Hiding in a story

Ursula K. Le Guin

In her essays in No Time to Spare, Ursula K. Le Guin often turns to the subjects of writing, writers and language. As those are the very subjects this blog specializes in, let's examine some of what she says.

I am happy with strangers only if I can write a story or a poem and hide from them behind it, letting it speak for me.

For an introvert, as Le Guin was (she died in January), conversing with strangers doesn't necessarily get easier when it isn't done face to face. Telephone conversations, letters and e-mail or texting can be nearly as difficult. She says she resisted starting her blog, from which these essays came, because she didn't like the idea that strangers could comment on what she wrote and then she would be obligated to reply. Even a gifted writer like Le Guin can find it difficult finding anything to say in a written conversation with a stranger. She prefers to say what she has to say in a story or poem (or essay).

To many people this may make no sense at all. To introverts, and I am a member of that tribe, it makes perfect sense.

Meaning in art isn't the same as meaning in science.

I wish I could quote everything Le Guin says about meaning in literature, but instead I will just focus on some key points. Readers, she says, often ask what a particular story of hers means. "But that's not my job, honey. That's your job," she says, or would like to say. Scientific meaning is the same in every place at every time with every person. Not so literature, where meaning is fluid, ever changing, sometimes crystal clear, other times a complete blur. "Art isn't explanation," she writes.

Words are my matter -- my stuff. Words are my skein of yarn, my lump of wet clay, my block of uncarved wood.

Words Are My Matter is the title of an earlier collection of Ursula K. Le Guin essays, so I was interested to find the phrase here. I like the image of words, or language, as raw material. We all use this same raw material to communicate, but there are those who use it to create something special, perhaps even art.