Re-read review: Earthsea (books 1 and 2), by Ursula LeGuin
The Earthsea novels, which deserve to be regarded as classics on the level of 'Lord of the Rings', started out as a trilogy and later expanded to a pentalogy. While there are dragons and wizards in them, they diverge from most fantasy works in several respects. First, instead of being a continent (often a vaguely-Europe-shaped continent), "Earthsea" is an archipelago, containing many distinct cultures none of which are a direct analog of a particular country in our world. Most of the people living on these islands range from copper- to ebony-skinned, the pale Kargish being the ones framed as exotic outsiders1. Second, magic is used quite sparingly, and you see at least as much of how ordinary people such as goatherds and fishermen live their lives than you do either princes or wizards. Third, the perspective character changes between books, alternating between wizard Ged and former priestess Tenar, and the books span at least 40 years of time. So while the first two books - described in this post - could be classed as coming-of-age tales, the others have themes of mortality, aging, dealing with your children becoming independent, etc. I almost made this a 'this oughta be a movie' post. However, there have already been two adaptation attempts - neither very faithful, one egregiously bad. There is reportedly a third attempt in the works, and I've got my fingers crossed they will get it right this time...but it might be best to stick to the books for now!
1. The first of these books was published in 1968, and apparently Ursula LeGuin had to struggle really hard to get cover art that actually looked like the characters. The version shown above isn't too bad, but Ged is still much lighter-skinned than he is described in the text. I wasn't sure whether to tag for "POC MCs" here, given that none of these characters fit any real-world ethnicity, but hearing that story tipped me toward "yes".
Book 1: A Wizard of Earthsea
This book starts with Ged as a young goatherd growing up on the island of Gont. He, like most Gontishmen, is copper-skinned, dark-haired, and taciturn. He learns some magic from his aunt, who is a witch. It earns him his use-name, Sparrowhawk - because he can call birds to his hand - and he eventually saves his village from a Kargish raid by conjuring up illusions in the mist. He is sent to study with the mage Ogion, but Sparrowhawk is too impatient, so Ogion sends him on to a school for wizards on Roke. There he meets his closest friend, Vetch, an even-tempered, darker-skinned boy from the east, and his rival Jasper.
Ged is a very capable young wizard, but he is arrogant, and a bit insecure about his humble origins.
They were all eating and laughing and playing such tricks out of pure frolic as might be the marvel of a king's court...Vetch sat cross-legged, eating roast chicken, up in mid-air...Now and then he tossed away a chicken bone, which turned into an owl and flew hooting among the netted star-lights. Ged shot breadcrumb arrows after the owls and brought them down...'I want the company of my equals,' Jasper said. 'Come on Vetch. Leave the prentices to their toys.' Ged turned to face Jasper. 'What do sorcerers have that prentices lack?'...'Power,' Jasper said. [Ged replied] 'I'll match your power act for act.' ...Presently, moving a little aside as if to be heard by Vetch alone, Jasper spoke, with his cool smile: 'I think you'd better remind your goatherd friend again of the law that protects him. He looks sulky. I wonder, did he really think I'd accept a challenge from him? A fellow who smells of goats, a prentice who doesn't know the First Change?' 'Jasper,' said Ged, 'What do you know of what I know?'
Despite Vetch's pleadings, Ged makes the foolhardy decision to try to conjure up the spirit of the legendary heroine Elfarran2. In doing so, he unleashes a shadow-creature that carves him up with its claws, nearly killing him, and leaving him with permanent scars. Ged devotes the rest of the book to trying to find the creature, figure out its name, and defeat it before it hurts anyone else. In the process, he travels all over Earthsea, encountering all sorts of people, talking to dragons, and figuring out who he is - which turns out to be the key to his quest.
This book is the closest in the series to the standard fantasy format, and to traditional fantasy tropes. The female characters in this book, for instance, are not particularly well developed, and there is a clear division between men and women. There are no girls in the wizard school, and witches are viewed with suspicion, with there being twin sayings: 'weak as women's magic' and 'wicked as women's magic'. That is a concept LeGuin starts to break down and interrogate in the following books.
The magic system in this world is based primarily on 'true names'. You can't effectively put a spell on someone if you don't know their name. After Sparrowhawk's disastrous ghost-summoning, Vetch says:
'If ever your way lies East, come to me. And if ever you need me, send for me, call on me by my name: Estarriol'. At that Ged lifted his scarred face, meeting his friend's eyes. 'Estarriol,' he said, 'my name is Ged'...Thus to Ged who had lost faith in himself, Vetch had given that gift that only a friend can give, the proof of unshaken, unshakable trust.'3
This also applies to other living things and objects large and small, so a large part of learning to control water, for instance, is not just learning the True Speech word for the 'ocean' or 'water' but for the specific bay or inlet or whatever you are working on. There is an element of natural talent, as well as learning. When Ged uses a goat calling spell he heard his witch aunt use, it works so well for him that he can't get the goats to leave him alone!
Dragons use the True Speech as their native language, and so while they can be cunning or violent they cannot lie outright. The dragon of Pendor tries to tempt Ged with its hoard, sighing when he refuses:
Where is men's greed gone? Men loved bright stones in the old day in the North...
Then it makes a more tempting offer:
I know what alone can save you. There is a horror follows you. I will tell you its name.
Ged is nearly swayed, but remembers his promise to the islanders to deal with the dragon, and uses its true name, Yevaud, to compel it to leave.
One can work all kinds of illusions, as Ged did with the mist, but changing the true nature of a thing or, say, trying to reverse natural processes such as death are very difficult and extremely inadvisable. A wizard can take on the form of an animal, but if he stays too long in that form he may forget how to be a man.
As one of Ged's teachers says:
'To change a rock into a jewel, you must change its true name. And to do that, my son, even to so small a scrap of the world, is to change the world...It is dangerous, that power...To light a candle is to cast a shadow...' He looked down at the pebble again. 'A rock is a good thing, too, you know...If the Isles of Earthsea were all made of diamond, we'd lead a hard life here.'
That is good foreshadowing, and speaks to the main theme of the book, which is about the importance of knowing and being yourself, with your own scars and shadows and imperfections. The humble also has value, and one's dark side, if unacknowledged, can take on a life of its own. Ged eventually works this out, and it is what enables him to be as simultaneously humble and kind and powerful as he is in the rest of the series.
2. She's sort of this world's Helen of Troy, in that she is supposed to be the most beautiful woman ever, and was involved in some tragic saga, which makes me wonder if this is a deliberate nod to 'Faust'.
3. OK, I know what some of you might be thinking, but wizards are functionally asexual & aromantic in this series. In book 4 we find out why that is. There isn't a clear indication for Vetch, but Ged's natural inclination seems to be toward women. There is another character I wonder about, though, especially given LeGuin's deliberate explorations of gender and sexuality in her science fiction works...but more on that in the books 3-5 post.
Book 2: The Tombs of Atuan
This was actually the first book of the series I read. I found the original trilogy in a box of books in my parents' attic and got excited to see a fantasy book with a woman on the cover who looked like she was in charge or at least an active participant. That impression was absolutely correct. I still think it works well as a starting place or stand-alone story; it has a bit more of a gothic vibe than the other Earthsea books.
The story focuses on a young girl who has been raised as the chief priestess of nameless subterranean eldritch gods. She is known only as Arha, "the eaten one". Her initiation is described like this:
Alone, the child climbed up four of the seven steps of red-veined marble. They were so broad and high that she had to get both feet onto one step before attempting the next. On the middle step, directly in front of the throne, stood a large rough block of wood, hollowed out on top. The child knelt on both knees and fitted her head into the hollow, turning it a little sideways...A figure in a belted gown of white wool...swung the sword, held in both hands, up over the little girl's neck. The drum stopped beating. As the blade swung to its highest point and poised, a figure in black darted out...and stayed the sacrificer's arms with slenderer arms...So they balanced for a moment...dancer-like above the motionless child whose white neck was bared by the parting of her black hair..."O let the Nameless Ones behold the girl given to them, who is verily the one born ever nameless...Let her be eaten!"
Arha is theoretically in a position of privilege, as the high-priestess-to-be. But it is an incredibly lonely position and her upbringing is strict, with very little affection, color, beauty, or fun.
There is a labyrinth under the temple, and as she reaches her teens she begins to explore and use it; she is the only one who is supposed to know its secrets. One day, she spots a light in one of the tunnels through a peep-hole, and sees a man in the tunnels.
He was standing there, one hand on his hip, the other holding out at an angle the wooden staff, as tall as he was, to the tip of which clung the soft will-o'-the-wisp...His spell of opening had failed...He looked about him, as if thinking, now what?...He laughed then, a short laugh, that of a man who thinks "What a fool I've made of myself!"...as he glanced upward Arha saw the smile lingering on his dark face. Then he sat down, unslung his pack, got out a piece of dry bread, and munched on it.
This is begins to plant the seeds of doubt: why didn't the Nameless Ones kill this stranger for profaning their darkness?
It should be noted that this is not a love story. While there are a lot of "awakening to womanhood" elements, these primarily involve Arha rediscovering the self-identity that her weird religious upbringing tried to strip from her - including her true name, Tenar - and learning to trust another person. Tenar feels convincingly like a teenage girl trying to pretend she is wiser and tougher and cooler than she actually is. She is very smart and capable, but, like Ged in the first book, she still has a lot of learning and growing to do.
**Skip to "overall recommendation" if you want to avoid spoilers**
If you'd read the first book, you'd immediately recognize the adventurer as Ged/Sparrowhawk - but Arha doesn't know this, and neither did I on my first reading, which heightened the mystery. She is supposed to have any stranger - and particularly any man - who enters the temple area or the labyrinth killed, but she doesn't want to. He has awakened her curiosity about the outside world. She directs the stranger around using the peepholes and, when he passes out from hunger and thirst, her eunuch servant reluctantly helps her move him to a chamber where he can be locked up. She starts visiting Sparrowhawk, and learns that he is there looking for an ancient artifact, half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. Eventually, the elder priestesses catch on, and she has to make a decision whether to do her duty and kill him and hope to be forgiven, or for both of them to escape together. They do the latter, of course, with her leading them both out of the labyrinth.
There's a moment after they escape where she has this flash of "What am I now?" anger and despair. She thinks maybe she should kill Ged as a sacrifice to the old gods and maybe then she could have her old identity back. It is an empty thing that brings her no joy, but it is familiar, and therefore comforting. And Ged realizes this, but he doesn't do anything to try to stop her or argue her out of it; he just waits until she pulls herself together and moves past it...or doesn't. I like that, because it illustrates how both moving past trauma and defining your own purpose are really difficult, and aren't finished just because you made one good decision.
Overall recommendation: I highly, highly recommend checking this series out. The first two are especially good if you are looking for high fantasy that has a story relevant to young people in the 12-21 age range. I actually remember being a bit puzzled over the Harry Potter mania in middle school because I'd already read these4. The first two Earthsea books pack in so much adventure, such awesome worldbuilding, and so many good, relatable messages about finding yourself...and they do it, collectively, in half the page count of the first HP book! Not that you have to be a young person to enjoy these books; it is an "adult" fantasy series that is also accessible and appropriate for younger readers. The last three books, on the other hand, only feel more relevant as I get older. But more on that next time...
4. I was like: "OK, this is entertaining, I guess. But Harry is kind of boring as a character, the magic system is inconsistent, and people have been writing about magic schools for decades. Why is THIS the fantasy series that caught so much mainstream attention?"
