the difference between Ursula LeGuin and Kurt Vonnegut

Recently, I've tried reading two different books: a Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin, and Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut. One of these books was easy to read and enjoyable, the other was really boring. Which one is which? Knowing me, the easy one was Kurt Vonnegut (if you've been reading this blog, you know that I want to name my firstborn son "Kurt").

I got to thinking, why is Vonnegut so much easier to read than LeGuin? Because of how their books are written. LeGuin wrote the basic framework for a story: she has characters, and the characters do things and things happen to them. There is very little dialogue, and little character development. Essentially, the characters are just doing things.

Vonnegut, however, doesn't really tell much of a story. That is, it's not something you can summarize or explain in anything less than what Vonnegut already did it in. You can't summarize the story in a paragraph, you explain what the book is about. Player Piano is about the effects of a world where manual labor is completely replaced by machines, and the effect that has on one Dr. Paul Proteus. Why do we care? Because Vonnegut makes you care. The reader learns so much about Paul that Paul seems more like an old friend than a character Vonnegut made up. Things happen to him, but you get to see inside his mind and see all of his reactions and thoughts. You learn a lot about the place that he lives in, the life he leads, and what causes his world to change. It's a thrill ride of a book.

Obviously, these are two different people we are talking about here, so they'll have different writing styles. I just happen to like Kurt Vonnegut a lot more. Not all of Ursula LeGuin's books are just like a Wizard of Earthsea, either. I also read the Left Hand of Darkness (a book anyone interested in gender studies should read), and that book is more like Kurt Vonnegut's style in that we get to know the characters and the place, and there is dialogue. I wouldn't say it's exactly like Kurt Vonnegut's style, since nobody else writes like him, but it's closer to him because we get to know the characters.

Both are good writers who come up with really original stories, but if you asked me who you should read first, the answer will always be Kurt Vonnegut.