Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018)

When I finished my reread of The Farthest Shore, it was obvious to me that there needed to be a fourth Earthsea book to continue Tenar's story and pass it to a next generation and a new form of power, just as the third book had done for Ged. So it was no surprise to me when Le Guin claimed in her 2012 afterword to Tehanu that she had begun that work straight away after finishing The Farthest Shore. But it took her eighteen years to write, because it demanded more acquired perspective. In The show more Farthest Shore, the viewpoint passes to the young Arren immediately, and he carries it through the book, but in Tehanu, it is still Tenar who serves as the viewpoint character for the first thirteen chapters, and Le Guin needed more of her own "ordinary, unmagical life" (271) to explain Tenar's experiences to herself and the reader.

Publishers were no doubt happy with the incomplete work that could be sold as a "trilogy," and while Tehanu won the 1990 Nebula award for best novel, it has been frequently noted as a marked turn from the earlier Earthsea books, rather than their natural fulfillment, as it seemed to me in my recent reading. The diction was consistent with the earlier books, and it constantly returned to their themes and expressions. Perhaps a sticking point for some readers was the fact that it overtly addressed not only sex but the patent fact that sex had been sublimated in the earlier books.

An occultist magician will easily read these first four Earthsea tales as an elaboration of the formula of Tetragrammaton, expressed in Ged/yod, Tenar/heh, Lebannen/vau, and Tehanu/heh. The story of the Woman of Kemay (13-15) intimates the shin to be added to the formula. This nested tale brought my attention back to Michael Moorcock's recent Elric book The Citadel of Forgotten Myths, and its emphasis on an ancestry shared by humans (well, Elric's people) and dragons. It seems likely that Moorcock was influenced by Tehanu on this count, even if not consciously so.

I do feel a strong sense of completion in Tehanu, and I will pause before moving on to the short stories collected in Tales of Earthsea. The texts so far have given me confidence that Le Guin's later fantasies will continue to inquire gracefully into "who we are, and where our wholeness lies" (16). show less

I had no idea going into this book what it might look like. It turns out to be a book of adapted blog posts, and a stirring and wonderful book at that. I love how it is organized, with Le Guin's uncompromising voice telling us what she thinks of the world leavened by stories about her darling cat. The cat stories almost universally made me laugh. Pard is quite the adventurer, and Le Guin could spin a story out of a piece of paper dropping to earth. Anyway, one of my favorite things about show more this book is that Le Guin is old when she wrote it and she's extremely honest about how much being old sucks. She doesn't hide her gradual decline, or her pain, or try to pretend to be anywhere other than where she is -- an elderly woman, sharp minded, gradually losing the battle of physical age, and looking, unflinching, at her mortality. We may all be so brave. show less

This is, I think, Ursula K. Le Guin’s most successful novel. It is a tight intellectual thriller that pays homage to science fiction writer Philip K. Dick to such an extent that it goes beyond parody to masterwork, in the end outdoing Dick himself.

It is also both sweet and comic, though the central tragedy and epiphanic novum at the end is neither sweet nor funny.

As much ad I enjoyed The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed when I first read them as a teenager, this is the only sf show more work of Le Guin’s that I can read over and over again.

Caution: the two movies made from the work are claustrophobic; do not watch either one before reading the book, which is far better. show less

You have to sort of let it arrive, stepping gently in orange plastic shoes, muttering asides to the porpoises—you have to let overwrought metaphors tap you gently on the nose, and smile at them, and then stack the chips neatly on the side, and enjoy the sound of them clattering together. After all of that, there is genius in here that is not to be missed. Especially if you read it on a rainy day, while sitting in a quiet place.