Book Four of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea Cycle
Years ago, they had escaped together from the sinister Tombs of Atuan -- she, an isolated young ... read full description
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Dec 16, 2009
Jerzy
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<prereview>
It's possible that people who have never experienced much actual trauma or severe discrimination might not understand how on-target this book can be. If that's you, you'd probably find it really interesting to check out "Trauma and Recovery" by Judith Herman for a solid overview of how/why trauma survivors can be crippled by fear in seemingly irrational ways. And "The Macho Paradox" by Jackson Katz is a surprisingly good book on male violence (and not j More...
It's possible that people who have never experienced much actual trauma or severe discrimination might not understand how on-target this book can be. If that's you, you'd probably find it really interesting to check out "Trauma and Recovery" by Judith Herman for a solid overview of how/why trauma survivors can be crippled by fear in seemingly irrational ways. And "The Macho Paradox" by Jackson Katz is a surprisingly good book on male violence (and not j More...
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Nov 21, 2011
Ben
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I remember reading Tehanu in grade school; I also remember not liking it very much. However, reading it again, years later, I think of it as a masterpiece. The first three Earthsea novels were good, interesting, entertaining, but Tehanu belongs to another tier entirely. Its character development and world-building are par with Tombs of Atuan, but its pacing is better and it ties in more tightly to existing lore. Further, we get to see the characters we've come to love in a more natural light
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Sep 13, 2008
Martine
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Tehanu is the fourth entry in the Earthsea Cycle. It was written years after the original trilogy, and it shows: It is markedly different from the other books, both in style and in substance. Sadly, it is also inferior to the earlier books. Le Guin had picked up a strident feminism in between The Farthest Shore and Tehanu, and it shows in Tehanu in the worst way possible. Literally every female character in the book is worthy (even dirty, crazy Aunty Moss), whereas all the men in the book are we
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Feb 08, 2012
Kate
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This is a difficult Earthsea book to read. After Ged's adventures crossing the sea and dealing with Kings, Princes and Mages, this book stays pretty much firmly on Roke and he hardly appears.
Instead the book concentrates on Tenar (from the "Tombs of Atuan") and her life on Gont Island and that of the small damaged girl Tenar finds in the road one day who has been so badly burned and mistreated that she is terribly deformed.
The book deals with discrimination o More...
Instead the book concentrates on Tenar (from the "Tombs of Atuan") and her life on Gont Island and that of the small damaged girl Tenar finds in the road one day who has been so badly burned and mistreated that she is terribly deformed.
The book deals with discrimination o More...
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Apr 04, 2008
Amanda
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I loved the original trilogy and considered it complete. Who knew there was more to say about Earthsea? But how glad I am there was!
Tehanu catches up with Tenar years after Ged left her on Gont. She's a widow with grown children who has quite left her past as Ahra-the-Eaten-One behind. When she takes in a severely abused child as a foster daughter her life changes again.
Ursula LeGuin is gifted, she can tell an interesting (gripping even!) story that taken at face value is just a stor More...
Tehanu catches up with Tenar years after Ged left her on Gont. She's a widow with grown children who has quite left her past as Ahra-the-Eaten-One behind. When she takes in a severely abused child as a foster daughter her life changes again.
Ursula LeGuin is gifted, she can tell an interesting (gripping even!) story that taken at face value is just a stor More...
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Nov 21, 2011
Peggy
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May 20, 2011
Cyndy
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After reading the first three books of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Cycle, I wanted to know more about the characters, especially what happened to Ged after he returned from the Land of the Dead in The Farthest Shore. My husband may have forced me into reading the first three books in the series, but I ordered the other three all on my own, the first of which was Tehanu, written several years after the "original" cycle.
::: Arha, Tenar, Goha :::
When Tehanu begins, Goha ( More...
::: Arha, Tenar, Goha :::
When Tehanu begins, Goha ( More...
Mar 19, 2011
The increasingly inaccurately named "Earthsea Trilogy" becomes a tetralogy with Tehanu, inaccurately subtitled as "The Last Book of Earthsea." Now, if you guessed that returning to a fantasy world 18 years after the original trilogy would result in an incongruous work, then congratulations--you've guessed correctly, as this book really doesn't fit so well with the previous books. On one hand, that means that people who dug the first three probably won't respond so positively
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Mar 13, 2011
Annie
rated it:
I'm glad I read this book again — as an adult I understood it much better than when I was a teenager. "Tehanu" is the follow-up to "The Tombs of Atuan," and it was a bit of a shock when I first read it. "Tombs" ended with the promise of a typical fantasy ending. The heroine and the wizard enter triumphant into the city with the fabled artifact, honors doled out, followed by heroine coming into her own, learning magic and traveling the world having adventures. And st
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Sep 28, 2010
Adriana
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Tehanu by Ursula K, Leguin is subtitled the last book of Earthsea and is number 4 in the series, despite the fact that Earthsea is frequently called a trilogy. Tehanu is actually a bit of a misnomer considering that Leguin wrote a fifth Earthsea book, Tales of Earthsea, but I suppose a book of short stories doesn’t necessarily count as a novel and, therefore, not a direct continuation of the series. Ah semantics…
Tehanu takes place shortly before the ending of The Farthest Shore. Mag More...
Tehanu takes place shortly before the ending of The Farthest Shore. Mag More...
May 10, 2010
Jasmyn9
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Tehanu returns us to the world of Earthsea, to the time after the The Farthest Shore and The Tombs of Atuan. Tenar has grown older, had a family, and is now a widower when she received an urgentl from Sparrowhawk's former mentor Ogion, the mage that took her in when she first came to the area. As she journeys to her cottage we are introduced to the little girl Therru, marked by horrible tragedy and evil.
While at Ogion's cottage, Sparrowhawk returns to Tenar, but he returns scarred an More...
While at Ogion's cottage, Sparrowhawk returns to Tenar, but he returns scarred an More...
Mar 25, 2010
Karen
rated it:
It was good to meet up with Tenar again after all these years. And Ged. I tried to read it when it first came out, and was put off by what had been done to the little girl. Sad to say, it was easier to read now because it was horribly familiar. We hear about it all the time. I hope I never stop feeling sickened and outraged by such things, become resigned to "that's the way the world is."
I do think that reading it now, when I am about Tenar's age, married with grown childr More...
I do think that reading it now, when I am about Tenar's age, married with grown childr More...
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Jan 10, 2010
Christine
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Jul 15, 2009
Nikki
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This book is probably my least favourite of the series. It's so much less about adventure and so much more about domesticity, which is strange coming from Tenar and Ged. Such ordinary thoughts and fears, after all the high and mighty adventure! Even the confrontation at the end of the book feels like a placeholder, more because those things will not leave Ged alone than because it's actually still a part of his life.
There are parts of this book I like a lot. Ged and Tenar's love scenes More...
There are parts of this book I like a lot. Ged and Tenar's love scenes More...
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Dec 31, 2011
Michael
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This book never really feels like book #4 in the Earthsea Cycle to me. The first hundred pages or so did not feel needed. The darkness, sexuality, and gender role issues in this book, though valid on their own merits, felt really out of place to me in this fantasy world. It would be like if Wicked were the fourth sequel in the Oz series. The political and social agendas do not jive with the previous books.
My other gripe is that this book would have been infinitely more entertaining if More...
My other gripe is that this book would have been infinitely more entertaining if More...
Nov 08, 2010
Raj
rated it:
I'm really not sure what to make of this book. Written many years after the original Earthsea trilogy, it continues the story of Tenar, the priestess that Sparrowhawk rescues from the Tombs of Atuan in the second book. Tenar has taken to a simple life as a farmer's wife, and now widow, and spends time musing on what it means to be a woman. She takes in a young girl, Therru, who has been cruelly abused by her parents and then has to look after the spent Sparrowhawk, after he returns from the even
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May 08, 2009
Thomas
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Jun 30, 2011
Artnoose
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Continuing on with my Earthsea binge...
Written many years after the original three books, this book delves into an issue that the other three really didn't--- the strict gender norms on Earthsea. In the same way that I wondered about this issue when I finished those three, I imagine LeGuin also wondered why she had invented a world where wizardry was solely a male occupation.
I appreciate that she went back and told this other story. When we had last seen Tenar as a young More...
Written many years after the original three books, this book delves into an issue that the other three really didn't--- the strict gender norms on Earthsea. In the same way that I wondered about this issue when I finished those three, I imagine LeGuin also wondered why she had invented a world where wizardry was solely a male occupation.
I appreciate that she went back and told this other story. When we had last seen Tenar as a young More...
Jun 11, 2011
Neil
rated it:
So very different from most fantasy fiction, so very beautiful. It's kind of like an extended riff on that last part of The Lord of the Rings that I've always loved so much, where the heroes have returned home after the great adventure and discover that they've got the rest of life to live meaningfully. So sad, but so true.
The main protagonist here is Tenar, from The Tombs of Atuan. After her part in the adventure, she married a farmer and made a country life for herself. As the book More...
The main protagonist here is Tenar, from The Tombs of Atuan. After her part in the adventure, she married a farmer and made a country life for herself. As the book More...
Nov 14, 2009
Elizabeth
rated it:
This book forces you to look back at Ursula K. LeGuin's previous Earthsea novels. In those she presents a male-dominated world from the perspective of a smart and ambitious man. In that world magic was a man's craft even though some women had magical abilities (weak as woman's magic, wicked as woman's magic). In this work Tenar (just about the only woman of any significance in the original trilogy) reflects back on her path from being priestess of the dark powers to presenting the ring with t
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Dec 22, 2011
Rose
rated it:
I picked this book up for the second time today. The ending still seemed rushed and unsatisfying. It's refreshing to have an older female lead, someone who has already seen and done and who is not full of brash naivety. This is a story about people who no longer (or don't yet) matter in Earthsea, Tenar the widow, a disfigured child called Therru, and the former archmage who has lost his power. Yet although their struggles are often commonplace, they are not seen as common village folk and ca
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Nov 19, 2011
Elisa
rated it:
Ilahduin heti alkuun, kun näin alkusivuilla Gontin kartat. Tuolta pohjoiselta ja vuoristoiselta pientalollisten ja paimenten saareltahan Ged on kotoisin. Siellä jatkuvat nyt sekä hänen että Tenarin tarinat. Tärkeässä roolissa on myös pieni tyttö nimeltään Therru, jonka Tenar ottaa huollettavakseen tämän jouduttua omiensa hylkäämäksi. Tyttö on kaltoin kohdeltu, mutta hengeltään erityinen; kuin arvoitus, jonka tahtoisi ymmärtää, mutta ei voi -- muuten kuin lukemalla eteenpäin. Moni asia on toisin
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Dec 28, 2010
Kirsten
rated it:
The Earthsea tetrology culminates, in my mind, in this book, so I will review all four together.
A Wizard of Earthsea was in my mind a rather brief and simplistic start to a series that plunges deep into questions of good and evil, life and death, and existence itself. Some reviewers trivialise the series as Buddhist philosophy disguised as fantasy, and while the root values of Le Guin's secondary world are essentially Buddhist (as far as I understand these matters, which is not very), More...
A Wizard of Earthsea was in my mind a rather brief and simplistic start to a series that plunges deep into questions of good and evil, life and death, and existence itself. Some reviewers trivialise the series as Buddhist philosophy disguised as fantasy, and while the root values of Le Guin's secondary world are essentially Buddhist (as far as I understand these matters, which is not very), More...
Apr 11, 2011
Aaron
rated it:
This is a much different book than any of the other three, and, in fact, it was written much later. The fantasy elements of the novel are turned WAAAAY down; there are two brief appearances by a dragon, and the magic worked is not obvious. In fact, I would argue that the magic is simply a stand-in for the violence and power that men sometimes use against women; I know that's what it is there to demonstrate, but the story would function just as well without any magic.
This is the " More...
This is the " More...
May 23, 2008
Kang
rated it:
"She had done right to make the dress, and she had spoken the truth to the child. But it was not enough, the right and the truth. There was a gap, a void, a gulf, on beyond the right and the truth. Love, her love for Therru and Therru's for her, made a bridge across that gap, a bridge of spider web, but love did not fill or close it. Nothing did that. And the child knew it better than she."
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Apr 23, 2009
Rhonda
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Tehanu is Ursula LeGuin’s final book in The Earthsea Trilogy. Unlike A Wizard of Earthsea, Tehanu is not simply a coming of age story for Therru, as I’d first expected. Instead, it is an examination of the conventional role that women have long been expected to assume: that of caregiver, mother, homemaker, and wife. I agree with LeGuin’s perception of the struggle for women to overcome traditional roles in society, and that—even today, decades later—some men still resent women in power. Fo
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Nov 23, 2011
Coyle
rated it:
It must suck to be Ursula Le Guin. Not only is she one of the few female science fiction/fantasy writers out there (I want to say she was the only one when she started, but that might be a lie), but I get the impression that she is increasingly unhappy with her previous writings. I suspect that she wrote The Farthest Shore in reaction to the relatively pro-Western message of her earlier Earthsea books, and I suspect that she wrote this book (the fourth in the Earthsea cycle) in reaction to the p
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Apr 30, 2010
Wade
rated it: 
I like Ursula LeGuin, I really do. I liked the first 3 books in the Earthsea series. Her writing style is not my favorite, but it has its own charm and I think it works in context with the stories she writes. This book though...it's one of the few books that I have read where I felt I had completely wasted my time.
Maybe I am not sensitive enough, or maybe the plot, etc., was a bit too subtle to me, but I really did not like this book. The plot meandered with the characters as th More...
Maybe I am not sensitive enough, or maybe the plot, etc., was a bit too subtle to me, but I really did not like this book. The plot meandered with the characters as th More...
Nov 22, 2011
Julia
rated it:
I read this in high school after absolutely LOVING the trilogy. Le Guin wrote this book nearly 20 years after she wrote the trilogy, and to me, it didn't seem to fit in with the story at all. Rather than being a continuation, it seemed like a sort of disconnected addition that didn't seem to keep with the themes or plots of the previous books, and after reading it, I wished I could forget it entirely. To me, the book seemed to taint the beauty of the trilogy, however ...
I will admit th More...
I will admit th More...
Nov 19, 2010
Lizz
rated it:
My favorite of the Earthsea cycle, this book satisfyingly wraps up the cycle with long-awaited romance, more dragons and gritty realism that grounds the series and gives deeper context to all of the books. Tenar becomes the interesting woman we thought she would be and seeing her in charge of the real world in which the book takes place rounds out the series well. I appreciate how much of the story takes place in characters waiting (much like Deathly Hallows!), trying to figure out what actions
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