This is a very nice roundup... you're right that one of Le Guin's great rare gifts is the use of negative space. She got so much better at it as she went on. I remember being outraged when she commented once, in her old age, that Ged talks too much in the early books. I have realised since that her younger self knew only enough to create Ogion the Silent, not enough to learn what he had to teach.

I think the first Le Guin I read you might have been A Ride on the Red Mare's Back? -- or otherwise, probably Catwings, yeah.