Mightier than the sword

Voices (2006) is the second in Ursula Le Guin's new series "Annals of the Western Shore". The first in the series, Gifts, was the novel that first made me fall in love with Le Guin. I'd read a short story of hers while studying Arts and had enjoyed it, but it was Gifts that showed me what an amazing writer she continues to be, at this late stage of her career. It was also Gifts that made me start appreciating good fantasy, something I'd always considered to be a bit of an oxymoron.

Like all the best fantasy, Le Guin doesn't just take you into another world so that you can escape from reality into something more magical, although the worlds she creates are quite beautiful. More than that, Le Guin creates other worlds that ultimately express something about our own world.

The reference point that immediately springs to mind is Ray Bradbury's masterpiece, Fahrenheit 451, because here, as in Bradbury's novel, books are considered evil, subversive forces that the ruling powers have chosen to destroy. There are differences, however. In Voices, books are destroyed not by fire, but by being submerged in water. Le Guin writes that, for the Alds, the people in power, burning was a ritual signifying honour, something that books were certainly not worthy of. Also, books have been replaced with storytelling, a little similar to the "walls" in Fahrenheit 451 where life-like soap operas are played out. But for the Alds, the problem is not with stories, but with the written word, so storytellers are not suppressed. In fact, they are numerous.

Contemporary literacy theorists like Paolo Freire and Peter Freebody connect the ability to read the written word with the ability to interpret the world around you. Freire calls it "reading the word and reading the world". To apply this to Voices, listening seems passive, where reading is active, so hearing a story told probably does not hold the same subversive potential as reading one. Of course, hearing is passive, but listening actually involves quite a bit of activity. On the other hand, we can read without taking in the words, or thinking about their implications. The distinction isn't as meaningful as it might seem at first.

However, there does seem to be a distinct link, at least in books like Voices, between illiteracy and control. Societies where people cannot read are, for writers like Le Guin and Bradbury, societies that are under the thumb of the authorities. Perhaps in a post-Freebody age we should say that, whether reading or listening, people need to be able to think critically about the messages they are receiving, otherwise they will indeed be under the thumb of those promoting those messages.