I don't think Word for World Is Forest is one of her best by a long shot. It's been a while since I read it, admittedly, but yes, it is an allegory about the Vietnam War (Le Guin has an essay in Language of the Night in which she talks about her OWN judgment of it as too Obvious in its Message--she wrote it while in the UK, when she didn't have the usual political outlet of protesting the war she did at home).
It's often criticized for being dated given the obvious Vietnam analogs--though some of those critiques suffer from the "why is anyone still talking about Vietnam anyway?" syndrome, the problems of which should be obvious--but it's fair to say that the propaganda is audible, and I personally don't think the characters are her best or most memorable. I found the very heavy-handed villain (Le Guin is usually much better at avoiding such things) particularly hard to take.
Hope that helps--and I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have.
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Date: 2010-05-20 02:34 am (UTC)It's often criticized for being dated given the obvious Vietnam analogs--though some of those critiques suffer from the "why is anyone still talking about Vietnam anyway?" syndrome, the problems of which should be obvious--but it's fair to say that the propaganda is audible, and I personally don't think the characters are her best or most memorable. I found the very heavy-handed villain (Le Guin is usually much better at avoiding such things) particularly hard to take.
Hope that helps--and I'm happy to answer any other questions you may have.