Why I Love Ursula LeGuin

I just finished Ursula LeGuin's City of Illusions, which is a sort of trippy little book that moves between the Earth and other planets, and between various memories and minds that exist in one body, and, most significantly, between the truth and the lie. It examines the difficulty of knowing who to trust and of being able to tell when you are being lied to.

LeGuin's stories articulate a belief in order--that order exists and that we can (at least partially) know it. In City of Illusions, determining the truth amidst many different conflicting stories involves Falk, the main character, learning to know himself (it was a sort of coming of age novel, only the adolescent story was happening to an adult). The order that LeGuin's stories rely on involves a particular understanding of language and words--it is through words that both lies and the truth are told (and yet words are the only way we have to get to the truth): "The River Poet said a thousand years ago, 'In truth man lies. ...' Zove rolled the words out oratorically, then laughed. 'Double-tongued, like all poets."


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