Ursula K. le Guin: Tehanu (1990)

Edition: Bantam, 1991
Review number: 902

It is rare for a sequel written many years later to match up with a famous original, and Tehanu is not an exception to this rule. In time it follows on immediately from the end of The Farthest Shore, and it continues the story of Tenar, one-time priestess of the Nameless Ones in The Tombs of Atuan. Rejecting the fame she could have had, she married a farmer from the island of Gont, birthplace of Sparrowhawk, the central character of all the Earthsea books. She is now a widow whose grown up children have left home, and she takes in a small girl, victim of extreme abuse - rescued from a fire in which she was put by her father, she is terribly scarred.

Tehanu is much more aimed at adults than the original trilogy, even if they had a dark side which would make them unsuitable for younger children. Its intended audience is probably those who, like myself, had enjoyed the first three novels at the appropriate age and who had grown up by the time Tehanu came out. Even so, it is a disappointment.

Ursula K. le Guin: The Farthest Shore (1973)

Edition: Puffin, 1974
Review number: 883

The third, and for many years, final, volume of le Guin's Earthsea series is again a bleak novel. It is more explicitly about death than the earlier two - that is what the title refers to - though it is treated in a less personal way here and so The Farthest Shore may be a novel suitable for younger children than The Tombs of Atuan.

Sparrowhawk is now an old man by Earthsea standards (about fifty), and is Archmage of the wizard's isle of Roke. There, the wizards begin to hear rumours from the farthest reaches of Earthsea that magic is ceasing to work. A prince from the West Reach comes with a definite message to this effect, and Sparrowhawk sets off with him on a quest to find out what is happening.

This turns out to be, in fact, people giving up their power for a promise of eternal life. The life they then have is only a pale reflection of real living, and brings a grey world without emotion or joy - or magic. It is possible that there is a subtext here about the way in which Puritan Christianity suppressed the practice of magic, but this may be reading rather too much into le Guin's writing.

While The Farthest Shore was a satisfying conclusion to the series when it was a trilogy, the first two novels are more memorable; the characters of A Wizard of Earthsea and the setting of The Tombs of Atuan make each of these books stick in the mind. This is probably a reason behind the eventual composition of Tehanu, though that too has a lesser impact.

Ursula K. le Guin: The Tombs of Atuan (1972)

Edition: Puffin, 1974
Review number: 860

Of the three novels making up the original Earthsea trilogy, The Tombs of Atuan is most obviously aimed at children. This is not so much because of its content (like the others, it's unusually dark for a children's story) but because of what might have been its content; if it had been written for adults, there are several areas which le Guin would probably have explored more thoroughly.

The central character of The Tombs of Atuan is a young girl, believed to be the reincarnation of the Priestess of the Tombs, a centre for the power of primordial dark spirits, the Nameless Ones. At the age of six, she is taken to the Temple where her name is ceremonially taken from her (names are of extreme importance in the trilogy), so that she becomes Arha, the Eaten One. After some years, she suddenly discovers that a man has broken into the Labyrinth beneath the Temple, the place where no one but her is permitted to go. This man is Sparrowhawk, the central character of the trilogy, who is searching for a lost magical item.

The depiction of the ritual of the Temple an the dark fear which is the general attitude to the Nameless Ones is an important part of the novel, and the former clearly owes something to anthropological descriptions of rituals and Jungian ideas about them. (Le Guin's father was an anthropologist.) It is all very convincing. This could have been more developed in an adult novel, whose readers would be less impatient to move on with the story. The political rivalry between the various priestesses is another area which could have been made more of; Arha is nominally most important, but the middle-aged High Priestess of the newer cult of the Godking is a more dominant personality, and it is her temple, of the deified ruler of the empire in which the island of Atuan is situated, which receives rich gifts and patronage.

The obsession which Arha feels about Sparrowhawk definitely seems to have a sexual side, the fascination of a young teenage girl for the first man she has seen since she was brought to the Temple except her eunuch slaves. This is hinted at quite clearly, but it is another aspect of the novel which might have been made more explicit if it had been aimed at adult readers. In fact, it is picked up in Tehanu, the novel later added to the trilogy, which is meant to be read by adults.

It is common for the middle volume in a trilogy to be the poorest; though this is true of The Tombs of Atuan it is not for the usual reasons (and is, of course, a judgement only relative to the others). Still an excellent young adult fantasy story, it could have formed the nucleus of a greater adult novel.

Ursula K. Le Guin: A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)

Edition: Puffin, 1971

I enjoy Le Guin's writing much more when it is not being used to promote a particular agenda; this is not because of disagreement with what she is trying to say, but because the serious nature of her intention tends to overshadow the story itself. Even after more than twenty years since I first read this novel, and despite it being aimed at (older) children, A Wizard of Earthsea still holds my imagination more than any of her other stories.

Le Guin's story seems at first to be a retelling of one of the stock scenarios of young adult fantasy, the story of a young magician coming into his power. However, at least two things make the novel stand out. The first is the use which is made of the contrast between the noble, courtly and lettered, and the simple, folky and illiterate. Sparrowhawk, born in a poor village, yearns for the nobility that his magic gifts could bring; but as he grows he takes knowledge from the noble but must learn wisdom - in particular, patience, humility and self-control - from those closer to his own background. Even today, and despite Tolkien's example, most fantasy almost exclusively concentrates on the very highest levels of feudal society, at the expense of the less glamourous commoners.

The other important element is the nature of Sparrowhawk's struggle. This is not a story of a battle against evil in the world or of other men's devising (though he does fight dragons). In a foolish, forbidden duel with another student wizard, Sparrowhawk sets free a shadow, an evil presence from the world of the dead; he himself has to overcome it. It is against the consequences of his own pride that he fights, and le Guin gives the shadow an evil spirituality which is quite frightening. more so than purely phsyical dangers would be.

Through the battle with the shadow le Guin is trying to make a point, but it is kept more in check than usual and is sufficiently general that it doesn't overwhelm the story. This point is that it is often ourselves who are our own greatest enemies when it comes to growing up, to becoming who we could be at our best.

When this slightly deeper than usual storyline is presented in a well imagined and realised background with good characterisation, the result is a classic, and that is what A Wizard of Earthsea and its sequels have become.