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A review by elerireads
Earthsea: The First Four Books by Ursula K. Le Guin
2.0
Book 1, A Wizard of Earthsea: sweet, Tolkien-ish, young powerful wizard is arrogant and stupid, then is humbled and has to correct his mistake. Completely male-dominated but I enjoyed.
Book 2, Tombs of Atuan: So I think I actually enjoyed this while I was reading it, but then afterwards I realised how incredibly sexist it was: girl lives with a bunch of other women and girls and they're all naive and petty, doing ridiculous things to worship nonexistent gods. Then a Man rocks up, shows the girl how stupid they all are and rescues her from all the other silly women. So now that's all I can remember about it and have no memory of what I actually enjoyed when I was reading it.
Book 3, The Farthest Shore: A return to a story more the style of book 1 but a bit more grown-up. But it was a bit confusing? Classic nutters doing nutty things and destroying their lives in pursuit of immortality. Or something.
Book 4, Tehanu: Er I got the strong impression from this that she received a whole bunch of criticism for how sexist/male-centred the previous three were and then went way overboard in the opposite direction in this one. I didn't really detect much of a plot? It just seemed to be 'oh aren't women hard done by for putting up with men's shit, and how bloody fragile is the male ego, am I right?'. All very strange.
General comment on this as a book: It was a very strange grouping. The first three formed quite an obvious trilogy and then the fourth seemed like a beginning of another set of some kind. A compilation of just three would have made a lot more sense.
Book 2, Tombs of Atuan: So I think I actually enjoyed this while I was reading it, but then afterwards I realised how incredibly sexist it was: girl lives with a bunch of other women and girls and they're all naive and petty, doing ridiculous things to worship nonexistent gods. Then a Man rocks up, shows the girl how stupid they all are and rescues her from all the other silly women. So now that's all I can remember about it and have no memory of what I actually enjoyed when I was reading it.
Book 3, The Farthest Shore: A return to a story more the style of book 1 but a bit more grown-up. But it was a bit confusing? Classic nutters doing nutty things and destroying their lives in pursuit of immortality. Or something.
Book 4, Tehanu: Er I got the strong impression from this that she received a whole bunch of criticism for how sexist/male-centred the previous three were and then went way overboard in the opposite direction in this one. I didn't really detect much of a plot? It just seemed to be 'oh aren't women hard done by for putting up with men's shit, and how bloody fragile is the male ego, am I right?'. All very strange.
General comment on this as a book: It was a very strange grouping. The first three formed quite an obvious trilogy and then the fourth seemed like a beginning of another set of some kind. A compilation of just three would have made a lot more sense.