A Wizard of Earthsea

I have read Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea at least twice, and this is the second time I have listened to the audiobook. These are my notes.

I have great respect for Ursula K. Le Guin and her later novels, but I did not find this book very interesting. I was unaware until I did some background reading for this post that the Earthsea books were written for older kids, and that explains my dissatisfaction with the book.

Since I am clearly in the minority here, you may disregard my opinion. I found the Wikipedia article, A Wizard of Earthsea, enlightening and well worth reading.

Ged is a hero, but he’s not very interesting. I believe the book contains too much easy and unconvincing magic. I prefer fantasy with rules, but seemingly anything can happen in Earthsea.

Women are an afterthought in this novel, which I find perplexing considering the novel is written by a woman. There is not a single woman who is significant to the story. All the women are stereotyped in a bad way; the book has a deceased mother, a conniving girl, multiple crones, a deceitful lady of a castle, unremarkable wives of townsmen, and women described disparagingly as enchantresses or witches. Ged appears to have no interest in women, and he is wary around them.

Every time I thought Ged would show some interest in another human being, Le Guin backed off and avoided going further. Consequently, I found Ged’s relationships with others as shallow and lacking.

There are Tolkien-ish overtones in some descriptions and especially in the personality of the dragon of Pendor, which reminded me of Tolkien’s Smaug.

Some of the writing is excellent. The image of the shadowy figure clambering through the rent between the worlds has stayed in my mind between readings/listenings. The scene is exceptionally well-written. From Chapter 4: “The Loosing of the Shadow”:

A pale spindle of light gleamed between his opened arms, a faint oval reaching from the ground to the height of his raised hands. In the oval of light for a moment there moved a form, a human shape, a tall woman, looking back over her shoulder. Her face was beautiful, and sorrowful, and full of fear. Only for a moment did this spirit glimmer there, then the sallow oval between Ged’s arms grew bright. It widened and spread, a rent in the darkness of the earth and night, a ripping open of the fabric of the world. Through it blazed a terrible brightness, and through that bright, misshapen breach, clambered something like a clot of black shadow, quick and hideous, and it leapt straight out at Ged’s face.

I enjoyed Rob Inglis’s narration. Inglis, of course, is the outstanding narrator of the audiobooks of Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

My rating: Two stars, fair.