A review by bhaines
The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin

great time. source of references for other science fiction. covers ground that seems perpetually relevant especially in science fiction/fantasy "discourse": what is art vs. entertainment, what is the value of "fandom", is science fiction a lesser genre, pronouns make an appearance. 

the topic of science fiction being "literature" got a little repetitive.

agree with most of her opinions

fun to read, great voice, very quotable. 

on allegory (and writing advice):

Even when they begin to realize that art is not something produced for critics, but for other human beings, some of them retain the overintellectualizing bent. They still do not realize that a symbol is not a sign of something known, but an indicator of something not known and nor expressible otherwise than symbolically. They mistake symbol (living meaning) for allegory (dead equivalence). 

remind me of Tolkien's objection to allegory re: lotr. 

On "imaginative fiction":

That it is told in the language of fantasy is not an accident, or because Tolkien was an escapist, or because he was writing for children. Is is a fantasy because fantasy is the natural, the appropriate language for the recounting of the spiritual journey and the struggle of good and evil in the soul.

yeatsish


good quote from august wilson

[To] disseminate the moral proposition so completely in a mass of living experience that it is never directly sensed as you read but only apprehended at the end as a result of the life you have shared in the book. This is the real challenge and triumph of the novel. 

On making art:

I kept on pushing at my own limitations and at the limits of science fiction. That is what the practice of an art is, you keep looking for the outside edge. When you find it you make a whole, solid, real and beautiful thing; anything less is incomplete

reminds me of Sontag:

if within the last century art conceived as an autonomous activity has come to be invested with an unprecedented stature - the nearest thing to a sacramental human activity acknowledged by secular society - it is because one of the tasks art has assumed is making forays into and taking up positions on the frontiers of consciousness (often very dangerous to the artist as a person) and reporting back what's there

though context is different, she's talking about weird erotic fiction.

Fandom, she takes both sides a little. That uncritical support for the genre cheapens it as an art:

In science fiction, sometimes it seems that so long as it's science fiction at all, the fans will love it -briefly... The mediocre and the excellent are praised alike by aficionados, and ignored alike by outsiders .

but also gives the sci-fi writer

a community of intensely interested people, a ready audience, ready to discuss and defend and attack and argue with each other and the artist, to the irritation and entertainment and benefit of all.

"Kids will devour vast amounts of garbage (and it is good for them) but they are not like adults: they have not yet learned to eat plastic."

Some things do feel dated: obsessed with Jung, uses "autism" in a specific negative sense a couple of times. Some things I maybe disagree with: her position on "myth" and what is a true myth and what isn't I understand clearly. what is true scifi and what isn't. Big shots at comic books.

everyone should read lord dunsany.