Re: CHAT: LeGuin's "The Telling"

> I recently mentioned, bought and read this book.  Good enough, and a
> fascinating created world (as one would expect from LeGuin), though much
of
> it reads like an extended post to Conculture.  In the 10/1 NYT Book
Review,
> Gerald Jonas opens his review:  "The title of THE TELLING ...may reveal
more
> about the book's virtues and faults than she realizes."  And closes thus:
> "For all her eagerness to share her vision, Le Guin has forgotten that
even
> in didactic fiction, showing is always preferable to telling."

It's a beautiful book. I perhaps have some attachment to it, since we read
the first chapter (in progress) two years ago in Le Guin's master writing
workshop at Portland State. I've been awaiting the book's appearance ever
since.

Commenting on her own work, she said she felt content to "hint" at the
culture, rather than develop it as completely as she did with the Kesh in
"Always Coming Home." Her primary motivation was her discovery that China
had managed to wipe out thousands of years of Taosim in a single generation,
something she had never even known about.

I take exception that much of the book reads like a posting to this list. Le
Guin is a pioneer and has changed the shape of fiction as we know it. Her
prose is simple, transparent, and beautiful. I think the reviewer's last
comment is a stretch to play on the words and sound clever. The book is
beautifully "shown" (especially in the vivid descriptions of landscape, a
character in itself, ooh, Silong!) as well as "told".

> Hmmm. The first thing we learned in Creative Writing 101.
Get in a room with this woman and listen to her talk about life, language,
and literature. (she's touring right now with the book). Pick up her
"Steering the Craft" and hear what she says about writing technique. I doubt
anyone would seriously question this fine artist's understanding of the
simplest elements of her craft, a craft she helped to define!

Dwy ceiniog :-)

Eric Stumbaugh