February Group Read: Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea cycle

Welcome to the February group read of Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea cycle. The Earthsea books are some of Le Guin's best known and most loved, and to honour Le Guin, who sadly died on the 22nd of January this year, we'll be reading these books.

It'll be a fairly informal read - you're welcome to read whichever Earthsea novel you want and whether you want to read just one or several (or all) book/s is also completely up to you.

For those who take part in the TIOLI challenges there is a challenge for February to read a book by Ursula K. Le Guin so this could be a good moment to kill two birds with one stone.

The books that are part of the Earthsea cycle are:
* A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
* The Tombs of Atuan (1971)
* The Farthest Shore (1972)
* Tehanu (1990)
* Tales from Earthsea (2001)
* The Other Wind (2001)



Feel free to state which book/s you'll be reading and maybe post a pic of the cover - there's tons of different editions.

I will be reading the first three books (the original trilogy) and I'll be reading them in Swedish.

This is what they look like in "my" edition:

>2 PawsforThought: I have read those in an omnibus edition last September.

Yesterday I started reading Aardzee 2 (Tehanu, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind).

Great! Glad you're joining me.

I'll join you also for TIOLI. I just ordered the first book from the library.

This thread's now on the group wiki.

>5 dallenbaugh: Hurrah! Looking forward to reading what you think about it.

>6 drneutron: Great, thank you!

I was going to wait for the Category Challenge read in June, but if you are doing one now, I am still in the mood for rereads and so I will read the whole series, culminating in the final book which has been in my tbr for lo, these many years and is still unread!

My first copy of A Wizard of Earthsea was this one,

but I couldn't get the other two books in matching editions so replaced it when it fell apart with this one:
which matches

>8 ronincats: Great to have you on board!

That's a nice edition - I like having my series in matching editions, the perfectionist in me can't quite handle mis-matched books.

I'm in - reading Wizard of Earthsea at least - in a much loved edition whose cover is nearly gone - and whose spine has been lovingly taped repeatedly!

I can't find any copies of any of A Wizard of Earthsea. I've tried three large libraries where I live and they're all checked out with several holds. It looks like I may have to buy it. It's not that I can't afford the six bucks on Amazon (or less if I find it at a resale shop), but more that I don't have a lot of room for new physical books, and my Kindle library is just as difficult to navigate, too. Oh well. I'll get over it.

I have ordered a new omnibus edition of the four Earthsea novels that i’m picking up this morning from my local bookshop. I was going to buy a kindle version but the map at the start is unreadable, and I do like a nice map.

>11 neverstopreading: Aw, that's a shame. If you do find it at a resale shop you could always donate it back when you're finished, so you're not accumulating anything more.

>12 SandDune: Good maps are important. Glad to have you on board.

>13 PawsforThought: I was nearly thwarted - when I went to collect the omnibus edition they couldn’t find it anywhere, so I asked if they had just the single volume The Wizard of Earthsea instead. They were supposed to have that one in stock too, but the assistant couldn’t find that one either until I suggested that it well be in children’s rather than teenage. Which it was, and that was where the omnibus edition had been hiding as well!

>14 SandDune: Phew! Close call. Those kinds of things happen way more often than you'd like, so when books "have sprouted legs" I always check every other possible place they could be in (all the sub-genres in the adult section, etc.)

I am reading Aardzee 2 an omnibus with the Earthsea books 4-6.

I finished book 4 (Tehanu) and book 5 (Tales from Earthsea), just started book 6 (The Other Wind).

I wasn't as exited as I was after reading the first 3 Earthsea books last year. Then everything was new in impressive, the world, the people, the wizards and the dragons. This time I step into a world I already have some knowledge about, wich changes my perspective.

Tehanu was a very good read, at the review page I saw many didn't like this one, probably because the story is less "exotic/epic". Away from the epic adventures they shared before, Tenar and Ged meet again. Tenar has chosen to live an average life with a farmer, Ged has lost his powers and feels hunted.


Tales from Earthsea contains five stories, the first is the longest one, set way before the time of the other stories. All five enjoyable stories, with some familiar characters turning up.

>16 FAMeulstee: Wow, you're really speeding through them.

I am one of those who didn't like Tehanu. To me, it felt like the characters of Ged and Tenar were completely different from the way they had been in the previous books, and that they hadn't changed for the better.
I haven't read Tales from Earthsea, but am hoping to get to it.

Signing up for the group read!

I’m not sure what I’ll read yet, but I think I’ll start with the first book since I haven’t read any of them in a long time. I have a few other tomes to get through this month, so I might read the rest through the year and keep coming back to this thread.

>18 humouress: Welcome! That sounds like a good strategy you've got there.

>17 PawsforThought: So many years does change people, but to me their essence was the same.

Just finished the last one: The Other Wind, which is a wonderful conclusion to the Earthsea series :-)

>20 FAMeulstee: Glad to hear you've enjoyed them all.

Finished A Wizard of Earthsea yesterday. Moving on to The Tombs of Atuan.

>17 PawsforThought: Tehanu was written many years after the initial trilogy and Le Guin's ideas about the nature of fantasy and women's roles had dramatically matured over those years. The difference in tone is supposed to reflect that and that is one of the things I hope to explore in this reading.

>22 ronincats: I'm aware of that. I still feel as if she'd given them personality transplants, and am not planning on re-reading it. But I'm glad other people enjoy it.

>13 PawsforThought: I don't think of it as a bad thing. The books are there, but people are reading them and there's a line to read them! I was able to find an audiobook version.

Would people like me to post my reviews here as well as on my thread? I've now added The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore and Tehanu.

>25 ronincats: I'd love tosee your reviews here if you want to post them.

I'm in! I read the first book a couple of years ago,and I own the second but hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. So it's The Tombs of Atuan for me this month.

>27 rosalita: Hurrah! Hope you enjoy it.

>27 rosalita: I'm joining you, Rosalita, for the read of The Tombs of Atuan. Like you, I read the first book a few years ago; now I'm getting the second from my library. I've added my name to yours in Take It or Leave It for the LeGuin challenge. Looking forward to the read!

Karen O.

Book #26 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin (186 pp.)

PawsforThought has organized a group read of Le Guin after her death last month and I plan to reread the 6 Earthsea books as a result. Well, actually five of them, and the sixth I have but have never read. One reason is that there is a 18 year gap between the original trilogy and the fourth book. The fifth book is a collection of her short stories set in Earthsea, and then the sixth book was published 11 years after the fourth. Le Guin's conceptualization of fantasy and of the role of women in fantasy changed and matured dramatically over that time and this is reflected in the tenor of the later books, and is something I want to explore during this reread.

The first book introduces us to the young wizard Ged in his formative years and his first major works as he deals with the consequences of a deed done in pride and anger. The language is high fantasy, formal story-telling mode, and both this and Ged's early personality can be off-putting to some readers, but it is a beautiful tale of friendship and redemption. Very much not in the modern style, it is sparse and saga-like in its treatment of motivation and character in its 186 pages published in 1968, with the emphasis on the movement of the story itself.



Book #27 The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin (147 pp.)

I can remember when this book first came out. I was stunned, yes, taken aback, and not so sure I approved of the change in POV from Ged to this unknown girl, Arha, the Eaten One. It was not only unusual but perhaps unheard of for an epic fantasy to do this, and to have it be a girl...WTF!! Le Guin continues with the formal language proper to the genre in laying out Tenar's history and the setting for half the book--and then Ged appears. We see him as Tenar sees him, with all her biases and limited experience. By now, I am in love with the book and also with Ged. By the end, I am also in love with Tenar.



Book #28 The Farthest Shore by Ursula Le Guin (197 pp.)

Taking place nearly 25 years after the previous book, Earthsea is experience a draining of magic and productivity across the archipelago. While the wizards of Roke debate, Ged takes action in seeking the source, accompanied by a young prince who came bringing word of the fading of magic in his own island of Enlad. Once again the POV shifts in this book and we see Ged and his actions through that prince, Arren. An epic voyage brings the two at last to the westernmost island of Selidor, scene of an epic battle between man and dragon long ago, still sung about. A true classic, this will linger in the mind for a long time.



Book #29 Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin (253 pp.)

Tehanu begins a few days before the end of The Farthest Shore. It inevitably contains spoilers for the previous books, so most of this will be undercover. However, one thing to note before moving to spoiler space--this book is from Tenar's POV and Le Guin is no longer using the formal epic style of language.
This reflects Tenar's choices in life. Rather than remain with Ogion as his pupil, she chose the life of wife and mother of two children, now grown, and her husband dead. No more formal style, now we are dealing with "ordinary" life with "ordinary" language. Called to Ogion's deathbed, she lingers at his cottage until Kalessin deposits Ged there. Emptied of all that his life has been previously, Ged is suffering from deep depression and loss of sense of self and spends much of the book healing. Tenar is exploring, with the help of Moss the village witch, the sense of who women are and what the male mages might be shutting out of their world that has value, as she searches for her own role now that her life as wife and mother is over. Tenar is not who she was 25 years ago. I do not get a sense of a "personality transplant" as someone (Paws) mentioned, but of choices and growth that have transformed her in many ways, but left the central core intact. I agree that the interactions with the mage of the lord of Re Albi were the most disturbing, signifying all that was rotten with the system of magery and power that existed prior to the return of the King. Especially his power over Tenar. But they also present the major dramatic conflict and resolution of the book, and so I see them as necessary. As a woman, now, older that Tenar at this point, I love this book and her character in a way I could not have done when it came out in 1990.

Note: I had only read Tehanu once before, probably 28 years ago, and remembered very, very little of it.



Book #30 Tales from Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin (296 pp.)

I have a beautiful, pristine first-edition hardback copy of this, with lovely maps on the inside covers, in color! And I remember nothing of it. I don't know if I ever read it back when I bought it from Borders in 2001. I know I didn't read the final book after I bought it. And so I am going to count this as a new read and a book off my shelf (ROOT). There are five tales of varying length, ranging from the founding of Roke to nearly 20 years after the events of Tehanu and they are interesting in the way that short stories are in filling in background and describing events that were not covered in the main books. Not the place to start reading about Earthsea, though.

Working on the final book now.

>29 klobrien2: That's great, Karen! I don't usually get the chance to have a shared read in TIOLI, so this is exciting. :-)

I'm about a third of the way through A Wizard of Earthsea, when Ged has spent a year on Roke and has just returned from the Isolate Tower. I'm noticing that whereas on my first reading when I was much, much younger, I would have sided with Ged against Jasper but now, as a parent, I'm thinking that maybe Jasper has his own story and Ged is being hasty and hot-tempered.

>32 humouress: Funny how re-reading can change your perspective, Nina.