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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
"This place was fear, was fear itself; and he was in it, and there were no paths. He must find the way, but there were no paths, and he was tiny, like a child, like an ant, and the place was huge, endless. He tried to walk, stumbled, woke.”
There are moments of very elegant prose in this novel; but at other times it feels stilted and awkward, and I found the plot much less gripping than that of The Tombs of Atuan. It’s good, but not one of my favorite Le Guin works.
Some reviewers seem to interpret the central theme as something along the lines of “don’t let an obsession with immortality prevent you from appreciating life and the beauty of this world.” That’s a message I really like. I was distracted from it, though, by the focus on defending the necessity and importance of death, a theme that doesn’t connect with me at all.
There are moments of very elegant prose in this novel; but at other times it feels stilted and awkward, and I found the plot much less gripping than that of The Tombs of Atuan. It’s good, but not one of my favorite Le Guin works.
Some reviewers seem to interpret the central theme as something along the lines of “don’t let an obsession with immortality prevent you from appreciating life and the beauty of this world.” That’s a message I really like. I was distracted from it, though, by the focus on defending the necessity and importance of death, a theme that doesn’t connect with me at all.
adventurous
dark
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
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:
Complicated
Decidedly relevant for our times.
Gotta love Le Guin's quiet, wise, and thoughtful approach to fantasy. She gets to my soul and I lack the words to capture how she makes me feel when I'm wrapped in her stories. "Peaceful?" "Hopeful?" "Tranquil?" Whichever, but in a world of dragons, true names, mages, and nameless ones, Earthsea will always be the most realistic fantasy to me in terms of capturing the human spirit. That's the word. "Spiritual."
I finished this and cried for a solid hour. 11/10 would recommend
A lovely little adventure story but seriously lacking in depth, pacing, and character development.
It was a page-turner, but the personalities felt paper-thin throughout, lacking substance. You couldn't tear them free of the pages and plop them into the real world; they lacked fears, ambitions, passions, secrets. Though I adored Sparrowhawk in both [b:A Wizard of Earthsea|13642|A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1353424536s/13642.jpg|113603] and [b:The Tombs of Atuan|13662|The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1417900879s/13662.jpg|1322146], in The Farthest Shore he felt like the typical wizard trope: an old, graying man with a lined face who has seen a lifetime of wondrous things and who is now serious and pensive and troubled by a great darkness, and who lives in physical and emotional isolation from others and who saves his magic, cast with his trusty, ever-present wizard's staff, for great works. They weren't believable as people.
The brevity of The Farthest Shore was its biggest disappointment. I think it could have been a five-star book if it had been at least twice as long (my edition is roughly 300 pages, but they are very small pages) -- if Le Guin had given herself more time to mold the story, I'm sure she could have solved the character development problem, too.
Read my complete review at my book blog, Literary Leisure.
It was a page-turner, but the personalities felt paper-thin throughout, lacking substance. You couldn't tear them free of the pages and plop them into the real world; they lacked fears, ambitions, passions, secrets. Though I adored Sparrowhawk in both [b:A Wizard of Earthsea|13642|A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle, #1)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1353424536s/13642.jpg|113603] and [b:The Tombs of Atuan|13662|The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://d2arxad8u2l0g7.cloudfront.net/books/1417900879s/13662.jpg|1322146], in The Farthest Shore he felt like the typical wizard trope: an old, graying man with a lined face who has seen a lifetime of wondrous things and who is now serious and pensive and troubled by a great darkness, and who lives in physical and emotional isolation from others and who saves his magic, cast with his trusty, ever-present wizard's staff, for great works. They weren't believable as people.
The brevity of The Farthest Shore was its biggest disappointment. I think it could have been a five-star book if it had been at least twice as long (my edition is roughly 300 pages, but they are very small pages) -- if Le Guin had given herself more time to mold the story, I'm sure she could have solved the character development problem, too.
Read my complete review at my book blog, Literary Leisure.
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is so beautifully written and brings the wizard Ged’s adventures to a remarkable end. Now an aged Archmage, Ged, along with young prince Arren, travel the western hemisphere of Earthsea to uncover why the world’s magic is fading away. The story explores the characters’ flaws, mistakes, fears, and desires, as well as the essential balance of life and death in the world. This book also perhaps contains my favorite depiction of dragons in all of fantasy literature: as ancient, nuanced beings of immense power who are neither evil nor good.
re-read September 2013. Though I've read this book several times, it seemed very apropos after a recent loss in my life. What is life, and what makes life, life? What would you sacrifice to continue life, and how much of a sacrifice would make life not Life any more? Ged is in his purest true form here, and to see Arren grow into himself is magic in it's own right. It's not a happy book, in particular, not sad in the usual sense either, though there is loss; it is more of a haunting book, one you think of often and I'm not sure if I understand it all either. Highly recommended, one of my favorites.
re-read Oct 12, 1014. This is such a sad book. There's such a bleakness and despair, the slow march of death. The dragons like autumn leaves on the wind, but the approach of winter isn't the brief and cold sleep of seasons but something more horrible-- the nuclear winter of man's greed, cruelty, and willingness to destroy everything in order to consume. ***spoiler*** Cob's willingness to trade true life and death for the worse than zombie existence that is destroying all life is so... too close to home. And then wonderful, wonderful Ged spends his life's force to fix it, and comes back so changed. Now nothing is the same or will be the same. But this book is so beautifully written! Love it.
re-read Oct 12, 1014. This is such a sad book. There's such a bleakness and despair, the slow march of death. The dragons like autumn leaves on the wind, but the approach of winter isn't the brief and cold sleep of seasons but something more horrible-- the nuclear winter of man's greed, cruelty, and willingness to destroy everything in order to consume. ***spoiler*** Cob's willingness to trade true life and death for the worse than zombie existence that is destroying all life is so... too close to home. And then wonderful, wonderful Ged spends his life's force to fix it, and comes back so changed. Now nothing is the same or will be the same. But this book is so beautifully written! Love it.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated