Hiya Jackster, Lori K.
I'm thinking it has to do with subtlety as much as engaging the reader in the story. There's a description from "Of Human Bondage" that I just loved (one of many!). And it's something like (this is hugely paraphrasing/distorting as I can't access the actual text, as our house is a bit of a building site at the moment): He found her somewhat repellent in the mornings, and regretted their liaison. By the afternoon she was less so, and by the evenings he thought she was really quite nice. I really loved that when I first read it. Maybe because it's a weird thing that many of us have experienced, but there's no particular name for it. Maugham is another one who does a lot of telling, strictly speaking. He's one of my favourite authors. Laurie Lee I seem to recall was another big "teller". But of course, these are all huge names -- so that's why I was thinking it's down to their skill as writers. And I was wondering what specifically makes it work, when a less experienced writer cannot generally get away with so much telling.
I'm looking at "Birds without wings" again strictly in this telling/showing frame of reference. In this case, maybe the reason it works is that he isn't telling us mundane things, he's telling us little special quirks. So, for example, this sentence comes at the end of a whole page of (beautiful) telling: "He was fond of inventing riddles and improbable proverbs, and possessed the kind of impatient wit that showed a certain lack of resignation."
hmmmm..... or maybe it's because it's interspersed with the story. So, as Lin suggested earlier, if you've already got your reader interested, you can probably spend some time on telling because by then they're already wondering, "What is this character like?" or "How has this situation come about?" and might be grateful for the shortcut of being told rather than trying to demonstrate everything.
