Couple things...Sarah's been working away on Goose Girl stuff...Paint and wooden blocks everywhere...Sam picks up a piece of half-eaten pizza with some paint on it and cries out, "There's art on my pizza!" I just wanted to make a record of that somewhere. And the amazing person pictured to the right, Ursula K. Le Guin, opens her _Four Ways to Forgiveness_ with the best description of actually receiving a written text (call it apocalypse) I can recall. Read away, mes amis:
"On the planet O there has not been a war for five thousand years,” she read, "and on Gethen there has never been a war." She stopped reading, to rest her eyes and because she was trying to train herself to read slowly, not gobble words down in chunks the way Tikuli gulped his food. "There has never been a war:' in her mind the words stood clear and bright, surrounded by and sinking into an infinite, dark, soft incredulity. What would that world be, a world without war? It would be the real world. Peace was the true life, the life of working and learning and bringing up children to work and learn. War, which devoured work, learning, and children, was the denial of reality. But my people, she thought, know only how to deny. Born in the dark shadow of power misused, we set peace outside our world, a guiding and unattainable light. All we know to do is fight. Any peace one of us can make in our life is only a denial that the war is going on, a shadow of the shadow, a doubled unbelief.
So as the cloud-shadows swept over the marshes and the page of the book open on her lap, she sighed and closed her eyes. thinking, "I am a liar." Then she opened her eyes and read more about the other worlds, the far realities.
6 comments:
i tried reading that novel a while ago and couldn't get past the fantasy names. started over with le guin recently with 'the dispossessed'. also has a great opening.
'there's art on my pizza' is wonderful. ana calls felt-tip pens 'pictures'. they see everything, those wee munchkins.
Leguin is fantastic.
The Earthsea trilogy was great before the Sci Fi channel decided to marr it by making a film version using C-list actors and future Soaps stars.
-Logan Davis (Yeah, the brother of Will)
What a terrific quote. Thanks for sharing, and thanks for stopping by my blog.
Peace,
Scott
Hey, David. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I looked through your books on Amazon and I am very excited to read them when they arrive.
I've just posted on the dangers of quietism as a sort of discussion starter, and I'd love to have your input.
Grace and peace,
Thom
Something more should come of the "there's art on my pizza line" - I sure miss those kiddos!
David - it's Carter, discovering your great blog via Yahoo search, and I'm glad you quoted this Le Guin collection, one I never picked up. "The Telling" I think was unfortunately her last adult SF novel (2000), but novellas and stories keep coming, plus the YA novels. "The Telling" vigorously goes after blind fundamentalism. She's a brave one.
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