On Being Thrown Out of the Story - Part II

A couple posts back, Claudia got me thinking about the idea of interrupted reading, of writing that throws the reader out of the story, of good writing that does this.

Not knowing the words the author uses is one kind of being chucked out.
Another is the beauty of the words, which I discussed in my most recent post.

In today's post, I'm ruminating on having to stop reading in order to think more fully about the ideas developed in a work. And for this exploration, like the last, I'm using Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed:

"[Shevek] recognized that need, in Odonian terms, as his "cellular function," the analogic term for the individual's individuality, the work he can do best, therefore his best contribution to his society. A healthy society would let him exercise that optimum function freely, in the coordination of all such functions finding its adaptability and strength. ... That the Odonian society on Anarres had fallen short of the ideal did not, in his eyes, lessen his responsibility to it; just the contrary. With the myth of the State out of the way, the real mutuality and reciprocity of society and individual became clear. Sacrifice might be demanded of the individual but never compromise; for though only the society could give security and stability, only the individual, the person, had the power of moral choice--the power of change, the essential function of life. The Odonian society was conceived as a permanent revolution, and revolution begins in the thinking mind."

Sacrifice vs. compromise; individual, state, society; work and function; security vs. morality; change and revolution. And Le Guin goes on for two more pages. Page after page of idea after idea, incorporating the concepts of time, loyalty, work, humanity, pain and suffering, joy vs. pleasure.

Within the whole of the novel, there are a couple of spots where Shevek engages in this sort of deep, internal reflection. The rest of the novel helps to support these sections by having the characters embody the ideas in their personalities, dialogue, and action.


Reading these sections, I was torn by wanting to go on, but also wanting to stop. To savor. To think about how these ideas fit into my own life. Were they true? Were they helpful?

Not only did I want to slow down to savor the ideas themselves, I also wanted to stop and marvel at how Le Guin wrote the novel so that I could understand those three pages more fully. "Cripes! Everything's she's written up until now has been aiming right here!" Flip, flip, flip. "See?" Flip, flip. "And here? See!" Flip "And here!"

I like to believe that Le Guin would not have taken it as a compliment if someone reviewing the novel had said it was so engrossing that it never shook them out of the story. For me, the very reason the reading was so engrossing was because it invites reflection. Reflection on the reader's own ideas and commitments. It's like inhabiting a three-dimensional mobius: being pulled out of your life and into the story while in the next moment, the story inviting you to pull it into your own life. A two-way engrossing, wrapping and warping. Being pulled in and enclosed by the novel's left hand, while being released and gently nudged back by the right.

By David Benbennick

The Little Words Can Throw You Too

I've been pondering since Claudia's last post, this idea of interrupted reading, of writing that throws the reader out of the story. We often talk about that as a flaw in the writing. But in this post (and my next couple) I'm trying to get a handle on throwing out that, in some writing at least, is just right.

Sometimes I'm reading a story and the writing is so _______, I just can't go on. And rather than the negative adjective that your brain may have supplied there, I'm thinking about when the writing is so beautiful or lyrical that I just need to stop and read the line again. Or when an author has chosen the absolutely perfect word to capture a feeling that is very hard to describe in words.

My most recent experience of the later example comes from Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, which I was reading when Claudia's blog went live.

Shevek has just landed on Urras, the lush planet from which his species evolved. Only he has never set foot on it. (Four? Six?) generations ago a dissident group of Urrasti emigrated to Urras's desert moon, Anarres. There has been next to no communication between the two civilizations since that time.  He is surrounded by photographers. Le Guin writes:

"The men around him urged him forward. He was bourne off to the waiting limousine, eminently photographic to the last because of his height, his long hair, and the strange look of grief and recognition on his face."

The strange look of grief and recognition.

Reading these words I was instantly there with Shevek, perhaps I was Shevek just a little bit. Here I am, standing for the first time on the planet from which my deepest ancestors evolved. I have the eyes I do, the skin, the perceptions, my entire body and likely a good portion of my mind, all of these are the way they are because my species came to be, here. Right here. And I have been separated from my body's truest home my entire life. I am for the first time smelling the trees, feeling the winds, seeing the colors of the sky, being embraced by the world that made me the sort of being I am.

Grief. Recognition.

With just those two words, Le Guin captured for me the ephemeral of coming home to a place that one does not know.

Grief. Recognition.

And I cannot read on, because I want to sit with that complicated emotional state awhile. And layered in that state is something more, is awe. My appreciation of Le Guin's ability to do this to me. How not only has she nailed it in two words, she's also given the sentence a meter that moves you to those two words and punctuates them. And again I just need some time.

And as I savor the moment, more layers stack up. Recognition. Grief. Recognition of writing at its best. Grief that I am nowhere even close to that ability.

Yet.