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From: lhendr at unm.edu <lhendr>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 11:13:09 -0700 (MST)
Nina Lindsday has suggested that a message I just posted to child_lit is also related to the "non-linear" discussion here.
Child_lit is currently discussing gender preferences and science fiction and fantasy. One reader reported that librarians described girls as preferring "internal" descriptions in their plotlines, and boys as preferring "external" descriptions. "Internal books are character-driven. External books are plot-driven." This distinction struck me as related to Ursula K. Le Guin's "carrier bag theory of fiction."
Here's what I wrote to Child_lit:
Anastasia's findings about girls possibly preferring "internal" descriptions and boys preferring "external" ones, reminds me of Le Guin's
"carrier bag theory of fiction," in her essay in Dancing on the Edge of the World. I have found this theory helpful in thinking about many books. Le Guin contrasts the traditional spear-shaped story, that follows the trajectory of a thrown spear and is based on the hunter's pattern of going out on a quest or an adventure and then returning home -- essentially the Campbell journey of the hero, I think, to the story of the gatherers who stay closer to home, gathering things in their baskets where they bounce around together and change through interacting with each other, as husks fall off the seeds and so forth. I think many traditional, episodic, classic girls' stories can be seen in this way, from Little Women and Heidi, to Anne of Green Gables, to the Betsy-Tacy books.
Perry Nodelman has talked about these stories as ones in which
"nothing happens." They are more about the unfolding of a series of relationships than about getting somewhere. Stories do not belong exclusively to one pattern or the other, of course. Even in "journey of the hero" stories the focus can be on the internal changes in the hero because of his adventures and the relationships along the way. I'm wondering if this can relate to what we talked about earlier, whether all stories are either about someone going on a journey or about a stranger coming to town? Are the carrier bag stories more about a stranger coming to town, or are they about what happens in the town even if nobody comes?
What I didn't add, but thought about in the message to Child_lit, was that Whirligig seems to bring these two types of stories awfully close together in one book.
Linnea
Linnea Hendrickson Lhendr at unm.edu
Received on Thu 29 Oct 1998 12:13:09 PM CST
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 11:13:09 -0700 (MST)
Nina Lindsday has suggested that a message I just posted to child_lit is also related to the "non-linear" discussion here.
Child_lit is currently discussing gender preferences and science fiction and fantasy. One reader reported that librarians described girls as preferring "internal" descriptions in their plotlines, and boys as preferring "external" descriptions. "Internal books are character-driven. External books are plot-driven." This distinction struck me as related to Ursula K. Le Guin's "carrier bag theory of fiction."
Here's what I wrote to Child_lit:
Anastasia's findings about girls possibly preferring "internal" descriptions and boys preferring "external" ones, reminds me of Le Guin's
"carrier bag theory of fiction," in her essay in Dancing on the Edge of the World. I have found this theory helpful in thinking about many books. Le Guin contrasts the traditional spear-shaped story, that follows the trajectory of a thrown spear and is based on the hunter's pattern of going out on a quest or an adventure and then returning home -- essentially the Campbell journey of the hero, I think, to the story of the gatherers who stay closer to home, gathering things in their baskets where they bounce around together and change through interacting with each other, as husks fall off the seeds and so forth. I think many traditional, episodic, classic girls' stories can be seen in this way, from Little Women and Heidi, to Anne of Green Gables, to the Betsy-Tacy books.
Perry Nodelman has talked about these stories as ones in which
"nothing happens." They are more about the unfolding of a series of relationships than about getting somewhere. Stories do not belong exclusively to one pattern or the other, of course. Even in "journey of the hero" stories the focus can be on the internal changes in the hero because of his adventures and the relationships along the way. I'm wondering if this can relate to what we talked about earlier, whether all stories are either about someone going on a journey or about a stranger coming to town? Are the carrier bag stories more about a stranger coming to town, or are they about what happens in the town even if nobody comes?
What I didn't add, but thought about in the message to Child_lit, was that Whirligig seems to bring these two types of stories awfully close together in one book.
Linnea
Linnea Hendrickson Lhendr at unm.edu
Received on Thu 29 Oct 1998 12:13:09 PM CST
