Rating: 
Summary: to tell, not to explain
Review: Ursula Le Guin's "The Telling" is not her greatest work. However, I don't think it's as disappointing as some people have said. We merely have higher expectations of Le Guin than of other authors.In "The Telling," Sutty Dass, born on an Earth ruled by a fanatic, monotheistic theocracy bent on exterminating science, is an Ekumenical Observer on Aka, a planet first contacted by Terrans. Aka is now ruled by a fanatic, consumeristic technocracy bent on exterminating religion. Sutty leaves Dovza, the center of the technocracy, and travels to Okzat-Ozkat, a mountain village where some of the old ways survive. While there, she tries to understand the old Akan philosophsy/religion/way of life, and to learn why Aka has changed so radically. It is true that Sutty's character is a bit hard to pin down, but I think that's because she's avoiding her past and doesn't understand herself. Le Guin's writing is subtle, and should be read slowly; if you miss any little detail, the whole picture becomes blurred and two-dimensional. While some reviewers have said that Le Guin shows the Corporation State as Bad, and the old ways, known as the Telling, as Good, they are missing details. The Telling was perverted in Dovza before the Terrans came, and the Corporation was in part a reaction against that, which is perfectly understandable. Furthermore, the Corporation embodies some values of the Telling, and much of its fanaticism against religion comes not from a reaction against Akan culture, but against the Terran theocracy. Also, Aka suffered from wars and sickness under the old ways, and the Telling contains a lot of mystic mumbo-jumbo; it's not perfect. Still, these things are subtle, and one of the other complaints, that much is told while little is shown, is fairly accurate. Le Guin has said that the best writing should completely embody a theme within its characters and story, so you don't realize you're reading a sermon of sorts; she has also said she tends to fail at total embodiment of themes. She fails again here. But "The Telling" is lovely and poetic, despite a deliberate pace and an occasional sense of preachiness. I do wish Le Guin had drawn her characters a bit more clearly. I wish the ending didn't feel quite so rushed. I wish she had shown a bit more of Sutty's research into the Telling, which I found quite interesting. But I think some of the abruptness and lack of explanation come because she's demonstrating a characteristic of the Telling: to tell, not to explain. If speculative literature makes you think, whether you agree with the book's premise or not, it succeeds. By that criterion, I think "The Telling" is successful. If a novel is enjoyable, it also succeeds. For me, "The Telling" is successful on both levels.
Rating: 
Summary: A very successful return to the Ekumen
Review: Poetic, moving, sensitive and, in her typically gentle way, didactic, is how I felt while reading and after finishing The Telling. As it has been ever since The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, LeGuin's SF is not just a good story but tries to tell us something about ourselves and the cultural-political-economic state of the present. This novel also has a journey in it that reminds me of the glacial trek of Genly Ai in The Left Hand of Darkness, through a mystical mountain wilderness, while the protagonist is being pursued by a representative of the world's dominating corporate culture. Are the comparisons with our own corporate culture obvious and caricatured? Are intolerance and religious fanaticism portrayed negatively? Yes, and all to the better. Is LeGuin lecturing us? Maybe, but because her prose is so beautiful, her characters so interesting and full, her alien world so well-rounded and diverse, her world's native, highly literate, non-corporate way of life so appealing and its destroyers so depressingly like those of our own world, that I sat through the entire lecture not caring that I was being taught a lesson. My favorite author went back to her SF roots and gave us a novel that I will treasure forever.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written but a bit thin
Review: I adore Ursula Le Guin. I still re-read The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness with great enjoyment. And if you ever should want to write, get a copy of Steering the Craft, her guide to writing fiction. It is on its own a delightful book and even if you don't ever intend to write a single sentence, it will make you a better reader of literature. It's that good. This book is written in the same lyrical, spare style that makes Le Guin's writing stand out so clearly from all others of her genre (nominally, science fiction, though I think she'd not want to be classified totally as a sci-fi writer.) Typically, Le Guin forms her societies and cultures from elements she combines from her vast knowledge of anthropology and world culture. The combinations can be highly original (as in Left Hand of Darkness) In this case, the cultures of the Telling are clearly drawn from China and Tibet, and the sad destruction that occurred during the Cultural Revolution and from the subjugation of Tibet. But it is so clearly derived from these events that it is impossible to see the book as anything but a thinly veiled diatribe. Now I've visited China myself, and I saw the loss of history that has tragically defaced the land. The cultural legacy that was destroyed is almost unfathomable. And I've read the stories from Tibet that made me cry out loud. So while I agree totally with the premise of the Telling, I really thought the art was lost in the lesson and this is really more moralizing than novelizing. Still lovely language, but too obviously derived.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but a bit of a let down
Review: There's not much to dislike about the Telling. Like all of Ursula LeGuin's books, it's well written, it has some interesting ideas, and at times it's quite engrossing. The trouble is, though, there's not enough to like, either. The culture of Aka was fascinating - but I kept waiting for it to be developed further, and it never really was. The major characters had potential - but the reader never really got to know them well enough to care very much about them. Anyway, if you're a fan of Ursula LeGuin's writing, I'd reccomend picking up this book - it's a good read. But if you've never read LeGuin before, this isn't the place to start. Instead, get The Left Hand of Darkness, or The Dispossessed, or Four Ways to Forgiveness.
Rating:
Summary: Knowledge is the antidote to belief. Believe it!
Review: Ms. LeGuin paints this allegory with a broad, if transparent, brush. It's a quick read, and well worth your time, but beware! If you think the world is completely rational, and you can explain *everything* in a finite set of narrative, your mind is subject to change.
Rating: 
Summary: Loyal Fan Disappointed by Beloved Author's Latest
Review: The Telling: LeGuin's track record for gifting the reading public with suspenseful, dramatic, politically and spiritually charged science fiction is unsurpassed, but with "The Telling," her newest addition to the Hainish Cycle, this superb author doesn't live up to previous works. The problem is not with the story, which follows the Terran woman Sutty as she researches the culture of Aka, a planet ruled by a repressive government known as the Corporation. Sutty is given permission to explore the countryside of Aka and soon learns of an ancient, secret 'religion' whose artifacts (books of lore and wisdom) are threatened with destruction. The remainder of the book details Sutty's study of these artifacts and her determination to save the from Corporation censure. This fairly solid scenario is defeated by careless pacing. LeGuin introduces us to the situation with an almost unbroken narrative. There is very little dialogue or description for the reader to discover matters on his or her own. We are told much but shown little. The author (along with the reader) falls victim to a fairly elementary error in much of science fiction, that of a solid block of textual narration from an omnipotent voice describing the state of affairs rather than showing the characters dealing with them. In a writer of LeGuin's caliber this is quite astonishing. The climax of Yara's sacrifice is perhaps the only point in the book in which the reader feels events as they happen. Even the lead-in to this scene is ruined by the sudden spate of dialogue in which you get the sense that LeGuin is playing 'catch-up' for what she failed to develop in the bulk of the story. Nor are the characters able to redeem the pacing of the novel's events. Sadly, we never really learn anything about them. Yara's background is revealed in the above-mentioned dialogue between him and Sutty, but with both characters we get only a history. We never really feel their presence. The only person this reviewer found attractive was Sutty's dead, same-sex former lover Pao, who we learn laughed in her sleep. Otherwise we are given no personal details of any of the characters. The repression of homosexuality is one of the political themes of 'The Telling,' as are the evils of repressive systems in general, such as secular totalitarianism. But is LeGuin making a radical or even valid contribution to this society by informing us that burning books and forcing lesbians into hiding makes for bad politics? It's like preaching to the converted. Another disappointing aspect of the book is LeGuin's exploration (via Sutty) of the spiritualism practiced in secret by Aka's citizens. LeGuin's exploration of Taoism in works like 'The Wizard of Earthsea' and 'The Left Hand of Darkness' is didactic and enlightening, providing moments of lightning-clarity on an intuitive as well as intellectual level. Here, it's bungled. LeGuin touches on the dialectics of binary oppositions in 'The Telling' and laudably attempts to expand this idea. Her symbol of the forked tree and the detail that fifteen is a special birthday are good starting points, but ultimately are not enough to lead us anywhere significant. This reviewer's opinion-- that 'The Telling' does not live up to the standard that readers expect from LeGuin-- should not detract from the author's impressive bibliography. The fantasy 'The Wizard of Earthsea' is the best example of LeGuin's genius, which lies in carefully and holistically explored themes, concise and poetic description and protagonists that we know as we know ourselves, who struggle as we struggle. Readers desiring an introduction to LeGuin's science fiction would be better served by 'The Left Hand of Darkness,' in which many similarities with 'The Telling' can be found. This most recent of the Hainish cycle reads more like a draft than a completed novel.
Rating:
Summary: Minor Le Guin, well-written but thin and a bit preachy
Review: _The Telling_, by Ursula K. Le Guin, is another return to her Hainish universe. This universe features a loose interstellar political structure called The Ekumen, linking any number of divergent but essentially human planets and cultures. Obviously she finds the structure of this universe, with its many planets seeded with basically human stock, but with widely varying social structures, very fertile ground for thought experiments and stories. In this case, her protagonist is a native of Earth, named Sutty, during whose youth Earth was under the grip of a book-burning theocracy. With the help of the Ekumen, that dictatorship was vanquished, and now Sutty is herself an Observer for the Ekumen. She is one of four members of the Ekumen on the planet Aka, which is (oh so ironically! oh so obviously!) under the grip of a book-burning technocracy. (See, the theocracy on Earth banned books because they taught people science, while the technocracy on Aka banned books because they taught superstitious legends.) After considerable effort, Sutty is allowed to travel upriver to a small town in the mountains, where she begins to encounter hints that some people are secretly keeping the old secrets alive. These secrets are transmitted by stories, and they are collectively called The Telling. While a harsh young official of the government seems to be following her, she manages to arrange for a journey into the actual mountains, where there might even be a surviving library. And there she learns much more about the history of Aka, about The Telling, and even about the motives of the bitter government man who has been tracking her. Le Guin can really write, and this book is beautifully written. Just for that reason it is worth reading, and it is also a fairly engaging story with a good moral, and mostly well-drawn characters. Unfortunately, the moral is not only good, but rather obvious, and it is reinforced by cartoonish depiction of the Bad Guys. This isn't Le Guin at her most preachy, but it is more preachy than is good for fiction. In addition, the story itself seems a bit thin, the ending too abrupt, the whole scheme too straightforward. I enjoyed _The Telling_, but it's a long way from Le Guin's best work.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Le Guin
Review: I have loved Le Guin since I first discovered Earthsea as a child. I have read and re-read most of her work over the years and was thrilled to see another work in her Hainish universe was her latest. The Telling absorbed my attention from first word to last. In the course of the book we learn the details of one woman's horror on Earth and a parallel horror of a man on a planet light-years away. Along the way, we also discover bits and pieces of a culture hidden beneath oppression. I found the first chapter a bit disorienting, but once past that, the narrative flowed so effortlessly that it pained me to put it down to let the dog out, or grab a bite to eat. Le Guin's characters lept to life off the page. Each detail was exactly as it must be if she was reporting a real place, instead of creating an imaginary one. This book reminded me of her early Hainish works (like Rocannon's World and Planet of Exile) in tone. Her continuing growth as a skillful storyteller, however, shines through in each carefully crafted word. Though the reader can see pieces of China's cultural revolution and the religious right of the United States in events related in the novel, the whole Le Guin relates is far more than the sum of its parts.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable reading, weak payoff.
Review: Ursula Le Guin is considered a science fiction writer, but the science fiction she writes is something more than that. Her Hainish novels are like sociocultural travelogues that just HAPPEN to take place on other planets. Persons looking for really HARD science fiction might best look elsewhere. For me, reading one of Ms. Le Guin's tales is a lot like reading National Geographic. In the case of "The Telling," we read about a world, Aka, that might very well be The People's Republic of China during the cultural revolution. Those in charge of the revolution are doing all they can to eradicate old "rotten-corpse" ways of thinking and interacting in their effort to advance technologically. Caught between this establishment and the isolated pockets of resistance and ancient culture is Sutty, an Earth-born woman who is part of a group of observers sent to Aka by the Ekumen. I greatly enjoy reading Ms. Le Guin's rich portrayals of alien cultures and her painstaking attention to detail. Despite this book's very deliberate pace, I enjoyed immersing myself in the competing cultures and beliefs on Aka. "The Telling," however, is not nearly as satisfying as Le Guin's previous novel, "Four Ways to Forgiveness." The ending of this novel is rather weak, something of a big question mark with little sense of closure. There is also one brief incident of almost supernatural suspension of physical law that is never explained or even addressed later. Compared with some of Ms. Le Guin's wonderful earlier novels, I'd have say that "The Telling" is disappointing. Now, I wonder, how many more years until she completes another Hainish novel?
Rating:
Summary: A lovely, sad world - as is ours
Review: This, LeGuin's most recent novel of her Hainish cycle, had a tremendous resonance for me - I have lived Sutty's life in the Rangma town of Okzat-ozkat here in the US as an anthropological linguist working among the Koasati of Louisiana. Outwardly these Indians appeared totally westernized and spoke English; but they had their own language, culture, and stories which they kept hidden from outsiders. The parallels with Dovzan oppression of the Rangma are striking. Sutty's work, trying to reconstruct Akan culture and civilization from the memories of people who had lived that culture before its suppression, is the same as that done by an anthropological linguist. I have always enjoyed LeGuin's writing and her use of her novels as "thought-experiments" but I never expected that she would so well understand the work I have done.
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