a mail-order house in Schenectady
November 4, 2015 11:58 PM   Subscribe

In an essay originally published back in 2000, Ursula K. LeGuin takes a punt at the question any writer dreads to get asked: "so, where do you get your ideas from" and uses it as a springboard to examine the art of reading and writing and why Americans are afraid of dragons.
posted by MartinWisse (14 comments total) 33 users marked this as a favorite
 
A long LeGuin piece I have never read? This is Christmas morning. Thank you, Martin. Now I need to also buy that Portland book it's from.

Also, maybe it's my precoffee muddle, but it strikes me as funny/interesting that the European 'take a punt' idiom above means pretty much the opposite of the American interpretation, which would mean, roughly, to give up and pass.
posted by rokusan at 1:03 AM on November 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


Okay, yes, I realize I just did it again with 'pass'. Coffee.
posted by rokusan at 2:21 AM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


A long LeGuin piece I have never read? This is Christmas morning. Thank you, Martin. Now I need to also buy that Portland book it's from.

Seconded. (And that peated brew I'm holding for you has now been totally earned.) ☺️
posted by likeso at 2:51 AM on November 5, 2015


Profoundly grateful for this essay.. Thank you, Martin.
posted by bird internet at 3:36 AM on November 5, 2015


Ursula LeGuin is a national treasure. And this essay is great. I just happen to be near finishing 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley, which covers almost exactly the same ground. But Smiley has her own perspective and LeGuin has hers, and both are very revealing.
posted by zardoz at 4:18 AM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Reading is a mysterious act. It absolutely has not and cannot be replaced by any kind of viewing, because viewing is an entirely different undertaking, with different stakes and rewards.
posted by oheso at 4:33 AM on November 5, 2015


Okay, yes, I realize I just did it again with 'pass'. Coffee.

Don't worry. We can always table this discussion.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:53 AM on November 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


I've had Barry Longyear's book on my shelf for long before I moved to the "Tri-Cities" area, and Proctor's Theater has embraced the meme fully... http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2008/09/08/it-came-from-schenectady
posted by mikelieman at 4:55 AM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


A reader reading makes the book, brings it into meaning, by translating the arbitrary symbols, printed letters, into an inward, private reality. A viewer watching a film does not make the film. To watch a film is to be taken into it—to participate in it—be made part of it. Absorbed by it. Readers eat books, but film eats viewers.

This is the best articulation ever of why I love books and hate most movies. Usually when people ask why I don't watch movies, I say something like "because they feel coercive" and nobody gets what I mean.
posted by Daily Alice at 7:34 AM on November 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


This is the best articulation ever of why I love books and hate most movies. Usually when people ask why I don't watch movies, I say something like "because they feel coercive" and nobody gets what I mean.

Even LeGuin isn't saying movies are bad and to be hated, just that they are different kinds of experiences.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:03 AM on November 5, 2015


No, of course. It's just that I, personally, hate the feeling of being "eaten" by movies. Most people like it, which is why I always find the feeling hard to articulate.
posted by Daily Alice at 9:57 AM on November 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


When I meet someone new, perhaps in my workplace or at some sort of party or gathering, I don't often try to find common ground by mentioning books I've read and liked. Movies and TV shows seem to be the lingua franca these days -- though sometimes I do meet a fellow reader!

Yeah, the composting metaphor was great in Le Guin's essay. I saved this for re-reading later.
posted by Agave at 11:27 AM on November 5, 2015


“I became a so-called science fiction writer when someone decreed that I was a science fiction writer. I did not want to be classified as one, so I wondered in what way I'd offended that I would not get credit for being a serious writer. I decided that it was because I wrote about technology, and most fine American writers know nothing about technology. I got classified as a science fiction writer simply because I wrote about Schenectady, New York.

"My first book, Player Piano, was about Schenectady. There are huge factories in Schenectady and nothing else. I and my associates were engineers, physicists, chemists, and mathematicians. And when I wrote about the General Electric Company and Schenectady, it seemed a fantasy of the future to critics who had never seen the place.” - Kurt Vonnegut
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 9:42 PM on November 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


"In my Earthsea books, particularly the first one, people sail around on the sea in small boats all the time. They do it quite convincingly, and many people understandably assume that I spent years sailing around on the sea in small boats."

Well, no, not after you have Arren (described as not a particularly strong swimmer) occasionally go for a relaxing swim when he gets bored while under sail.
posted by lastobelus at 12:32 AM on November 6, 2015


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