12 september 2001

The Telling, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Harcourt Brace, 2000
reviewed by Sabina C. Becker
www.crosswinds.net/~thescholary

Sabina C. Becker lives in Cobourg, Ontario (Canada). Her university degrees are in English Literature (Queen's University, 1990) and Journalism (Ryerson University, 1996). Her poetry, fiction and articles have been published in print and online; her poem, "Worldbuilding", was a Rhysling Award nominee in the Long Poem category in 2000. She is currently working on a science-fiction novel, along with numerous shorter projects. She lives with five friendly cats, one dysfunctional Windows-platform computer, and one beloved Apple iBook. She has been reading Le Guin's books for 20 years, her first being Very Far Away From Anywhere Else, and only regrets not having started sooner.

What happens when one culture tries to take over the entire world? That's a question Ursula K. Le Guin poses not once but twice in The Telling. And in both cases, the answer isn't pretty.

On Earth, a theocratic cult, the Unists, put a repressive lock on anything that doesn't reflect their idea of godly; on the alien world of Aka, corporate capitalism overthrows traditional culture. On the surface, the two cultures could scarcely be more different, but the Unist Fathers inadvertently sowed the seeds of corporatism on Aka when they secretly sent one of their ships to evangelize the planet. Technocrats on Aka rebelled against what they saw as oppressive superstition. Their rebellion against the Unists led to the decimation of old culture. Decades later, Aka is a changed place. Consumer goods abound, but they are shoddy and savorless. There is mass production and mass consumption, but no real satisfaction in any of it; life seems to move faster, but it isn't really better.

Sutty Dass, an observer from Earth on Aka, must elude the eyes of the Corporation State as she seeks out the old Akan culture, a rich spirituality reminiscent of old Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. Its chief values lie in the stories, or "Telling", of the maz, a loose-knit caste of wise elders. Sutty was drawn to it originally because of its acceptance of same-sex lovers, particularly among the maz; Sutty and her partner, Pao, had intended to go and explore Akan culture together, since the Unists abhor lesbianism. Pao dies in a Unist-ordered bomber attack, so Sutty forges on alone--only to find, to her dismay, that Aka is no longer what it was when it first made contact with Earth, and that homophobia is now also entrenched there.

Sutty's steps are dogged by a Monitor, a corporate rent-a-cop. In spite of him, she finds pockets of old Akan culture, carefully preserved under a superficial veneer of "progress". Traditional food, herbal medicine, exercises and folklore all come to light through Sutty's diligence as she wins the love and trust of her hosts. So, too, does the truth of what happened to change Aka from a thriving traditional culture to corporate materialism in just seven decades.

Le Guin is definitely not a technocrat; the only truly innovative technology she presents in The Telling is actually an old one given the scope of her novels: the ansible, a device which allows members of the Ekumen to communicate instantaneously across light years of interstellar space. Ansibles have been present in her science fiction from her first novel, Rocannon's World, published in 1964.

Because Le Guin prefers to explore the socio-cultural implications of technology rather than the nuts and bolts of it, her stories have a rich human element that manages to transcend the limitations of the devices themselves. She does not disapprove of technology per se, but rather of its many misuses. Neither does she disapprove of traditions, so long as they keep people sane and humane. Profit, when it comes before the common good, invariably leads to disaster in her novels, while those who stick to the basics prosper simply because they have nothing left to lose. By the time the The Telling reaches its shattering climax, we see how the useful old has managed to hold out against, and even triumph over, the useless new.

Like the Tao Te Ching and the Buddhist sutras, The Telling lays out all its cards on the table and yet does not give up all its secrets in one sitting; you have to keep coming back to it. Fortunately, the smooth (and almost deceptive) simplicity of Le Guin's inimitable style makes that an easy task. And a downright pleasurable one.