Ursula LeGuin: Changing Planes

This is not a book that bears up to deep scrutiny.  It begs to be read, not at a desk with a notebook at hand, but in the very place where it was inspired and set:  the misery, irritation, and suffering of an airport. 


I have always hated airports.  Everything about them seems designed to inspire contempt, and the moment a human enters one of these infernal portals, she or he is primed with a hatred for fellow travelers and becomes by virtue of that disgust a perfect target for the glowering disdain of all the similarly affected pilgrims around.

While the conceit of the book is inspired, the book itself is not particularly so.  Each of the stories told here was worth telling, but perhaps some of them were worth telling at greater length.  None of them were long enough to have said anything, and merely glanced at rather heady and poignant questions: to what extent are each of us an individual?  Do our traditions serve or enslave us?  What is the nature of language?

But it only paused long enough at each moment to ask the question, never long enough for an answer to be an option.  And perhaps that was for the best.  Who wants to read the Critique of Pure Reason while enduring the misery we call air travel?  Certainly not I.  I'm glad I read this on the way to Brussels instead.