The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2) in The Alternative Worlds

Jun 24, 2009 Brad rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012, to-my-kids, leguin, bedtime-book, out-loud

Half way through reading The Tombs of Atuan, I was sitting downstairs playing my xBox late at night when I heard voices drifting down from upstairs. I sat and listened to the door muffled murmurs of Miloš & Brontë, but I couldn't make out what they were saying.

Usually I'd just call up to them and tell them it was time to shoosh and go to sleep, but I was curious to figure out what they were talking about. Even obscured I could tell it wasn't the usual joke fest or scary story, there was somethi ...more

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Jul 13, 2009 Nicky rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, favourites

Much as I love A Wizard of Earthsea, there isn't much feminine about it. It's a male society, it seems in that book, shaped by men and only inhabited by women. I don't know how much thought Le Guin put into that, originally, but the women in the story don't really have much of a place. There's the witch and Serret and the Kargish woman and Yarrow... but they don't have great parts in Ged's life. He's taken away from the tutelage of the witch because only a man can teach him wizardry, and there's Much as I love A Wizard of Earthsea, there isn't much feminine about it. It's a male society, it seems in that book, shaped by men and only inhabited by women. I don't know how much thought Le Guin put into that, originally, but the women in the story don't really have much of a place. There's the witch and Serret and the Kargish woman and Yarrow... but they don't have great parts in Ged's life. He's taken away from the tutelage of the witch because only a man can teach him wizardry, and there's the sayings, "Weak as women's magic" and "Wicked as women's magic". Le Guin addresses those issues later, in Tehanu, but women aren't really present in the first book.

So it's just nice to have a book framed by women: Tenar and Thar and Kossil and Penthe, the priestesses and novices of the Tombs. Women are the only ones allowed to serve the gods, or at least the Nameless Ones -- well, women and eunuchs. The fact that Arha/Tenar is the main character, and not Ged, gives it a whole different slant. She has a different kind of life, so her story is rather different. Her story is less of an epic quest than Ged's -- there's tension, and danger, but they're not going to something, they're escaping something. She has to grow as a person in a different way. The quest is Ged's, as before, but we see him coming in from outside this time. It's interesting.

The language and descriptions and images are all as beautiful as the first book. There's something very compelling about the Tombs, the dark rituals. You can feel the cold, the routine hardness -- you feel stuck in the rut that Arha has been stuck in throughout her many lives. You can feel the slow unchangingness of the place. And you feel the joy and weight of the escape, too. I like the rhythms and tastes of this book the best in the whole series, I think. Some of the descriptions have just stuck in my head -- the drum struck at a slow heart-pace, the little thistle growing beside Ged's hand. And some of the things Ged says, his descriptions of Havnor and his speech that is essentially about "nature red in tooth and claw".

This is really the only book that steps out of Ged's own culture. The others are mostly rooted in the Archipelagan traditions, which is interesting enough, but this provides a bit more worldbuilding. Which is awesome. ...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Nicky rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy

I think The Tombs of Atuan has always been my favourite of the Earthsea cycle. I said to someone recently that the quiet moment where Tenar watches Ged sleeping, and there's a thistle by his hand, and the world just seems so strange, was somehow a moment that perfectly defines Le Guin's work for me. That quietness, that moment of clarity, of seeing-things-anew...

If nothing else, that's the feeling I get when I read her work.

The Tombs of Atuan begins to redress the balance of the world Le Guin cr ...more

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Dec 04, 2009 Kara Babcock rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own, 2011-read, favourites, fantasy, 2011-best10

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Damn you, Ursula K. Le Guin, for writing books that are so good, sometimes they hurt.

Like A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan follows a single protagonist over a long span of her life. Tenar, identified as the reincarnation of the First Priestess of the Nameless Ones, is taken from her parents at a young age. Her soul ceremonially consumed by the Nameless Ones, Tenar becomes Arha, "the Eaten One," and paradoxically nameless herself. She grows up among other priestesses and eunuchs. And she' ...more

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Jul 06, 2008 Hirondelle (not getting notifications) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, rereads, young-adult-and-middle-grade, audiobooks, to-be-reread

There is a danger to rereading books you loved as a child. But it is still worth it. Even if it does not live up to your memory, well, that is evidence you changed, as the world changes and you can now see further. So, I am not sorry I reread this, even if it is not anymore a book I would call one of my all time favorites and I now see several flaws on it which I never saw when I first read it, in a kind of daze, when I was about 13 (in a very low quality paperback portuguese translation which w There is a danger to rereading books you loved as a child. But it is still worth it. Even if it does not live up to your memory, well, that is evidence you changed, as the world changes and you can now see further. So, I am not sorry I reread this, even if it is not anymore a book I would call one of my all time favorites and I now see several flaws on it which I never saw when I first read it, in a kind of daze, when I was about 13 (in a very low quality paperback portuguese translation which was really hard to find and only found though my focus on trying to get my hands on as much sf/f I as could. It is on the shelves somewhere, I would be afraid to touch it, in case it disintegrates, and it just might)

I heard the audiobook as narrated by Aysha Kala, who has a very lovely voice and accent and is very competent at narrating audiobooks, but this is, I think, a book better read than heard so I recommend against the audiobook in general. The geography of the tombs is complex, I kept checking the maps at night (this is a book I own redundantly...), the names of characters all got blurred and I could not go back and reread things I wanted to. Aysha Kala sounded perhaps a bit too girlish though she was very very competent all the time. Better on print than audio, that is my advice.

There are fantastic bits here, the atmosphere, the setting (I love labyrinths, I blame Enid Blyton actually), the earnest speeches with insights conveniently processed out and oh so quotable at the end, the way it all fits, so differently from what a sequel was supposed to be, into the first book. It is not a YA romance, and that was revolutionary for its time, and for me. But it is an odd book. It is too short for one, and I do not often say that about books, for all its sprawling "afterwards" chapters. It skips, glances over a lot of Arha's character development, her feelings for the intruder in the sacred grounds from radicalized to enlightened very fast and in ways which do not make sense. And Ged and Arha/Tenar surprised me: unexpectedly I occasionally disliked them both very much (Ged when he calls the old woman in the island "foolish", she was a victim and if foolish, not through her own fault. And other occasions, just the pompousness know it all enlightnedness of him as character), Tenar often in the way she treated Manan or even goes off to live Penthe's dream life on her own and not much pity for the others still there, she just stumbles into things and has choices made for her... This is too short for the implied, necessary character development particularly Tenar's.

I understand better now the need for Tehanu, I will get to it - not sure if I will go straight to it, or brace myself and reread the The Farthest Shore first (I am really not liking Ged much right now, but maybe an older and wiser Ged will be more tolerable). I expect an older me will appreciate it more. ...more

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May 02, 2011 Maree rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book is a lot deeper than most children's books, and I feel like as a child, I would have really liked it despite perhaps not understanding all of it. As an adult, I did like it, but I didn't love it. It's a great book, with an excellent adventure and ending, and while I liked the characters and seeing Ged again, I'm still just not enthralled. ...more

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