User:Vanamonde93/sandbox/The Telling

The Telling is a 2000 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin set in her fictional universe of Hainish Cycle. The Telling is Le Guin's first follow-up novel set in the Hainish Cycle since her 1974 novel The Dispossessed. It tells the story of Sutty, a Terran sent to be an Ekumen observer, on the planet Aka, and her experiences of political and religious conflicts between a corporatist government and the indigenous resistance, which is centered on the traditions of storytelling, locally referred to as "the Telling" (for which the book is named).

Background and setting
The Telling is set in the fictional Hainish universe, which Le Guin introduced in her first novel Rocannon's World, published in 1966. In the alternative history of this universe, human beings did not evolve on earth, but on Hain. The people of Hain colonized many neighboring planetary systems, including Earth, possibly a million years before the setting of the novels. The planets subsequently lost contact with each other, for reasons that Le Guin does not explain. Le Guin does not narrate the entire history of the Hainish universe at once, instead letting readers piece it together from various works. The novels and other fictional works set in the Hainish universe recount the efforts to re-establish a galactic civilization. Explorers from Hain as well as other planets use interstellar ships taking years to travel between planetary systems, although the journey is shortened for the travelers due to relativistic time dilation, as well as through instantaneous interstellar communication using the ansible, introduced in The Dispossessed. The Telling is set on the planet Aka, on which the inhabitants have outlawed all their traditional beliefs and customs.

Plot summary
Sutty, a woman of mixed India/British ancestry, travels from Earth to the planet Aka to provide observations as an outside observer. On Aka, all traditional customs and beliefs have been outlawed by the state. There Sutty experiences and tells of the conflicts there between the Corporation, a repressive State capitalist government, and the native people who resist.

Historical parallels
Le Guin constructed the recent historical situation of Aka as a parallel to the history of China during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. The practice of the Telling is analogous to Taoist and Hindu practices and philosophy, and its suppression to the suppression of religious practices by the Chinese government at the time.

Publication history
The Telling was published in 2000 as part of the Signed First Editions of Science Fiction series by Easton Press, who describe themselves as releasing 'works of lasting meaning, beauty and importance.'

The Telling was the first novel-length story from the Hainish Cycle in more than 20 years; during this period Le Guin had published only short stories and novellas from this fictional setting, including Four Ways to Forgiveness, a collection of four interlinked novellas.

Reception and critical analysis
As with several other stories written by Le Guin, The Telling is narrated by an outside observer of a society. Literary critic Warren Rochelle wrote that The Telling was about the dangers of mixing politics and religion, as well about stories and storytelling. As with earlier works such as The Word for World is Forest, The Telling explored a dystopian society, and examined the potential negative impacts of cultural contact and cultural survival. Whereas The Word for World is Forest was a metaphor for the Vietnam War, The Telling was inspired by the Cultural Revolution in Maoist China.

Gerald Jonas, reviewing The Telling for The New York Times, described the story as "an anthropological puzzle story" which investigated the functioning of Akan society. Jonas stated that because Sutty had little personal stake in Aka, she came across as "little more than a mouthpiece for the author's personal vision of the good society." He concluded by saying that Sutty's conflict with the Monitor failed to enthuse the reader, and that "For all her eagerness to share her vision, Le Guin has forgotten that even in didactic fiction, showing is always preferable to telling."

The Telling won the Endeavour Award which recognizes distinguished novels or collections in 2001. It also won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2000.