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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
It's astonishing that this book is marketed as YA fiction, because it's about as dystopian as fantasy gets. Even _The Lord of the Rings_ in all its darkness externalizes corruption and makes it mostly about a grand lust for power; but there is no real externalization or channeling here of the petty human desire for eternal life.
As ever, Le Guin's genius lies in the economy with which she makes her points. The proximate cause of this quest is the failure of magic throughout the realm, but that turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg. Along the way we see drug addiction, slavery, and piracy -- pretty shocking stuff for the time, especially for a children's book -- but the true extent of Earthsea's rot is signaled by the failure of weavers to weave, merchants to sell, farmers to farm. And this is conveyed by a singular literary device which could easily have backfired: Le Guin's afflicted speak in ALMOST intelligible sentences, circling around and around the words they can't say. It's not pure gibberish but streams of words that sorta kinda almost make sense... which in a world based on precision of naming carries a horror more than any violence or despoilment could.
It's not hard to see the parallels to our own cultural moment in the masses of drug addicts dosing themselves right to death's door, or the old people joylessly complaining about how "in my day" things were so much better. But the mirror the author holds up to the present day is also about the rot of language itself: our advanced technological society demands precision of naming just as much as Earthsea, and yet we too seem to be losing shared meanings. Words that used to have widely-shared connotations -- "vaccine", "liberty", "Nazi" -- are sprouting new fractals of meaning to subsets of the country. In fantasy novels these problems can ultimately be solved by mages, kings, the fulfillment of long-foretold destinies... but in our world no such device seems likely to save us with magic and heroism.
As ever, Le Guin's genius lies in the economy with which she makes her points. The proximate cause of this quest is the failure of magic throughout the realm, but that turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg. Along the way we see drug addiction, slavery, and piracy -- pretty shocking stuff for the time, especially for a children's book -- but the true extent of Earthsea's rot is signaled by the failure of weavers to weave, merchants to sell, farmers to farm. And this is conveyed by a singular literary device which could easily have backfired: Le Guin's afflicted speak in ALMOST intelligible sentences, circling around and around the words they can't say. It's not pure gibberish but streams of words that sorta kinda almost make sense... which in a world based on precision of naming carries a horror more than any violence or despoilment could.
It's not hard to see the parallels to our own cultural moment in the masses of drug addicts dosing themselves right to death's door, or the old people joylessly complaining about how "in my day" things were so much better. But the mirror the author holds up to the present day is also about the rot of language itself: our advanced technological society demands precision of naming just as much as Earthsea, and yet we too seem to be losing shared meanings. Words that used to have widely-shared connotations -- "vaccine", "liberty", "Nazi" -- are sprouting new fractals of meaning to subsets of the country. In fantasy novels these problems can ultimately be solved by mages, kings, the fulfillment of long-foretold destinies... but in our world no such device seems likely to save us with magic and heroism.
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
More of a follow-on from the first book than the second, this tells the story of a much older Ged and his quest (with sidekick) to find why the magic seems to be draining away from the world. As always, filled with evocative scenes that are both fantastical and grounded. Ged doesn't talk much, but throws out some lovely pearls of wisdom.
I quite enjoy fantasy video games, movies, and tv shows but for whatever reason I can't get into fantasy books. By all accounts this is an exemplary entry in the fantasy genre by a noted author but I found it endlessly dull and almost impossible to focus my full attention on. I don't have any specific critiques on its quality other than that it seemed like little happened and the story was neither fast-paced or interesting.
adventurous
slow-paced
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A worthy end to the first trilogy of Earthsea books. The antagonist of this book inspires as much hopelessness as I've seen in a story.
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Farthest Shore might be my favorite of the Earthsea cycle so far. A book can have many interpretations, but for me, this is a book about depression. The young Prince Arren comes to Ged, now Archmage, with awful tidings. Magic is draining out of the world, starting in the far Reaches and moving in towards the center. The two of them must set off on a perilous quest to find what is wrong and attempt to right it.
They find whole islands gone to seed and the banality of evil, where sorcery, craft, and crops fail, and people sit around bickering and arguing about when things wrong rather than trying to fix them. Once prosperous towns are now dens of slavers and drug addicts. Mad ex-sorcerers say they traded their names away for eternal life, and even the mighty dragons have been rendered mute beasts by whatever evil is lurking.
Arren and Ged chase their enemy to the edge of the known world and into the land of the dead, where they find that a powerful wizard has torn a hole in reality to gain dominion over the living and the dead. But this sacrifice is absolutely illusory--to gain everything this necromancer sacrificed his self, and so gained nothing. Ged and Arren defeat the wizard and return over the Mountains of Pain. But Ged is no longer archmage, or any kind of mage. He is spent, his doing is done.
Le Guin has great interpretations of the meaning of her own works, and she says this is about evil, and the banality of evil, but I think it's about good, and how hard it is to live when what is good is hidden in mists.
They find whole islands gone to seed and the banality of evil, where sorcery, craft, and crops fail, and people sit around bickering and arguing about when things wrong rather than trying to fix them. Once prosperous towns are now dens of slavers and drug addicts. Mad ex-sorcerers say they traded their names away for eternal life, and even the mighty dragons have been rendered mute beasts by whatever evil is lurking.
Arren and Ged chase their enemy to the edge of the known world and into the land of the dead, where they find that a powerful wizard has torn a hole in reality to gain dominion over the living and the dead. But this sacrifice is absolutely illusory--to gain everything this necromancer sacrificed his self, and so gained nothing. Ged and Arren defeat the wizard and return over the Mountains of Pain. But Ged is no longer archmage, or any kind of mage. He is spent, his doing is done.
Le Guin has great interpretations of the meaning of her own works, and she says this is about evil, and the banality of evil, but I think it's about good, and how hard it is to live when what is good is hidden in mists.
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I had a surprisingly hard time reading this. I listened to the first two as audiobooks and had a hard time sinking into this one as a paper back.
I loved having an actual map to look at though. And I love how the story of Ged continues especially as he nearly always has a young companion.
I loved having an actual map to look at though. And I love how the story of Ged continues especially as he nearly always has a young companion.