Status Updates From Un mago di Terramare

Love how, though there is plenty of action in this book which you'll find in other fantasies (invaders raiding a village, young mages battling each other with magic, a confrontation with a dragon), the main conflict of the story is man vs himself. The climax is very small stakes in a way: Ged conquering his own pride and the darkness within him.

"Master...I have come back to you as I left: a fool..." ...The mage smiled a little and motioned Ged to sit across the hearth from him, and set to brewing the some tea.


I think I need a few months with Ogion, tending the goats and practicing silence on the island of Gont.

"The power you had to call it gives it power over you: you are connected. It is the shadow of your arrogance, the shadow of your ignorance, the shadow you cast. Has a shadow a name?"

Love how Le Guin spells this out right here, but also constantly throws doubt upon what the shadow is, so that the reader is both sure and unsure up until the finale.

"For magic consists in this, the true naming of a thing... 'Many a mage of great power,' he had said, 'has spent his whole life to find out the name of one single thing--one single lost or hidden name."

Love the emphasis on metaphysical essences :) :) Also, this might aptly describe the life of a philosopher.