The Beginning Place

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The Beginning Place is a short novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, written in 1980. It was subsequently published under the title Threshold in 1986. The novel does not belong to any of the cycles for which Le Guin is well known. The story's genre is a mixture of realism and fantasy literature. The novel's epigraph "What river is this through which the Ganges flows?" is quoted from Jorge Luis Borges who is known for his works of magical realism. The novel has been subject to critical studies comparing it to C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass and William Shakespeare's As You Like It.