Story Spotlight will be a recurring feature on Nick Writes where I dive into a story I love, hate, or just find something noteworthy in. It’s a nice break from talking about my own experiences writing, and an opportunity to look a little more closely at other people’s work.
What better place to start for the first installment than one of my favorite short stories of all time, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”? It’s written by Ursula K. Le Guin, and can be found in “The Wind’s Twelve Quarters,” a collection of her short stories.
For the most part, I don’t like short stories. And the reason is very simple: from what I’ve read, many are simply lazy. The challenge with any story is to get us to care about the characters. In a short story, that challenge is all the more difficult, as there’s far less space for us to get to know the characters in. As a short cut, many authors that I’ve read focus their stories on something gut-wrenchingly sad, like a child dying. The kind of thing where you can’t help but feel something—not because the writing is anything spectacular, but because you’re a human being.
In other words, short stories are a unique challenge. So Le Guin takes a unique approach. Instead of presenting us with a fully formed narrative, she actively writes the story with the reader. It’s a brilliant way to pull us into the story. How can we not be invested? We’re helping to create it.
The story is about the fictional city of Omelas. Omelas is a utopia. And while we get some details about what life is like in the city, Le Guin is less concerned with describing the city, and much more focused on getting us to believe the city.
“O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all.”
“I wish I could convince you.” This is Le Guin’s mission: to get us to believe in the city of Omelas. And bit by bit, she takes you through all of the things you might wonder about, inviting you to set the terms along the way. For instance, sex:
“…I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don’t hesitate.”
Or drugs:
“I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweetness of drooz may perfume the ways of the city…”
One of the more striking elements of the story is that Le Guin doesn’t know all of the particulars of Omelas. Early on, she says:
“I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few.”
This also helps to draw us into the story. We’re not lost at any point; there’s nothing barring our understanding. How can there be? We’re practically on the same level as the author. While she knows more than we do, she doesn’t have all of the answers, and there’s something oddly welcoming about that.
But while she may not know all the ins and outs of Omelas, Le Guin does know what it takes to convince us, and she knows there is one element missing from her description.
“Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.”
What does it take to get us to believe in something perfect? Simple: We need an imperfection. And it is the depth and nature of that imperfection that finally gets us to believe in Omelas. I won’t spoil the specifics here, but that has always been the most fascinating part of the story to me—what it takes to get us to believe in utopia.
In a short fiction workshop in college, my professor told us that you can’t break the traditional rules of storytelling until you understand them. And this story certainly backs that notion up. While the author is present in the narrative, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” is still a story. If a less experienced writer tried to do something similar, it would likely come off as a conversation.
While Le Guin’s narrator may present herself as unsure, she’s anything but. She hooks us from the beginning and, while allowing us some room to create, ultimately leads us to a masterful ending. Or at least that was my experience.
Has anyone else out there read this? What are your thoughts?