The Telling
"She walked back
down the stairs, flashed her ZIL at the exit,
walked ten blocks to the nearest Corp-Star foodshop, flashed her ZIL at the
entrance. All the foods were packaged,
processed, frozen, convenient; nothing fresh, nothing to cook...." pg. 28
"Sutty found it
amazingly easy to talk to people on the boat.
In Dovza City everything had conspired to keep her reserved and silent.
Though the four
offworlders were given apartments and a certain freedom of movement, the
Corporation
scheduled their lives very closely with appointments, programming and
supervising their work
and amusements. Not that they were the only ones so controlled: Aka's abrupt
and
tremendous technological advance was sustained by rigid discipline universally
enforced
and self-enforced. It seemed that everybody in the city worked hard, worked
long
hours, slept short hours, ate in haste. Every hour was scheduled. Everybody
she'd
been in touch with in the Ministries of Poetry and of Information knew exactly
what they
wanted her to do and how she should do it, and as soon as she started doing as
they directed,
they hurried off about their business, leaving her to hers." pgs. 31-32
"In the city, at
every hotel and apartment house, restaurant, shop, store, office, or bureau,
every
entrance and exit ran an automatic check of your personal ID chip, the
all-important ZIL, the warranty
of your existence as a producer-consumer entered in the data banks of the
Corporation. .... Most Akans
had their chip embedded in the left wrist." pg. 47
"....'Your
government, I know, prefers that its people learn
new ways, not dwelling on their past. But.... we believe that a useful
knowledge of the present is rooted in
the past...."
pg. 88
"...."'We do not
see the roots,' he said.
She listened.
'The trunk of the
tree,' he said, indicating
the element of the design that, in a building, was the double-leafed door.
'The branches and foliage of the
tree, the crown of leaves.' He indicated the five-lobed 'cloud' that rose
above the
trunk. 'Also this is the body, you see, yoz,' He touched his own hips and
sides, patted his head
with a certain leafy motion of the fingers, and smiled a little. 'The body is
the body of the world. The world's body is my body. So, then, the one makes
two.' His
finger showed where the trunk divided. 'And the two bear each three branches,
that rejoin,
making five.' His finger moved to the five lobes of foliage. 'And the five
bear the myriad,
the leaves and flowers that die and return, return and die. The beings,
creatures,
stars. The being that can be told. But we don't see the roots. We cannot
tell them.'" pg. 89
"The Corporation,
of course, had introduced a new ethic, with new
virtues
such as public spirit and patriotism, and a vast new area of crime:
participation in
banned activities.... Banned, illicit, illegal, deviant: these new categories
redefined behavior, but they were without moral meaning except to their
authors." pg. 110
"I did. But the
Historians study the way knowledge should be
taught, so that what people learn is genuine knowledge, not a bit here and a
bit there that
don't fit together. There's a Hainish parable of the Mirror. If the glass is
whole, it reflects the whole world, but broken, it shows only fragments, and
cuts the
hand that holds it." pg. 228
From The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin. Copyrighted 2000.
Last Modified: 2 November 2024 EST