Reviews

The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin

yellowdaniel's review against another edition

4.0

I imagine that Ursula Le Guin sat down one day and said to herself: "I will outtaoism taoism." And of course she did. That's the core of this book and it works, but the flipside is that it's not really about the plot and the characters. That aspect is fine too, but they're really just along for the ride... I mean The Telling.

elizafiedler's review against another edition

mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

sunnyjacksonreads's review against another edition

5.0

This is [a:Ursula K. Le Guin|874602|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1244291425p2/874602.jpg] at her finest. [b:The Telling|59921|The Telling|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309203290l/59921._SY75_.jpg|1873378] is a wonderful example of world-building in science fiction. It is a rich sociological study and an entertaining exploration of an alien world.

eliseabril's review against another edition

challenging mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

mssarahmorgan's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

chahopf's review against another edition

challenging emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

jimmysweeney's review against another edition

Reading A Le Guin novel is an anecdote to tunnel vision. Her books always make me question whether I've been missing the forest for the trees. And, at least for a little while, they help me reorient towards the things in life I know are important.

One of the historians of Darranda said: To learn a belief without belief is to sing a song without tune.

A yielding, an obedience, a willingness to accept these notes as the right notes, this pattern as the true pattern, is the essential gesture of performance, translation, and understanding. The gesture need not be permanent, a lasting posture of the mind or heart; yet it is not false. It is more than the suspension of disbelief needed to watch a play, yet less than a conversion. It is a position, a posture in the dance. So Sutty's teachers, gathered from many worlds to the city Valparaíso de Chile, had taught her, and she had had no cause to question their teaching.

That ubiquity of the system, its great antiquity, the tremendous force of habit it had acquired through its detailed patterning of daily life, food, drink, hours and aims of work and recreation - all this, Sutty told her noter, might explain modern Aka. At least it might explain how the Corporation of Dovza had achieved hegemony so easily, had been able to enforce uniform, minute control over how people lived, what they ate, drank, read, heard, thought, did. The system had been in place. Anciently, massively in place, all over the Continent and Isles of Aka. All Dovza had done was take the system over and change its goals. From a great consensual social pattern within which each individual sought physical and spiritual satisfaction, they had made it a great hierarchy in which each individual served the indefinite growth of the society's material wealth and complexity. From an active homeostatic balance they had turned it to an active forward-thrusting imbalance. 

The difference, Sutty told her noter, was between somebody sitting thinking after a good meal and somebody running furiously to, catch the bus.

"I's all we have. You see? I's the way we have the world. Without the telling, we don't have anything at all. The moment goes by like the water of the river. We'd tumble and spin and be helpless if we tried to live in the moment. We'd be like a baby. A baby can do it, but we'd drown. Our minds need to tell, need the telling. To hold. The past has passed, and there's nothing in the future to catch hold of. The future is nothing yet. How could anybody live there? So what we have is the words that tell what happened and what happens. What was and is."
 
"Memory?" Sutty said. "History?" 

Elyed nodded, dubious, not satisfied by these terms. She sat thinking for some time and finally said, "We're not outside the world, yoz. You know? We are the world. We're its language. So we live and it lives. You see? If we don't say the words, what is there in our world?"

readingphoebe's review

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

jimmyviera's review

5.0

This book is incredible. I cannot recommend it enough. “It takes a lifetime to learn to walk in the forest”

tailfin's review against another edition

dark inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25