The First Book of Earthsea
A Wizard of Earthsea is the story of the great wizard known as Sparrowhawk and his travels in the giant archipelago that is the world of Earthsea. Sparrowhawk gets himself in a mighty bit of trouble in an ill-advised act of pride while training as a wizard and spends much of the story dealing with the consequences.
I think of this book, and a few others like it, as a sort of bridge between fairy tales and the huge fantasy epics that are so alive and well today. It is short and to the point, but still stuffed with creative details. We may think of the elements of this story as typical (perhaps even cliché) for a “high fantasy” story, but that’s because they were in this one first, which influenced so many other stories to follow.
A Wizard of Earthsea is loaded with all the things I’ve always loved about fantasy stories, the things that made me a fantasy fanatic. There are wizards learning their craft as well as lessons about themselves. There is a fight with dragons and a seemingly impossible quest. And, of course, there’s plenty of magic: magical objects and magical places and magical practice. Of course it would be boring if every problem could be solved just with magic. Sparrowhawk, however, is also gifted with cleverness, tenacity, and strength, a good balance of abilities for a high fantasy hero.
While the action of the story moves quickly and is really enjoyable, what gives the novel an extra boost are the brilliant descriptive details. Here is an example from the beginning of the chapter titled “The Dragon of Pendor”:
West of Roke in a crowd between the two great lands Hosk and Ensmer lie the Ninety Isles. The nearest to Roke is Serd and the farthest is Seppish, which lies almost in the Pelnish Sea; and whether the sum of them is ninety is a question never settled, for if you count only isles with freshwater springs you might have seventy, while if you count every rock you might have a hundred and still not be done; and then the tide would change.
LeGuin is a beautifully gifted storyteller, and I have enjoyed whatever I’ve read that she has written. (I highly recommend the science fiction novels The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed.) I’d love to give you a good explanation, or even an excuse, for why I had never read A Wizard of Earthsea before, but I don’t have one. Shame on me.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
I know you've got a long list of "to read" books to keep you busy for the next ten months or so, but Cate and I read a trilogy last summer, Dragon Slippers, Dragon Flight, and Dragon Spear, that you'd probably enjoy. It's considered YA, but it's a good story. I believe the author is Jessica Day George.
ReplyDeleteI've only ever read one thing by Ursula K. LeGuin, a short story about a utopia that exists only because there is one child chosen ever generation to endure the hardships for the rest of the population. Are you familiar with this story? I read it in college, and I'd very much like to revisit it, but I have no clue what it's called.
I'm always looking for new things to read. Thanks for the recommendations (and I'd love to talk to Cate about stories we've both read.)
ReplyDeleteI don't know the LeGuin story. It sounds intriguing!
I found it! It's called "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." Here is an interesting article about it. http://jeffersonflanders.wordpress.com/2006/07/26/summer-reading-ursula-k-le-guin/
ReplyDeleteI also found the actual story!
ReplyDeletehttp://harelbarzilai.org/words/omelas.txt
Cool! Thanks!
DeleteI'd also like to recommend _The Lathe of Heaven_. The best Fantasy/SF writers can use the format to look at topics that they could not address in "mundane" fiction because the reader's ideological knowledge tends to totally block any attempt to examine things the average reader would like to keep as unthinking absolutes.
ReplyDelete