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Title: Slow read
Review: I got all the way through this book because I figured that Ursula LeGuin saw something in it and I can see how she did, but it's mostly lacking the interest I find in her work. The habit of having a storyteller for every tale makes the characters distant so that you don't end up caring about them, and the scenery less vivid. This technique is supposed to give them the universal wisdom of fables but what the stories and characters tend to achieve is either common sense or a sort of vague mysticism that doesn't really accomplish the amount of depth it would need to have this style work. Well written and seemlessly translated, but overall a plodding read.
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