mistakes and spoilers.

From now on, apart from the books in my hand, I will never buy a book from this publisher again.

It is truly disappointing to encounter such issues in their publications. The presence of spelling errors and spoilers on the back cover not only affects the reading experience but also reflects poorly on the publisher's attention to detail and quality control.

I hope that Detail Publications will take this feedback seriously and make the necessary improvements to ensure that their future publications are of a higher standard.

Until then, I will have to look elsewhere for my reading materials.

I either didn't understand or I understood, but it still didn't convince me. I'm not sure. There were moments when I felt like I was reading about myself. So it's nice that the main characters got such an ending.

By the way, based on the cover of the audiobook, I thought it must be science fiction and I was very disappointed that it was only isekai. I'm not a 13-year-old boy, come on.

This story had its interesting aspects, but it also left me with some doubts. The moments when I related to the characters were quite touching, but the overall plot didn't fully satisfy me. Maybe it was because my expectations were set too high from the start. The isekai genre has its own charm, but it didn't quite hit the mark for me in this case. I guess I was hoping for something more unique and mind-blowing. However, I still appreciate the effort that went into creating this story and I'm sure there are many readers who will enjoy it.

Ursula LeGuin is, as always, a literary giant who defies easy praise. Her body of work is a testament to her extraordinary talent and imagination.

However, it is truly baffling why this particular book seems to have been overlooked and neglected when compared to her other masterpieces. It is a work that has left an indelible mark on me, haunting my thoughts long after I turned the final page.

The story within its pages weaves a spellbinding tale that draws the reader in and refuses to let go. It is filled with the kind of depth and complexity that is characteristic of LeGuin's writing.

Perhaps it is because it doesn't fit neatly into the pigeonholes of traditional genre fiction. Or maybe it's simply a case of bad timing or lack of proper marketing. Whatever the reason, it is a shame that this book has not received the recognition it so richly deserves.

I can only hope that more people will discover it and be as captivated by it as I have been.

The beginning seems to start from the end of a story... As if the place where it began was a wonderful story that has ended, and there is an atmosphere as if the magical heroes have scattered... The colorful, bright, and powerful heroes of the past have now lost their colors and powers and are in a situation like being stuck in love in their new lives... The theater has scattered, the stage has not been assembled yet, and the actors and actresses have not taken off their costumes yet...

However, we are reading the story of the maturation of two young people on this broken and scattered stage, on a simple and plain level, and the symbols of dreams and archetypes appear and disappear one after another in the darkness...

It is a quiet novel, soft... There is neither the sharpness of the Dispossessed nor the magic of the Earthsea, but here is the mastery of LeGuin, and you are also immersed in it...