A Wizard of Earthsea - April 2013 > Likes and Comments

I haven't read this book since sometime in the late 70s; and I loved it then. I'm about 45% through now and it's still a pretty fun book. One of the things that stands out so clearly with this book is how thin it is. Ged goes from birth to graduating from Wizard School in the first 1000 locations which I think is about 80 some pages. In most fantasy worlds of today, that would be a 9k first book in a new epic series. (or a series in and of itself if you like that Harry Potter thing) ....

I already read it! I'm sorry. I read it last month. I'd read one of the sequels in the series, The Farthest Shore, back in middle school and someone here alerted me to the fact that it's a whole series! Pure joy overcame me... and I read the whole series. I finished the series toward the end of last month.

I really like that this book has a very dark side. It doesn't skirt around it, or try to draw a definite line between wrong and right. Le Guin describes shades of gray; well-meaning actions that are actually wrong, and admonishes judgement of actions you don't know the whole story of.

And, even more importantly, she brings the importance of embracing the inner darkness. Everyone has a "dark side" of sorts, and fighting it or trying to deny it only creates more problems. You can't waste your life running from the fear of making bad decisions, or you won't have the ability to make good decisions. You must face those fears and ignoble desires head-on so that you can overpower them and choose to do the right thing.

I read this book the first time 30 years ago, and remember loving it. (Not so much the following books.) The second time around all these years later:, I liked it, enjoyed the world building, but my over all attitude towards it was lukewarm. I pretty much guessed (or remembered) the secret of the shadow from the beginning. It fits in with the 60s zeitgeist.) Though if you asked me before I started, all I could recall was the wizard school and lots of sea.

@Geoffrey: I had a boxed version of the 3 paperbacks, that, including the box, was probably about the size of some single-volume epics today.

I've probably read this trilogy about 4 times in my life, the last time being maybe 3 years ago, so I'm not re-reading at this time. For me they've always been a sort of "comfort read," with interesting stories and characters and a style I find pleasant to read.

When you read it as an adult the YA-ness of the work is clear. (No sex!) It is fascinating to watch LeGuin rework this in later books, when she can step out of the YA bind and look through adult eyes.
These are surely one of the foundational fantasy novels. I tremble to think how many young readers have entered the genre through WIZARD. Including Rowling -- would we have Harry Potter if there had not been Ged?

I'm also one who read the series in the 80's and remembered it fondly. I liked it this time too but I agree with Geoffrey that it felt a bit thin. It's funny though because I think a lot of fantasy books today are too long--multiple books in a series at 1000 pages each--many times I wish those stories were tighter.

One thing I found interesting was that instead of there being an Evil to fight against that's always been there, this was an evil that Ged himself created. While Ged's a sympathetic character, part of me kept thinking he was getting what he deserved.

Ah, that brings to mind Gandalf's famous comment. Yes, he deserved it; and many who die deserve life.

A lot of adult books do not have sex...a little romance yes.

oh....maybe...I'm reading ya and don't realize it.

:) hmmm

No. Now is different from when WIZARD first came out. In that day (knights were bold then!) you really did have to not have sex in the YA. Romance, yes. No bodliy fluids. But that was a long time ago, children.

This first book, in the series, was/is my favorite.
I think .... because the focus is on Ged.

I actually love the second one, THE TOMBS OF ATUAN. The idea of a maze underground is just too cool.

Tombs was enjoyable.

I liked the art on the chapter pages of my book. Woodcut prints, I believe.

I just didn't feel as connected to Ged. I would have liked.... more of HIS story.

I loved the feminist edge in Tehanu. The shame she felt in how her son treated her was especially biting to me, personally. A sharp reminder to raise our sons to be feminists along side our daughters.

And, in the afterword of the Kindle edition, Le Guin discusses how much more backlash she received from the feminist influence in Tehanu than she had in the previous books switching the stereotypical norm (of the time, at least. I suppose) of the white good guys and the black bad guys.

There was a lot of shame in Tehanu, really. And learning to deal with reality, to attempt to make and do the best you can instead of being overwhelmed by the shame and fear.

And there was a little bit of sex. But it was done tactfully instead of rubbed in your face, which is so much better, in my opinion. It was long waited for, the two deserved to love each other freely at last.

I've recorded what seems to be a cartoon film version of at least part of the trilogy.

Anyone know if it's worth watching?

I understand that Ursula le Guin was disappointed in it.
I have never watched it however.
There is another also that failed in the author's eyes, and mine.
it may have been a made for tv mini series...called Earthsea.... I believe.

Will wrote: "I've recorded what seems to be a cartoon film version of at least part of the trilogy.

Anyone know if it's worth watching?"

Of possible interest as a jumping-off point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthsea...

Thanks Charles. I'm already reaching for the 'delete' button.

I first read this book over 30 years ago, it was an inspiration then and still is. Ursula le Guin is a true storyteller. Maybe it is more suited to a younger readership but the themes are most certainly relevant to adults; courage, self-doubt, pride, friendship, trust ...

I have read the series many times over the last 30 years or so. I recall reading Tombs of Atuan with tonscilitis and a broken arm aged 9.

My daughter who is 9 is now starting them. I just hope she loves them too.

You are right though that if written today it would contain 1000 pages and more violence and so on..... which would be a shame. I always wanted a really good version on film.

It is perfectly OK to have a superb novel that is suitable for a 9-yr-old. May your daughter be on the first step of a road paved with many, many books.

Brenda wrote: "It is perfectly OK to have a superb novel that is suitable for a 9-yr-old. May your daughter be on the first step of a road paved with many, many books."

Well she has read Harry Potter, C S Lewis, The Hobbit, Rick Riordans Percy Jackson to name but a few so she should be alright.

One of the things I miss from the '70s is that it was still okay for authors to write novels that were not doorstops full of multiple plot lines and multiple main characters. Sometimes I just want to read a nice, little, narrowly focused novel: not an epic tackling the complexity of life, the universe, and everything in it. :-)

(And sometimes I want everything including the kitchen sink.)

Ah. Entertainment. It's sort of out of fashion with a lot of publishers, isn't it?

There's been a huge change in fashion since WIZARD was first published; there was a period of time (pre-Harry) when publishers insisted that young readers were unable to tolerate big fat books. Since J.K. Rowling fixed that, the fashion now is all for huge fat trilogies, and if you can pump it up to five or seven volumes so much the better.

And the size of some of them? There's a trilogy called 'Dwarves' and i think each book is 1000 pages.

i liked it but it honestly didn't do much for me.

despite the strength of the main message; your needing to accept all of yourself, good and bad both before you are in a position to take on things outside of yourself, i felt like it wasn't a large enough concept to build a whole book around.

This book failed to get any sort of rise out of me except for once or twice where it accidently brought back to the fore long dormant, thought discarded or at least outgrown teenage notions of the 'racistness' of the english language.

all things negative are dark, and black is a synonym for bad.

Tettey wrote: "i liked it but it honestly didn't do much for me.

despite the strength of the main message; your needing to accept all of yourself, good and bad both before you are in a position to take on things..."

Ah you probably read it decades too late. It is a simple tale and meant to be taken very much at face value. If you try to read too much into it then you will lose its enchanting nature.

i probably did, and i meant to temper that post with something about how it might have been a trailblazer, written for another time or some other such something but i couldn't find anything to say that didn't ring false, even to my own ears.

as for that other thing, i'm appalled to see it's so easily discernible. i see conspiracies everywhere and do like to go all pseudo-intellectual on everything. i have to keep reminding myself that 2+2 is only rarely equal to 5.

maybe this is a shadow i need to embrace.

As far as the "dark" thing goes, I think that goes way back in time from when "evil" things came in the night and such, not some racist thing -- though admittedly it can easily spill over to such a thing now. One should note however, that in LeGuin's world of Earthsea:

"...The racial characteristics of the people of Earthsea are for the most part "red-brown" in coloring, like Native Americans; in the South and East Reach and on Way, they are much darker brown, but with straight black hair; in Osskil, they have a more central or eastern European look,[citation needed] though still with dark skin, and the Kargs resemble predominantly blond northern Europeans.

"Le Guin has criticized what she describes as the general assumption in fantasy that characters should be white and the society should resemble the Middle Ages..."

~ from Wikipedia

I didn't know she'd been critical of the depiction of race in fantasies, but i have to say I wasn't in anyway trying to suggest that the book or the author had any racist inclinations whatsoever. Given, as you said, that the characters are mainly dark skinned and that the book ends in (view spoiler)[embracing darkness rather than fighting it (hide spoiler)].

when I was younger I was very critical of the english language for in my opinion predisposing its users to be 'racist' because of the way black and dark are used.

i just happened to revisit those sentiments while i was reading this book. And as far as the origins of it, it was part of what helped me make my peace with it but when i used to think those thoughts i was more focused on that present and that future than the past.

Absolutely one of my all time favourites. I managed to snag a copy from 1976 and it smells wonderful. I'll see if I can find the cover and put it below. Nope, couldn't find it. It is the one where Jasper is shocked to see Ged turning into a hawk on the cover with his friend standing behind a purple curtain.

Chas wrote: "I first read this book over 30 years ago, it was an inspiration then and still is. Ursula le Guin is a true storyteller. Maybe it is more suited to a younger readership but the themes are most cert..."

Good comment. =)

Ha I have an old copy too from when I was a young un.

@K.
Maybe this cover?
http://www.tavia.co.uk/earthsea/image...

I have the book with the soft grays and browns...with Ged sailing on Lookfar.

It's a book I read in the early 1970s.
I found the slim nature of the book a pleasant change after the clunky things which were coming in, but back then paperbacks were often about 70k words

One enlightened school teacher set this book as our class read, back when I was 12 (early 70s) and it was my introduction to fantasy.
I was already a fan of SF, but this book blew me away and kindled my lifelong passion for fantasy novels.
Le Guin will forever be one of my favourite and most respected novelists - I think I've read them all now; perhaps time to start again.

He he, I actually had the opposite reaction, Deborah. When I first read Tolkien my younger brother was already heavily into fantasy novels. He lent me his copy of this book and I wasn't even able to finish it. It was one of my early attempts at reading fantasy that ended up souring me to the genre. After Tolkien everything else just seemed trite and uni-dimensional.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant was the next nail in that coffin. I think I finished the first novel and was so put off by it I didn't go on.

Funny how tastes differ.

Reading Thomas Covenant put me off as well, that book is marmite,you love it or you hate it :-)

Micah wrote: "He he, I actually had the opposite reaction, Deborah. When I first read Tolkien my younger brother was already heavily into fantasy novels. He lent me his copy of this book and I wasn't even able t..."

I was unable to get past the first few pages of Thomas Covenant and, much though I adore Tolkein's stories, I found LOTR hard going to read, with so many dead end side turnings and long winded songs.
I reckon it's just as well we all have such different tastes as it provides so much potential for diversity for both readers and writers.

Thomas Covenant is an anti-hero throughout the series. You never really like him even when he does something noble. It never makes up for his cowardly self centered actions.

I've read all but the one that is coming out soon. He changes very little.

Thomas wrote: "Thomas Covenant is an anti-hero throughout the series. You never really like him even when he does something noble. It never makes up for his cowardly self centered actions.

I've read all but the..."

Well I'm glad I didn't continue then; that would have annoyed me intensely. To me the main point when I write (and read) a novel is that the characters develop and change.

It's not as bad as "I am Legend". When I read that one, I rooted for the vampires and cheered when they get the "hero". He was a true anti-hero. You start with dislike and finish with loathing.

;)

My problem with Covenant was that as the story progressed, it became more and more improbable that any real human being would be able to sustain their capacity to doubt as steadfastly as Covenant. He simply ignores all the evidence of his senses, no matter what. And I just don't buy that. Plus he was a big ol' grumpypants.

Deborah wrote: "Micah wrote: "He he, I actually had the opposite reaction, Deborah. When I first read Tolkien my younger brother was already heavily into fantasy novels. He lent me his copy of this book and I wasn..."

As much as I love Tolkein, I can't get into reading the trilogy without "priming" myself by listening to the first few parts on audio. That gets me into the rhythm and flow, and I can carry on from there on my own.

Micah wrote: "My problem with Covenant was that as the story progressed, it became more and more improbable that any real human being would be able to sustain their capacity to doubt as steadfastly as Covenant. ..."

There's a well-known effect that the more adamantly you believe something, the more likely you are to bend reality to fit your world view. I've never read the Covenant books to know if this fits the MC, but it's not THAT far-fetched.

I first read this in 8th grade... about 42 years ago. It was among the "Pick a book and write about it" pile in English. Of course, I'd been away and it came down to this book and something else I don't remember. Pretty simple title with a wizard standing in a small boat, staff raised.

It took me about a chapter before it sucked me in. Out of all in the Earthsea quartet, it's still my favourite and I've read it three times.

The biggest thing I learned from it is that everyone has light and darkness inside them.

I was a wee bit older than you when I first read A Wizard of Earthsea. Like you, I was sucked in pretty quickly and it's definitely my favorite of the series (although I loved the others too, as well as the rest of Ursula K. Le Guin's novels). It caught me at the right time of my life, and I've reread it many times.