The Tombs of Atuan (1971)

In the second installment in the Earthsea series, a girl is declared to be the reincarnated Priestess of a remote, timeless place and is taken from her family at an early age. She grows up learning its customs and believes herself to have great power, but has very limited experience of the actual world. She’s also got a rival in the form of the head Priestess of the State, which has its political power increasing.

What could have been a conventional coming-of-age tale in less skillful hands than Le Guin’s becomes a critique of cloistered, religious institutions that deny reality and don’t affirm life and joy, and I love the book for that. Much of the action takes place in subterranean tombs and an enormous labyrinth, all in darkness, which is telling. The young woman administers ancient rites with little meaning, and has no qualms about ceremonially executing enemies of the State who have been brought there. Her personal flaws and the flaws of the religious system she finds herself in are evident. There is real darkness here, and I don’t just mean the claustrophobic, blind environment Le Guin successfully creates. Just as in ‘A Wizard of Earthsea,’ the first book in the series, there are elements of identity and finding one’s self, but there is also profound disillusionment and loss of faith. It’s a mature, very intelligent work with a gravitas not often seen in young adult fiction.

Quote:
“The Earth is beautiful, and bright, and kindly, but that is not all. The Earth is also terrible, and dark, and cruel. The rabbit shrieks dying in the green meadows. The mountains clench their great hands full of hidden fire. There are sharks in the sea, and there is cruelty in men’s eyes. And where men worship these things and abase themselves before them, there evil breeds; there places are made in the world where darkness gathers, places given over wholly to the Ones whom we call Nameless, the ancient and holy Powers of the Earth before the Light, the powers of the dark, of ruin, of madness…”

Also, this one from the Afterword, Le Guin explaining the limitations of the main character, which unfortunately led to criticism. Personally I loved the balance in this book and for just how progressive it was, with its critique of religion and its protagonists, one of whom was female and the other of whom was black:

“In such a world, I could put a girl at the heart of my story, but I couldn’t give her a man’s freedom, or chances equal to a man’s chances. She couldn’t be a hero in the hero-tale sense. Not even in a fantasy? No. Because to me, fantasy isn’t wishful thinking, but a way of reflecting, and reflecting on reality. After all, even in a democracy, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, after forty years of feminist striving, the reality is that we live in a top-down power structure that was shaped by, and is still dominated by, men. Back in 1969, that reality seemed almost unshakeable.” ( )

This book is EVERYTHING. The tone is the epitome of dark perfection...it's literally mirrored in the pitch blackness, the weightiness, of the underground tombs, of the expectations on the young main character. Tenar/Arha's journey of self-discovery is poignant and real. Her internal journey as she becomes high priestess and thinks about what that means to her at the beginning, along with her physical journey away from the tombs at the end, of discovering the beauty of the world (including her first glimpse of the sea) is stunningly, gorgeously, expertly told, understated but so much more powerful for the lack of wordiness. I love this book even more the second time around, and it was a 5-star read for me the first time. ( )

This book couldn't be more different that book 1. In book 1 Ged travels all around Earthsea and lastly to the edge of the world. 95 % of the story in Atuan is told in a one temple, 75 % of that in the underground caverns and mazes. The heroine Tenar is taken as a child to the temple to become the temples high priestess, much like the Dalai Lama, the child is the reincarnated former high priestess. It's a story about choice or lack of, good vs evil. ( )

Strikingly different from A Wizard of Earthsea, yet still enjoyable. I wasn't totally sure about what to expect with this book but I was delightfully surprised. While I felt the book suffered a bit from a rushed climax (I did end up reading most of it in an afternoon), Le Guin does a masterful job of storytelling, world building, and character developing. I almost wished I could read an encyclopedia of Earthsea and all its various and intriguing people but I'm happy to read the next book in the series in the meantime. ( )

A perfect book. Solid characters and vivid imagery of the darkness. Only issue was that the darkness turned out to be fully evil rather than a pathway for positive discovery/wisdom, which seemed to be the direction that Le Guin was taking the story. I have a thing for the dark though...! ( )