The Carrier Bag Theory of (Fan) Fiction

I'm slowly reading a collection of Ursula K. Le Guin essays. I don't - entirely - subscribe to her point of view (although in certain cases I wonder if it's not simply because she undercuts the myths I tell myself) but it's interesting. A Left-Handed Commencement Address is a fair, fairly famous, example. Or if you're a Discworld fan: it reminds me of what Pratchett tells us of the difference between witches and wizards.

But there's one essay that has stuck with me, and speaks to me particularly both as a woman and as a writer of unapproved, unofficial stories. As a member of a community of, largely, women who find value in peering around the edges of Our Hero in print or film and writing about the world we find behind him, of unravelling the approved, official image we are sold of Our Hero and recreating him -- or something very like him -- in the shape of a person. These are not real stories, we are told, (we tell ourselves) not worthy stories. These are stories to be whispered to each other in the dark, hidden away from the spotlight aimed the original myth. But we might build a home in the dark (Le Guin reminds us); it has always been our country.

The essay is built on a perspective on human history - or on the story of human history - that I hadn't heard before. (Despite this essay being decades old, despite it drawing on older writings still.) An... anti-phallic account of humans as an early tool-using species, shall I summarize, and although I hadn't thought about the idea, I immediately recognized it.

So. The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula Le Guin. That link goes to a pdf file, which is the only online copy I found.

But the ocr in that file is terrible, so I've also cleaned it and posted it below the cut.
 

( 'That's why I like novels: instead of heroes they have people in them.' )

 

(no subject)

rarecomicskink is a kink meme for rare(ish) comics pairings!

And it DESPERATELY needs more cracky prompts...