6/23/2023 0 Comments Ursula le guin mulksuzlerA letter to publisher John Radziewicz in 1987, turning down a request to blurb New Science Fiction, Volume 1. That would not be magnanimity, but foolishness. But I cannot imagine myself blurbing a book, the first of a new series and hence presumably exemplary of the series, which not only contains no writing by women, but the tone of which is so self-contentedly, exclusively male, like a club, or a locker room. I can imagine myself blurbing a book in which Brian Aldis, predictably, sneers at my work, because then I could preen myself on my magnanimity. Staying Awake: Notes on the alleged decline of reading, Harper’s Magazine, February 2008. If a book told you something when you were 15, it will tell it to you again when you’re 50, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you’re reading a whole new book.” It is not one of a kind, and it is not ephemeral. It doesn’t have to be plugged in, activated, or performed by a machine all it needs is light, a human eye, and a human mind. The book itself is a curious artefact, not showy in its technology but complex and extremely efficient: a really neat little device, compact, often very pleasant to look at and handle, that can last decades, even centuries. Prospects for Women in Writing, speech given in Portland, Oregon, 1986. If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don’t marry and have kids, and above all, don’t die. It is good to have an end to journey towards but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |