A review by pickledlettuce
The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-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

5.0

Leguin does it again.  I’ll admit, there were parts of this book that felt super slow because of the pacing, but I would not trade a single word for a shorter length. Although I liked the first two books more, this one knocked my socks off.
The whole theme of this book (and most of Ged’s story in general) is the acceptance of death and change. Death of a living thing, an idea, a word, anything. Leguin isn’t saying that death should be celebrated, or that death is a wonderful, great thing in the world. What she is saying is that death and life are one, that for rebirth to happen, for hope and light to flourish in the world, our way of thinking, our selfishness, must change. Death is something that is scary, but that does not mean we should fall to despair because of it. I feel it is best exemplified in this quote:
"You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose... That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes; it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?"
Our actions and words effect others. To act on selfishness is to change the world. To better our own lives and others, our selfishness must die so light can flourish. The future may be dark and seem hopeless, but as Leguin says:
“To see a candle’s light, one must take it into a dark place.”

EDIT: this is now a five star book. The themes, the characters, the world, it’s all SO well done. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I finished. Leguin was a master of fantasy imo.
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