A Wizard of Earthsea

A Wizard of Earthsea was an early venture into "YA Fantasy" publishing, and it set much of the pattern for the wizard bildungsroman that later made the fortune of the world's richest woman. More than half a century after its original publication, it holds up very well. It is certainly a better book than its more "successful" imitators. I first read it when I was less than ten years old, and I had forgotten many of the details and much of the structure--despite in the interim having sampled some of the attempts to adapt it to the screen.

While the publishing press and the author herself have been quick to compare this high fantasy Earthsea to Tolkien's Middle Earth, I found the style far more reminiscent of Lord Dunsany, an author praised show more elsewhere by Le Guin with language similar to her remarks in the 2012 afterword to Wizard. There she mentions other fantasy literature that "mostly lurked in small secondhand bookshops smelling of cats and mildew" (262). To the extent that this book is an "epic" fantasy, it is more Odyssey than Illiad, deliberately spurning the matter of great wars and killer heroes.

As an orientation to esoteric wisdom, Le Guin's work far exceeds more recent tales of "wizard school." The teachings of Lao Tzu that she imbibed at her father's knee are evident in the magic of Earthsea. She has one clinker in her diction, where she misuses "adept" to mean "neophyte" (26). That lexical slip is far outweighed by such musings as this:

"You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man's real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do ..." (99, italics and ellipsis in original)

Le Guin quietly but consciously twitted racial preconceptions of US readers when writing this book, but she admittedly conformed to received gender types for fantasy literature (263). As a result, the business with Serret reflects Aleister Crowley's observation that "the neophyte is nearly always tempted by a woman."

My reread of this novel was undertaken with a view to reading the entire Earthsea cycle of six volumes. Only the first three of these had existed for my childhood reading. As a reading project, then, it shares elements of my mature returns to Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising books (a series about magic enjoyed in my childhood) and Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle (a reread in order to approach the volumes subsequently published). I'm only encouraged by this first book. show less

Ever since I read “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” in a college class, I knew LeGuin was different. Not just fantasy with a moral center, but fantasy that stares deep into your human weaknesses and asks you just what you plan to do about them. In “A Wizard Of Earthsea” I found my own frailties challenged in the open, but I also found healing.

Somewhere between the end of high school and the end of college, I lost the ability to read for pleasure. I was a voracious reader growing up, to the point where I’d get in trouble at school because I was reading under my desk instead of paying attention, but over the course of getting an English degree I grew to associate reading with deadlines, analysis, and resentment.

On top of show more that, the explosion of the fantasy genre in the last several years left me overwhelmed and alienated: where could I even start? What was I “supposed” to read? Which authors had the right politics, and which books were the most groundbreaking? It’s all an endless circle of responses to responses to responses, impossible to break into when you’re also trying to catch up on the books you are “supposed” to have read as an English degree holder.

So I gradually stopped reading. After graduating from college in 2013, I would read maybe two or three books a year, often rereading something I already knew I enjoyed. I didn’t even bother trying to catch up with fantasy, which used to be my favorite genre.

I picked up Earthsea on a whim, having resolved to read at least one book a month in 2019. I got more than I ever could have hoped for. The storytelling is vast and mythical, yet deeply human. It’s a wise, quiet story in which I could see the origins of some of my favorite fantasy writers (especially Tamora Pierce and Garth Nix), and reading it gave me a sense of forgiveness. I almost couldn’t remember what it felt like to enjoy fantasy without reservation and to look forward to reading more—I had to go back to basics, back to a book that was unselfconscious and unhurried and not trying to prove anything. I’m so glad I read “A Wizard of Earthsea” now, and I look forward to carrying it with me as I learn how to read all over again. show less

I've read bad books by bad writers. I've read mediocre books by mediocre writers. I've read books by fantastic writers who don't know how to plot, but who do everything else really well, or some other combination of great strengths and equally great shortcomings.

This book frustrated me more than any of those, and here's why:
Le Guin is obviously a good writer. Her prose is magnificent. Her characterization isn't bad either. I like that Ged isn't cut from the same cloth as typical YA fantasy protagonists and he has an arrogant streak that mirrors real life teens. The story is now a cliché, but it's a cliché that I will easily fall for on any given day. Young men growing into their predestined powers and baddassery just does it for me. show more Maybe something went wrong in my own childhood, I don't know.

So why, then, am I only giving this book--a book that is a supposed "classic of fantasy literature" that everyone seems to love--only one star?

Because this book was half as long as it should have been and boring at the same time.

While Le Guin is a fantastic writer, able to write her descriptions densely and skillfully, she writes in some of the most distant third person I've ever read. She glosses over major events, and the entire book reads like a summary of a much longer work. You can literally turn page after page in some sections and never find a line of dialogue. There's no immediacy in her writing, no connection to the characters. I feel as if I'm viewing Ged's life through a cracked and foggy telescope from miles and miles away. Le Guin somehow manages to be a good writer while violating one of the most basic rules of writing. One that every seasoned writer will tell newcomers within the first five minutes of their asking for advice. Show, don't tell. All Le Guin knows how to do is show, and her work is much worse off because of it. It's a shame. I really could've loved this book if it were written differently, and I didn't at all expect to be disappointed after hearing so much about Le Guin for so long. show less

I’m not someone who grew up on western SFF canon and didn’t even know that LoTR books existed before the movies released. So, it’s no surprise that I only got to know about the legendary Ursula K. Le Guin and the Earthsea cycle last year during a discussion about famous female SFF authors. I’ve heard a lot about this series being the HP before Harry Potter existed, so I tried a lot not to view it through that lens but I quickly realized it wasn’t gonna be that difficult. And this felt like such a new experience for me.

The writing style felt odd and took a while for me to get used to, but it’s quite beautiful and poetic, and probably how the old style fantasy books were written. The magic system is not really detailed, with show more vague descriptions, just making us feel the power behind it all. The book has the usual tropes - a prophecied powerful wizard, a hero’s journey, and a magical academy - but what was missing was what made this a unique story. There is not necessarily a big bad here, the hero has to learn about his powers not to fight some evil villain but to find more about himself and be a better person, and this journey really takes him through all kinds of emotions. I found it to be so interesting with such personal stakes, but still never feeling any less epic.

To conclude, this was a nice beginning to a young wizard’s tale and has piqued my interest enough that I may continue. And I think it’s wonderful that I’m finally getting to know one of the genre’s most prominent legends. I was also glad (and a bit sad too) to read the author’s note where she mentions how she had to incorporate a majority POC cast in a way that it was able to pass the traditional publishing gatekeeping. Do give this a try if you are also unfamiliar with SFF history just like I am, but are open to exploring the roots. show less

I've read this before, but so long ago that I couldn't have said anything at all about it except that I remember liking it. I'd read it well before I'd read any of Le Guin's SF, too, and I imagine that makes a difference in my impression this time around.

In the afterward of the edition I read Le Guin talks about her wondering what it was like for Gandalf and Merlin to be young boys, and obviously this was written well before Harry Potter. There's a part of me that wants to snatch whatever HP book in is in the ubiquitous fangirl/boy's hands and replace it with WoE and snap at them, "This is what you need to be reading instead of that derivative crap!" I'm so sick to death of Harry Potter.

This novel is sublime. So simple, so contrary to show more what modern fantasy insists on being. Le Guin is so good at being literate and literary, even within "genre" writing that I think is too often maligned as being "pulp" or "beach reading" (like any fantasy/SF nerd would read or even go to the beach). It's a psychological novel that avoids the ponderously dark, and a coming of age book that seems fresh even though the central idea would be tad cliched if it were written today. But that's the difference between creating a common motif and deriving your work solely from the creations of others--LeGuin reads as timeless, whereas too much of modern fantasy (and hey--WoE is not that old) takes familiar ideas and makes them gratuitously violent and/or needlessly machiavellian. WoE is realistic, poetic, and beautiful, and it builds a world that has dangers without seeming like some medieval hell-scape.

Sometimes I want and enjoy a medieval hell-scape. But it pays to be reminded that there is another way. show less

In this young adult fantasy, a young wizard releases an unnamed evil into the world of Earthsea during a spell that goes wrong and comes of age in a quest to defeat it.

Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk’s flight
on the empty sky.

–from the Creation of Éa

I’m sure I read A Wizard of Earthsea as a young adult, although I didn’t remember it very well. But like the best novels written for young people, it holds up excellently in this second reading as an adult.

In Earthsea, Le Guin has fully realized a land of islands, where people live as much on the sea as on the land, where there are dragons and wizards and magic. As a young boy, Sparrowhawk discovers his talent for magic when he show more protects his village from invasion by creating an obscuring fog. He is apprenticed to a wizard on his home island, then goes to the school for wizards across the sea, where his powers become evident. But his hubris gets the better of him, and in attempting a dangerous spell, he looses a nameless shadow in the world, which is bound to him and determined to possess him.

The rest of the story describes Sparrowhawk’s coming-of-age quest to learn how to defeat the shadow, and to learn who he is. Le Guin’s simple but evocative prose brings her imaginary world of Earthsea to life, and while reading this short book, I felt like I was traveling along with Sparrowhawk among the islands’ rocky cliff faces, desolate moors and heaving oceans. Whether rediscovering Earthsea or visiting it for the first time, the trip is worthwhile. show less

Just as good on my second readthrough. Hopefully I'll remember it better now. I think the narrator of the audio version had just the right lulling tone that I zoned out the first time, but I made sure to pay attention this time. (I tried two narrators and greatly prefer Rob Inglis to Harlan Ellison; Ellison made the tone too light IMO, but Inglis matched the classic slightly weighty fantasy vibe I associate with this series.) It's a fantastic coming-of-age set against the backdrop of a magical, stunningly described world, with profound life lessons perfectly entwined. I think knowing what happens in later books and knowing who Ged becomes made his growth even more poignant this time around.