The Telling | ||||||||
Ursula K. Le Guin | ||||||||
Harcourt, 272 pages | ||||||||
|
A review by Lisa DuMond
Bear in mind though, that this is the very best of social science fiction. There are no slick spacecraft, no
impressive explosions, no cyborgs -- the fear and wonder here is in the actions of governments and the resilience of
individuals. If you are looking for space opera, you're looking in the wrong place and you're missing the real excitement.
In this latest volume of the Hainist Cycle, an observer for the Ekumen has come to Aka to do just
that -- observe, but don't touch. Sutty believes she can do this without becoming involved, without breaking the rules of
this corporate-controlled planet. Business is the religion on Aka, no less a theocracy than the Earth she has gratefully
escaped. She grew up under the heavy oppression of a prejudiced, vicious government; at least, this new planet could not
be as awful as the one-religion of her home planet. Could it?
Sutty's voyage truly begins when she is mystifyingly permitted the unheard-of privilege of leaving the city for the
villages of the countryside. It is here that her education lies. And, it is here that the heart of The Telling
opens to readers. From this point on, things will never be the same.
What she finds in the villages is the true nature of the people of Aka, the Aka that the corporate state sought to
suffocate. Here is the language that was meant to be lost forever. The villagers and their daily lives are an irresistible
enigma. Sutty seeks to unravel the secrets, using every facet of her intellectual arsenal, but that is not how she will
find the answers to her questions.
The Telling is a magnificently unveiled lesson that is vital to all of us. Not everything can be learned through
study and examination, sometimes you just have to grasp a thread of the truth and not be distressed if that fragment
slips away for a time. Not everything needs to be understood; sometimes it just is.
The strongest lesson that readers will absorb from Le Guin's masterpiece is the hardest one to accept. The danger is
not in different beliefs or in the people who seem so foreign to us. The peril is when any one of us believes that
they hold the only truth. Try to realize the harm we cause when we "see" the way and attempt to make it the only way.
Le Guin knows the danger of imposing "our" truth on everyone around us.
It just might take us longer to recognize the threat, but we can. We can if we try.
In between reviews and interviews, Lisa DuMond writes science fiction and humour. DARKERS, her latest novel, will be published in early 2000 by Hard Shell Word Factory. She has also written for BOOKPAGE and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY. Her articles and short stories are all over the map. You can check out Lisa and her work at her website hikeeba!. |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
If you find any errors, typos or anything else worth mentioning,
please send it to editor@sfsite.com.
Copyright © 1996-2014 SF Site All Rights Reserved Worldwide