Kirkus Reviews QR Code
LEESE WEBSTER by Ursula K. Le Guin

LEESE WEBSTER

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Pub Date: Sept. 10th, 1979
ISBN: 0575029587
Publisher: Atheneum

A spider with a creative bent, Leese breaks away from family tradition to weave webs inspired by the paintings and carpets in the deserted palace where she lives. Then, with the palace about to be made a museum, the beautiful "tapestries" are discovered and enclosed in glass to be admired by visitors, and the spider is thrown out onto the bushes—where sunlight on the dew gives her webs the jewel-like sparkles she hadn't been able to achieve indoors. Except that the actual "tapestry" doesn't live up to the beauty one might rather imagine, Brunsman's spare line drawings on mottled orange-yellow pages are just odd and ambiguous enough to keep reality properly suspended while LeGuin's arachnid artist finds her own way. Not the brilliant parable that might have been expected, but sound and expertly spun like any fine web.