Re-read review: Earthsea (books 3-5), by Ursula LeGuin
The first two books in the Earthsea saga were coming of age stories for the primary POV characters, Ged and Tenar. The final three books feature these characters as mature adults, and besides continuing the focus on identity also deal in themes of change, mortality, healing from trauma, and rethinking the world.
Book 3: The Farthest Shore
While it is part of the original trilogy, this story takes place twenty-five years after 'The Tombs of Atuan'. Thematically, it bridges the two halves of the series, being a coming-of-age story for a new POV character, the prince Arren, and an exploration of change and death.
Arren comes to see Sparrowhawk/Ged, who is now Archmage on Roke, with a message from his father the prince of Enlad. Magic has been fading on some of the islands of the archipelago - spells no longer work, and the people seem apathetic and sickly. After consulting with the other master wizards, Ged decides to travel with Arren to try and find the source of the trouble. Ged has always been a doer, and he is eager to be off on a new adventure after so many years. At the same time, he cautions Arren that the temptation to always do things, as a person of power, carries a danger of upsetting the balance; he suspects that this may be what underlies the loss of magic in the world.
They soon discover that the problem is linked to an attempt to conquer death, with some of the former sorcerers claiming they traded their power for eternal life. Trying to track down the wizard responsible, Ged and Arren follow three guides. The first leads to Arren getting captured by slavers, the second to the prince's mind turning against his companion and Ged being injured, but the third guide gets them where they are going. Once there, however, they will need to enter the land of the dead to fix the hole in the world.
Our heroes in this story are an interesting pairing: the taciturn and powerful master wizard with an empathetic heart, and the passionate, impulsive prince. Basically: imagine if in Lord of the Rings the ringbearers were Gandalf and Aragorn, but they kept the sense of vulnerability and close bond of Frodo and Sam, and it is the 17-year-old version of Aragorn so we get a bit of the Arthur-Merlin student-mentor relationship as well. It works surprisingly well, and they both turn out to have traits or skills that are necessary to complete the mission. And if that comparison to Sam and Frodo along with word choice like "passionate" and "close bond" has you going "hmmm": yes, Arren has a really intense "hero crush" on Ged that will have to be the subject of its own essay. Ged, however, seems to only have parental/teacherly affection for Arren - which is probably a good thing given the age difference.
There are a lot more dragons in this book than the previous ones. LeGuin describes the first dragon Arren sees like this:
The dragon stooped like a falcon on the rocking raft...Ninety feet, maybe, he was from tip to tip of his vast membranous wings, that shone in the new sunlight like gold-shot smoke, and the length of his body was no less, but lean, arched like a greyhound, clawed like a lizard, and snake-scaled...his eyes were green and slitted...The voice was soft and hissing...but huge, and there was a terrible music in it. Whoever heard that voice stopped still and listened.
Two dragons in particular actually aid our heroes in their quest: Orm Embar, and the oldest dragon of all, Kalessin.
We get to experience three new human cultures in this book, in addition to spending a bit of time at the wizard school on Roke and hearing Arren and Ged mention aspects of their home islands of Enlad and Gont. The first is Hort Town, which on the surface still has all the color and bustle one would expect from a busy trading port, but underneath has gone rotten. The second is Lorbannery, which used to be a silk-producing island, but which has likewise gone wrong, the silkworm fields and dyehouses abandoned. But the third is the Children of the Open Sea, a short-statured mahogany-skinned people, who live on rafts and only come to shore once a year to repair them. The rest of the time they follow the path of the whales, living off rainwater, fish, and seaweed. Like Rivendell or Lothlorien, Ged and Arren's stay with the raft people is less a part of their main quest and more a place of respite from it, where they can heal and reflect; and, like those Middle Earth locations, it is a place I'd love to visit.
As I alluded to in my review of The Southern Reach Trilogy, I really like the idea of accepting impermanence, of immortality found through rejoining the whole. I think this book might have been the first place I encountered that perspective. Ged describes it best:
Listen to me Arren. 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.
The knowledge of impermanence gives intensity and value to what we have and experience, which is why the islands under the influence of the wizard who seeks to defy death are so depressing:
'Look at the hills, the mortal hills. They do not endure forever...In all the world, in all the worlds, in all the immensity of time, there is no other like each of those streams'...Arren saw the world now with his companion's eyes and saw the living splendor that was revealed about them in the silent, desolate land...So when one stands in a cherished place for the last time before a voyage without return, he sees it all whole, and real, and dear, as he has never seen it before.
Ged tells his rival of the hero Erreth-Akbe, whose shade the other wizard summoned:
His death did not diminish life. Nor did it diminish him...There [in the living world] he is the earth and sunlight, the leaves of trees, the eagle's flight. He is alive. And all who ever died, live...You sold the green earth and the sun and stars to save yourself. But you have no self. All that which you sold, that is yourself.
**Spoilers below! To skip, go to "Book 4" **
The structure of this tale is rather interesting. In many fairytales and fantasies, the young prince with the legendary sword would be the hero, and the wizard the sidekick/mentor; not so here. In finding the Ring of Erreth-Akbe in 'The Tombs of Atuan', Ged found the lost rune of peace, but there was still no true king on the throne. By coming with Ged, Arren fulfills the prophecy that the heir to the throne will have "crossed the dark land living and come to the far shores of the day". While I'm anti-monarchist enough not to be a huge fan of the trope where finding the true king magically restores peace and prosperity to the land, this version works for me because that aspect of the story gets much less emphasis than the musings on the meaning of life and death...and because we get a glimpse in the last book of Arren's approach to ruling, and what makes him a good king.
In an illustration of Ged's point about the dangers of always doing, their enemy proves to be a wizard named Cob, who Ged in his youth had challenged over his practice of summoning the dead. He had shamed Cob by dragging him down into the land of the dead to face the souls he summoned; Cob was so terrified he devoted the rest of his life to trying to find a way to avoid death. Arren carries an ancient sword that is said to be impossible to draw except in the service of life. He finally draws it in the land of the dead and uses it to destroy Cob...which, given the nature of the sword, indicates that Ged was right that seeking immortality devalues life.
The book, and its ending in particular, seems to owe more to 'Lord of the Rings' than the others in this series. Besides the true king regaining his throne, we have two companions venturing into a harsh, waterless land to fix the damage a dark enchanter has done to the world. While Ged is more crucial to this task, he would never have made it in and out without his helper, who at times has to physically drag or carry him. There is no Gollum equivalent - or is there? Ged has already re-absorbed his shadow self. After completing the task, they are carried to safety by a great winged beast - a dragon in this case, rather than an eagle. And the main hero is permanently wounded by his quest in a way that makes going back to life as it was impossible. Regarding Cob's temptations, Arren asks:
'But how is it that all the wizards of the South - and elsewhere by now - even the chanters of the rafts - all have lost their art, but you keep yours?' 'Because I desire nothing beyond my art,' Sparrowhawk said. And after some time he added, more cheerfully, 'And if I am soon to lose it, I shall make the best of it while it lasts.'
That makes it all the more bittersweet that the price for healing the world is giving up his magic.
And yet, at the same time, there are in fact other things Ged longs for. Early in the story he shows Arren a vision of his home island of Gont:
'There is no silence like the silence of those forests,' Sparrowhawk said, yearning...'There,' Sparrowhawk said, looking at Arren with a strange mocking look, 'there, if I could ever go back there, not even you could follow me.'
And that is what he gets. The official version of Ged's legend has him sailing into the west, like Frodo. But in book 4 we learn that the Gontish version of the tale, in which he goes back to his mentor's home (and to Tenar), is true, though reconciling the loss with the gain is not easy.
His face was quiet, and in his eyes there was something like that laughter in the eyes of Kalessin...The red wings lifted with a drumming rattle, and Kalessin the Eldest sprang into the air...It circled the hill once and flew off, north and eastward, toward that quarter of Earthsea where stands the mountain isle of Gont. The Doorkeeper, smiling, said, 'He has done with doing. He goes home.'
Book 4: Tehanu
This book, published 22 years after the original trilogy, returns to Tenar's point of view and explores what happened to her and Ged after their earlier adventures. After 'The Tombs of Atuan', Tenar found she didn't care for all the attention that came with being the co-finder of the Ring of Erreth Akbe, so Ged gave her a lift to Gont, where she stayed with his teacher Ogion. Eventually, she married a farmer, had two kids, and led a peaceful, ordinary life; her husband is now dead, her children grown and off living their own lives. At the beginning of the book, she finds an abused child who was pushed into a fire and left for dead. She helps heal the badly burned girl, names her Therru1, and starts to raise her as her own. Therru has scars all down the right side of her face and body, and a hand that is almost fused into a claw, but Tenar patiently guides the child through her recovery.
They go to see Ogion, who is dying, and on the way she tells the child a tale. Once Ogion heard someone singing: "Farther west than west/Beyond the land/My people are dancing/On the other wind". So Ogion knocked on the door, but:
In that first moment, he told me, it was no woman he saw at all in the doorway, but a blaze and glory of fire, and a glitter of gold scales and talons...Then that was gone, and he saw no dragon, but an old woman standing there in the doorway.
The woman told Ogion that once humans and dragons were one, but eventually made different choices, and separated. But there are some people who still remember that they were once dragons, and dragons who live on the far side of the world, "wild and wise with human mind and dragon heart".
Before he dies Ogion urges Tenar to teach Therru - teach her magic, it is implied - seeming to see something important in her. Not long afterward, a dragon lands on a nearby cliff, carrying an unconscious Ged. Tenar sets about healing him, too, though the local witch is skeptical he has enough self left to heal. Therru's abusive family is still around, and Tenar and Ged are initially focused on protecting her. But when an unfriendly wizard threatens Therru's new parents, it's her turn to safeguard them. The story explores a lot of questions, most notably relating to gender roles, the source of identity, healing from trauma, and what makes a family.
1. While Therru is six and so old enough to talk, replacing whatever use name was once chosen by her abusers is a prudent choice.
**Spoilers below! To skip, go to "Book 5"**
Tenar's choice to reject fame and magical teachings to lead the life of an ordinary woman might initially appear anti-feminist. But that ordinary life is exactly what was stolen from her in her youth, and she wants work that builds something, out in the sunlight and fresh air, and love rather than the isolation that comes with being special. This story shows the value of the unsung work that women have traditionally done: feeding people, teaching children, healing the sick and injured, tending to the dying, and keeping the home fires burning. That work isn't the only thing that matters, and it isn't only women who can do it, but it is what enables everything else. When the wizards of Re Albi and Gont Port come, having heard of Ogion's death, they are shocked that this foreign woman had enough of his trust to be the one he sent for, and to whom he told his true name. One of them vehemently hates that that is the case.
Tenar becomes friends with a witch named Aunty Moss. Initially they doubted each other. When looking at the disheveled Moss, Tenar first saw the wicked witch of fairy tales. But she is good with Therru:
'Come with me, dearie!' And she took the child into the fields and showed her a lark's nest in the green hay...She did not have to shut the child in an oven...That had all been done already.
Moss and Tenar have a number of conversations about the role of men and women. Tenar thinks about how many of the apparent differences likely come from training; women's magic is "weak" and "wicked" because witches never get formal training. Moss accepts the differences that are said to exist, but not at all in a way that says women are lesser. She can tell that Ged has lost his magic, and notes:
'A man's in his skin, see, like a nut in its shell...It's all him, and nothing else, inside...[If he's a wizard] His power's himself, see...When his power goes, he's gone. Empty...A woman's a different thing entirely...I have roots deeper than this island...Who'll ask the dark its name?'
To which Tenar replies: "I will...I lived long enough in the dark."
Ged does indeed struggle with his identity, but he isn't as broken as Moss predicts. Like Therru, he'll never be the same as he once was, but he can be a whole person in different ways. As soon as he gains strength he starts helping Tenar, doing "women's work" without question2. A romance begins to grow between Ged and Tenar, and she wonders out loud why they never thought about each other like that before. Moss explains that wizards - unlike witches and sorcerers - put a spell on themselves that banishes any such thoughts both from themselves and anyone interacting with them. So there are things gained as well as lost, from the change! Tenar jokes that he's become a man, but is quick to clarify that she doesn't actually think that: "You were a man when I first saw you! It's not a weapon or a woman can make a man, or magery either, or any power, anything but himself."
Therru has her own non-magical wounds to heal. She makes progress, but after running into her abusers again withdraws into her shell:
It's so easy, [Tenar] thought with rage, it's so easy for Handy to take the sunlight from her, take the ship and the king and her childhood from her, and it's so hard to give them back!
Tenar makes her a red dress, and remarks how beautiful she looks. Therru rejects this idea, but Tenar insists:
You have scars, ugly scars, because an ugly evil thing was done to you. People see the scars. But they see you, too, and you aren't the scars. You aren't ugly. You aren't evil...You are Therru who can work, and walk, and run, and dance, beautifully, in a red dress.
However, Therru isn't just a hurt little girl. She is also one of those human dragons, and when the wizard of Re Albi tries to kill Tenar and Ged, she instinctively calls on the aid of her relative, the dragon Kalessin. Kalessin calls Therru 'daughter', and by her true name, Tehanu, and asks Ged and Tenar to keep looking after her until she is grown.
2. Just like Ogion, because wizards are always bachelors.. Tenar doesn't mention it, thinking 'It would be a pity...if he started fearing that his dignity hung by a dishcloth'.
Book 5: The Other Wind
Although Ursula LeGuin once again planned to leave the world of Earthsea after the fourth book, the previous tales raised several ideas that she clearly decided needed further exploration. One of course is the concept of human dragons like Therru/Tehanu. What exactly will she grow up to be or do? What was the choice that split humans and dragons into two such distinctive sets of beings in the first place? The other is the apparent conflict between the belief in reincarnation held by Tenar's people - and by Ged, to some degree - with the depiction of the underworld in 'The Farthest Shore':
All those whom they saw...stood still, or moved slowly and with no purpose...Quiet were their faces, freed from anger and desire, and there was in their shadowed eyes no hope...Instead of fear, then, great pity rose up in Arren, and if fear underlay it, it was not for himself, but for all people. For he saw the mother and child who died together; but the child did not run, nor did cry, and the mother did not hold it or ever look at it. And those who had died for love passed each other in the streets3.
This book, published in 2001, eleven years after the fourth, finds a single answer to both those sets of questions.
A sorcerer named Alder seeks out Ged for help regarding troubling dreams. Every night he finds himself drawn to the wall of stones at the edge of the underworld. First he saw his dead wife, who kissed him over the wall of stones, then his mentor, who was trying to take the wall apart, and finally a whole host of shades. All of them beg him to help them, to set them free. Though Ged reminds Alder that he has no magic to help him with now, he is troubled and intrigued. Always before the dead seemed to forget both their loves and their suffering - so what has changed? He reflects for the first time on the fact that only humans go to the underworld: there are no plants or birds or goats there, nor even any dragons, though they seem to have minds and selves much like ours. He finds Alder an emotional support kitten, whose touch soothes his dreams, and sends him to Havnor, where Tenar and Tehanu are visiting the king.
King Lebannen (Arren) has mixed feelings about his visitor. Though, as he remarks, he will welcome anyone who brings word from Ged, he is jealous that Alder was able to visit his old mentor and friend4 when he cannot. And the nature of the message just adds to his heap of troubles, which include dragon attacks in the West Reach, and the delivery of a Kargish princess that he doesn't want to marry. He doesn't seem to want to marry anyone, actually. He has stubbornly stayed single for fifteen years at this point, and he is furious about being forced into a political match with a girl who hides behind her veils and can't speak Hardic.
The Kargish princess, for her part, is terrified. Where she comes from, all Archipelagans are considered sorcerers, cursed to never be reborn. And she never knew there were other languages, so she thinks the courtiers are mocking her. So when Tenar arrives, escorting Tehanu, she has to take on the task of calming Lebannen down and getting him to be less rude to the poor girl, and teaching the princess about the local customs and language. She is a bit frustrated at having to play mother to three theoretically grown up people - Tehanu too doesn't quite know how to own her own power - when she just wants to be home helping Ged with the garden.
As the king and his advisors ponder the matter of the dragons, who seem to be trying to drive humans off the western islands, a wizard named Onyx tells the story of a girl who came to Roke. At the time, the school was headed by Thorion, who had crossed over to the underworld while Ged was there and then returned. He refused to have the girl within the walls, but she studied with the others in the Immanent Grove. When Thorion came to challenge her, calling her by her name, Irian, she transformed into a dragon and turned him to dust5 before flying into the west. Tehanu begs that they call on her, eager to meet another of her own kind. The answer they discover to all three questions - why the dead are calling for release, why dragons are claiming islands to the west, and why some people are both human and dragon - will change the world.
3. Incidentally, this is very similar to the ancient Mesopotamian view of the underworld, the Old Testament 'Sheol', and the part of Hades inhabited by ordinary people (those who were neither exceptionally evil nor great heroes) in Greek mythology.
4. Or, as Lebannen thinks of him, "the man he loved." That intensity of emotion is still there, and he wears a rock from the mountains of Pain they crossed over his heart always.
5. No one much seems to mourn him. This is explained in one of the short stories in 'Tales From Earthsea'.
**Spoilers below! To skip, go to "overall recommendation" **
Tehanu proves crucial in parlaying with the dragons. As eager as she is to talk to Orm Irian, she is terrified to leave Tenar; but Tenar insists, knowing that Tehanu must come to know her own power. Meanwhile, Tenar goes to talk to the Kargish princess, who is newly terrified because she has heard about the dragons and is afraid she'll be sacrificed to them. She calms the princess down and learns her name: Seserakh. The princess tells her a tale of how the accursed-sorcerers traded their rebirth for the ability to do magic.
Some of the dragons wish to regain half the islands from men but, according to Irian, Kalessin told the dragons:
'Long ago we chose. We chose freedom. Men chose the yoke. We chose fire and wind. They chose water and earth. We chose the west, and they the east...But always among us some envy them their wealth, and always among them some envy us our liberty... These two are the messengers of choice. There will be no more such born to us or the. For the balance changes...Choose. Come with me to fly on the far side of the world, on the other wind. Or stay and put on the yoke of good and evil. Or dwindle into dumb beasts.'
Echoing Sesarakh, Irian tells the council that dragons fear nothing but "your spells of immortality." This confuses most of the hearers.
Tehanu proposes to take up these matters in the Immanent Grove on Roke, the heart of the world. On the suggestion of Tenar, Lebannen at last goes to talk to Seserakh and asks her to come with them on behalf of the Kargad lands. She agrees, and he notices at last her dignity and courage. On the journey, Seserakh tells Lebannen a story that connects Kalessin's tale of the split between humans and dragons to the underworld: to become as they are, humans gave up the True Speech as their native tongue, but the Archipelagans continued to learn it as the language of magic, and some of them used it to try and prevent death, dooming themselves to never be reborn. Others add to this story when they reach Roke. The Master Namer says men learned runes and gave themselves true names that endure beyond the body's death. Irian retorts:
Do you think we dragons fly only on the winds of this world?...You wanted land to own, you wanted things to make and keep. And you have that...But you were not content with your share...And by the spells and wizardries of those oath-breakers, you stole half our realm from us, walled it away from life and light, so that you could live there forever.
That act was what created the underworld. In walling it off, they stopped the winds blowing, and the springs dried up, and it became a dark, bleak place.
And so that is the answer that connects everything: The spells of Cob and Thorion disturbed the border between life and death, reminding the dragons of the ancient theft, and waking up the dead, who clamor for release - not to their old life, but to return to the cycle. Alder and Tehanu, in a vision of sorts, begin removing the stones of the wall, and the wizards and Irian and the king go to join them. Tehanu transforms into a dragon for the first time, flying up to meet Kalessin, who has also come to help. The dead stream out through the gaps, and vanish as they step into the sunlight.
Ged is more of a secondary character in this book, but his perspective is still interesting. He has clearly made peace with his new life - we see him puttering around the farm contentedly doing all kinds of simple tasks. Yet, at the same time, he misses the old one. He is excited by the idea that the world is changing, and:
He remembered how he had used to speak the name of the sparrowhawk, the marsh hawk, the grey eagle, calling them down from the sky to him in a rush of wings to grasp his arm with iron talons and glare at him, eye to wrathful, golden eye...None of that any more. He could boast, calling this house his eyrie, but he had no wings. But Tehanu did. The dragon's wings were hers to fly on.
On the cusp of things, as the dead demand their release so loudly that all Earthsea can hear them, Ged grins: 'He had always liked that pause, that fearful pause, the moment before things changed.'
All of the characters get a happy ending of sorts. Alder at last sees his wife at the wall. He takes her hand, and they cross together, presumably to be reborn - meaning he never returns to his body. When the others do, the Patterner tells Tenar:
'My lady, I saw Tehanu. She flies golden on the other wind.'...She struggled and then said, speaking roughly and almost inaudibly, 'Whole?' He nodded. She stroked Alder's hand, the mender's hand, fine, skillful. Tears came into her eyes.
Presumably this is because he, indirectly, mended Tehanu. That means Tenar loses her; but she already knew you can't hold on to your children forever. Seserakh helps call Lebannen back to life, and they get married. We don't get his POV on that decision, and the traditional fairytale ending feels a bit off - but, again, that's a subject for a separate essay.
As for Ged and Tenar, he once told her of the Immanent Grove:
'You can walk a long time in [the trees'] shadow, in their light, and never come to the end of them.' 'But is Roke so large an island?' He looked at her peacefully, smiling. 'The forests here on Gont are that forest,' he said. 'All forests are.'
That thought brings her comfort on her travels, imagining that he might be just around the bend of the next path. And so at last she is relieved to go home, and find him watering the cabbages. She tells him about everything that happened. And then:
'Tell me,' she said, 'tell me what you did while I was gone.' 'Kept the house.' 'Did you walk in the forest?' 'Not yet,' he said.
Which I think is as lovely and slightly bittersweet an ending as Sam's "Well, I'm back," at the end of Lord of the Rings.
Overall recommendation: These books are more challenging than the first two, but still highly recommended. Older readers (those of us over 30) will probably relate to and appreciate them more than younger readers do. Or at least that was the case for me, comparing my reaction to them at age 18 versus 36.
