As you probably know, I believe there are writers and authors. Writers create art. Authors produce commercial crap for entertainment purposes. Make no mistake, I’m all for commercial crap. I’m a huge fan of mystery novels, for instance, and feel grateful to their authors for entertaining me.
What really creeps me out, though, is when creators of entertainment fare berate other creators of entertainment fare for not producing great literature. What can be more ridiculous than somebody like Ursula Le Guin ranting against “packaged microwavable fiction [that] ruins the taste, destabilizes the moral blood pressure, and makes the mind obese”? She made a fortune out of selling precisely this kind of product. There is zero reason for her to feel condescending towards others who do the same.
Clarissa's Blog 
“What can be more ridiculous than somebody like Ursula Le Guin ranting against ‘packaged microwavable fiction [that] ruins the taste, destabilizes the moral blood pressure, and makes the mind obese'”?
Someone should give Ursula Le Guin and Mercedes Lackey a bouncy castle full of Nerf toys purchased from Amazon so they can have a go at each other. 🙂
As for writers versus authors in terms of terminology, it’s a bit too much like the difference between lawyers and attorneys: lawyers argue for your cases, while attorneys argue for your wallet …
“So you’re an author?”
“Good heavens no, I’m not nearly that smug …”
[actually self-identifies as a writer, and always thought the “author” appellation was a bit pretentious …]
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What have you read of Ursula K. le Guin’s work?
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I haven’t read anything by her but scholars that I respect seem to think that her work has merit. Have you read anything by her?
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Only some short stories. Many people I know think she is wonderful.
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What can be more ridiculous than somebody like Ursula Le Guin ranting against “packaged microwavable fiction [that] ruins the taste, destabilizes the moral blood pressure, and makes the mind obese”? She made a fortune out of selling precisely this kind of product. There is zero reason for her to feel condescending towards others who do the same.
Ha! She’s actually considered a doyenne of science fiction. She has a rackful of book awards. I read The Wizard of Earthsea as a kid when it was reproduced in whole in a children’s literature textbook, and I’ve read The Left Hand of Darkness. . Honestly neither the prose nor the plot of either stayed with me. I read Left Hand because it attempted to create a universe in which there was a planet with sequentially hermaphoditic humans. But because she kept referring to everyone as “he” I just kept picturing a bunch of men, not neuters. This is actually one of the better attempts I’ve seen at writing neuter humans, sadly.
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Oh please. You don’t know anything about Ursula LeGuin. How insulting.
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Shakti is right, Le Guin is considered a doyenne of science and speculative fiction.
I liked the Left Hand of Darkness (although I read a translation, not English).
I would say I prefer Le Guin’s short stories, they can pack quite a punch. I do think what she does qualifies as art as it does provide insight and an original outlook on the human condition. She has a very distinctive voice.
The story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is quite famous; I was quite shaken when I finished it (came across it as part of an anthology).
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Even if I accepted that premise that ‘art’ and ‘commercial crap’ are discrete categories (which I very emphatically do not) any serious consideration of Le Guin’s work would absolutely have to be placed in the category ‘art’.
I disagree with the rant in question (artists don’t deal with new realities any better than do most other people).
I didn’t much care for the Left Hand of Darkness because of the ‘he’ problem (which makes it ironic as the novel about sexual fluidity-non-binariness (a new word?)), a topic that only speculative fiction deals well with imho, but other authors deal with the pronoun issue better).
Perhaps my two favorite works of hers are:
“Buffalo girls won’t you come out tonight” about a young girl who survives a plane crash in the Southwest desert and is found by a coyote (trickster figure in local myth) who escorts her into a sort of local Amerindian dreamtime.
“Tehanu” the sequel to the Earthsea trilogy (a description wouldn’t make sense without reading the first three books).
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In German it’s even more descriptive. A Schriftsteller is a person who places writing (allegedly with art and care, and also Schrift translates to “scripture”). An Autor is just s job description. I am definitely the latter! Although my own distinction was even crasser: a “writer” is a person without a book published. An “author” has her name on a book.
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“A Schriftsteller is a person who places writing (allegedly with art and care, and also Schrift translates to “scripture”).”
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What is your definition of art vs not-art?
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Really, I’m not trolling. I genuine want to know. The few literate professors I know seem to think LeGuin is definitely art.
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I have written about this before: https://clarissasblog.com/2010/09/22/art-or-entertainment-a-review-of-franzens-freedom-part-i/
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I realise that Ursula Le Guin probably was arguing for craft rather than art, in the same way that one would argue for craft beers, artisan crisps, and that sort of thing. I think the world is probably better for these things, rather than insisting that every moment be spent in the presence of four Michelin stars.
Still, I’d like to see Le Guin and Lackey face off in a bouncy castle full of Nerf toys because it would be like watching a battle between Tyrell’s and Walker’s crisps. 🙂
Otherwise, I had an amusing yet revelatory moment when I realised a “person from Porlock” had actually made the way through the door …
[notices that the Secret Squirrels left a note telling me to make preparations to visit a certain Number Two at a place called The Village for my new assignment …]
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