Changing Planes

This is a collection of short pieces, not even so much stories as observations on various places, assembled by Ursula Le Guin. The premise is that people can open up their minds to "changing planes"; the method for doing so is different on every plane, but in our plane, it has to be done while literally "changing planes"—you can only do it while waiting for a connecting flight in an airport! (Incidentally, the flap writer seems to think the stories are narrated by Sita Dulip, the Cincinnati(!) woman who invented the method, but that's clearly not the case; the narrator is a friend of hers.) The opening story lays out the basics of the method and is probably the funniest thing I've ever read by Le Guin, an enjoyable satire on the show more indignities of air travel.

The book reminds me of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and that's surely on purpose; Le Guin had a fascination for that kind of fictional travelogue, as she translated a couple of them into English. The chapters are fairly different: some are full-fledged short stories about a trip taken by the narrator, some are explications of other societies and cultures, some are stories from those other planes. Most, of course, reflect back on our world, depicting other ways of being in the world and thus causing us to reflect on ours. My favorite along those lines was "Seasons of the Ansarac," about a plane where the inhabitants are migratory, and only engage in sex while in the north; in the south, they have no sex, no romance. It asks us to consider why our society is organized the way it is, and how it might be different; like many stories in the book, it also contains some brief moments of cultural imperialism. "The Royals of Hegn" is a good satire on our interest in royalty; it takes place on a plane where everyone is royalty except for a couple commoners that the royals are totally obsessed with. (Though like a couple stories in the book, it uses rape as a sort of tossed-off joke in a way that surprised me. I wonder if that would have been true if I had read it in 2003; I think our mores around this have shifted.) I also enjoyed the satire of "Great Joy," about a group of businessmen who remake another plane as a series of holiday-themed vacation sites: Christmas Island, Easter Island, Fourth (of July) Island, and so on.

Some of the sociological ones that were less satirical I found less interesting, but I did particularly like "The Building," a weird story about two societies on one plane, where the members of one continuously work on a building with no clear purpose or structure, and "The Fliers of Gy," about a plane where the occasional inhabitant is born who can fly—and is thus doomed some day to die when their wings spontaneously give out. Only one story did I not enjoy at all, "Woeful Tales from Mahigul," which relates a series of stories from one of the other planes, which I found difficult to find anything interesting in.

At her best, though, as always, Le Guin makes us imagine other worlds and reimagine ourselves. My favorite of these stories was "The Silence of the Asonu," which is about a plane where people gradually cease speaking as they grow older, and the visitors from other planes who desperately try to find meaning in the few words they do speak. show less

Darn, this takes the unfortunate place as my least favorite Le Guin read so far, but it’s still well written and thought provoking--and I do like a good many of the stories inside. Definitely not her strongest work, though.

Content warnings:
- rape
- r ableist slur
- incest (in detail)
- ableist cr slur

Representation:
N/A

A woman named Sita Dulip discovers a way to transport herself from our earthly plane to nearly innumerable others--as long as she's waiting in an airport, is miserable, and is suffering from mild indigestion. Since then this type of travel been done by all sorts of people all around the globe, and in this collection one writer shares her experiences.

I think a big reason why I didn’t enjoy this--as an overall, cohesive show more work or looking at each story individually--as much as Le Guin’s other works is because firstly, these stories are less like actual short stories and more like ethnographic studies. Secondly, they lack a central heart that connects them in a more coherent way than the concept can alone (which would have worked better if there wasn’t a character “present” in every single one of them). I write “present” in quotation marks, because most of the time we’re just reading her travel diary. The stories contain fascinating notes on culture and world building creation, as well as the ever-present and relevant social commentary, but they will never be as engrossing as something that has an actual narrative.

Oh, but I love “The Nna Mmoy Language,” even if it is one of the above-type ethnographic stories. Le Guin is such an insightful and profound thinker. And overall an incredible inspiration.

But, of course, every collection of short stories is a grab bag, and this one is no exception. Unfortunately, most are just okay, with only a few standouts on either extreme. My least favorite is “The Fliers of Gy.” Not only does it use the cr*ppled slur many, many times, it attempts to use a disabled character to speak from a neuro-atypical pov to express superiority over neurotypicals/able-bodied people. It goes so far as to have the “disabled” people refuse to marry ableds. Many authors have done this “reverse oppression” kind of formula with the intent of getting their audience to become aware of a certain issue (like Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses and antiblack racism). As an autistic and cr*ppled person myself, this story left me more uncomfortable than anything, but I think I’d like to hear from another disabled and/or autistic person’s opinion on it before I go so far as to say it’s ableist or anything!

The last story is definitely strong, but it also shows a major issue I had with the collection as a cohesive unit. By the way this work introduces the narrator, it seems like it should have started off the collection. It’s the only story to actually introduce the narrator at all or give us any small idea of what she’s like outside of interviewing people--besides the book’s concept. She’s what’s holding the collection together, the traveler visiting and writing about each different plane. Most of the time, though, she’s not even present in the stories at all, which makes the collection’s theme less strong and more like a very polished, beautifully written book of notes about fictional cultures.

But! I was never bored, and I never counted down the pages. I even took my own notes. So it’s still a book worth reading, if you know why you’re reading. show less

You have to sort of let it arrive, stepping gently in orange plastic shoes, muttering asides to the porpoises—you have to let overwrought metaphors tap you gently on the nose, and smile at them, and then stack the chips neatly on the side, and enjoy the sound of them clattering together. After all of that, there is genius in here that is not to be missed. Especially if you read it on a rainy day, while sitting in a quiet place.

Is there any greater master of speculative fiction than Ursula K. Le Guin? Here she uses the maddening experience of changing planes (read: sitting in airports post 9-11) as a perfect time to change planes (read: alternate levels of existence). Like an anthropologist in the field, she gives short reports on imagined societies that are so advanced as to be post-language and so primitive as to extend the Christmas shopping season year round and to stage battles with preordained outcomes. There are angel-like creatures with wings and devil-like creatures with hooves. Builders and birds, queens, placid people and immortal souls, and places like libraries and gardens and hotels and grog shops and streets that change direction as you traverse show more them--all are conjured in Le Guin's clear, unreliable, contradictory, inspirational, satirical voice. Whisper in my ear anytime at all, o great Le Guin! show less

Elegant, sharp, clever, insightful and deeply humane stories traversing different planes where people go while stuck at airports. Would that it were so. But then I'd have to go to airports.

****.5

Absolute masterclass in world-building. Le Guin manages to describe entire cultures in just a few pages in a tour de force of engaging and insightful writing. The premise is fantastic, and each anthropological vignette delves into different aspects of politics, history, economics, sex, art, language, etc. The balance of humorous travelogue, social critique, and academic vigor is finely tuned, reminiscent in spots of Gulliver's Travels, and of her other works.

The big problem is a significant dearth of plot, making it a chore to read the whole thing through. Best to read/listen to (the audiobook is fantastic) a chapter or two at a time.

This is a charming short story collection that is loosely tied together with a central premise of travelling between planes of existence. It worked well for me and it shows off the author's worldbuilding prowess although some of the different cultures were a little too similar in places. Overall, its a great book that doesn't overstay its welcome