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Ursula K. Le Guin
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A Wizard of Earthsea: The First Book of Earthsea (The Earthsea Quartet 1) Kindle Edition
by Ursula K. Le Guin (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.4 out of 5 stars 4,383 ratings
Book 1 of 6: The Earthsea Cycle
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Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth.
Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.
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Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, but once he was called Sparrowhawk, a reckless youth, hungry for power and knowledge, who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.
From the Paperback edition. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.
From the Publisher
Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the finest writers of our time. Her books have attracted millions of devoted readers and won many awards, including the National Book Award, the Hugo and Nebula Awards and a Newbery Honor. Among her novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed and the six books of Earthsea have attained undisputed classic status; and her recent series, the Annals of the Western Shore, has won her the PEN Center USA Children's literature award and the Nebula Award for best novel. In 2014 Ursula Le Guin was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. She lived in Portland, Oregon, until she passed away in January 2018.
Read more at http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/le_guin_ursula_k --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Review
[This] trilogy made me look at the world in a new way, imbued everything with a magic that was so much deeper than the magic I'd encountered before then. This was a magic of words, a magic of true speaking - Neil Gaiman
The Earthsea trilogy . . . is a memorable exploration of the relationship between life and death. . . Ged, its hero, must face his shadow self before it devours him. Only then will he become whole. In the process, he must contend with the wisdom of dragons: ambiguous and not our wisdom, but wisdom nonetheless - Margaret Atwood
A Wizard of Earthsea reads like the retelling of a tale first told centuries ago, and whose twists and turns have been handed down through generations of storytellers. It is timeless. . . . Le Guin's words are magical. Drink this magic up. Drown in it. Dream it - David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
About the Author
Ursula K. Le Guin (19292018) was an American author of novels, childrens books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry, literary criticism, and essays. She was widely recognized as one of the greatest science fiction writers in the history of the genre. She won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards on several occasions, as well as the National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, and many other honors and prizes. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
[This] trilogy made me look at the world in a new way, imbued everything with a magic that was so much deeper than the magic I'd encountered before then. This was a magic of words, a magic of true speaking - Neil Gaiman
The Earthsea trilogy . . . is a memorable exploration of the relationship between life and death. . . Ged, its hero, must face his shadow self before it devours him. Only then will he become whole. In the process, he must contend with the wisdom of dragons: ambiguous and not our wisdom, but wisdom nonetheless - Margaret Atwood
A Wizard of Earthsea reads like the retelling of a tale first told centuries ago, and whose twists and turns have been handed down through generations of storytellers. It is timeless. . . . Le Guin's words are magical. Drink this magic up. Drown in it. Dream it - David Mitchell, author of Cloud Atlas --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
Book Description
The first in one of the greatest fantasy sequences of our time. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Product details
ASIN : B00VRT46BM
Publisher : Gateway (27 April 2015)
Language : English
File size : 4515 KB
Text-to-Speech : Enabled
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Not Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 188 pagesBest Sellers Rank: 4,238 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)16 in Asian Myth & Legend
35 in Fiction Classics
68 in Fantasy & Magic for ChildrenCustomer Reviews:
4.4 out of 5 stars 4,383 ratings
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Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (US /ˈɜːrsələ ˈkroʊbər ləˈɡwɪn/; born October 21, 1929) is an American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry and essays. First published in the 1960s, her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography.
She influenced such Booker Prize winners and other writers as Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell – and notable science fiction and fantasy writers including Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin has resided in Portland, Oregon since 1959.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Top reviews from Australia
Lily Sharp
4.0 out of 5 stars A Taoist parable cleverly disguised as a fantasy novelReviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 7 June 2018
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A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin follows the prideful young wizard Sparrowhawk as he discovers his magic, releases a terrible shadow, then spends a decade defeating the monster he created. A realistically flawed protagonist, great prose and moral lessons on overcoming the darkness within, pride, power and desire; a Taoist parable cleverly disguised as a fantasy novel.
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kk.ausbooks
3.0 out of 5 stars Start to a popular fantasy series that didn't grab meReviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 7 August 2018
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The writing style of this book just didn't engage me. It read like a fable / bedtime story which meant it was always telling a story in a detached way. There was little development of characters, or world building which is a shame because I think the world itself and the magic system are quite interesting.
There just wasn't enough to hold my interest and have me wanting to continue the series.
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Lou
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable, but not as much as I'd hoped....Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 12 June 2018
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I know a lot of people consider this book a classic, but while I enjoyed it, I didn't *love* it.
Mainly, I just feel like I never really engaged with the main character Ged "Sparrowhawk". Arguably, his arrogance and desperate need to prove himself regardless of the repercussions is what drives the books plot, and perhaps younger readers may be more forgiving of this, but I found him to be impetuous, foolish, and directionless, and this lessened my enjoyment of an otherwise well-written and well crafted novel.
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BruceMc
4.0 out of 5 stars It has some drama without reaching great heights. The wizard Ged swings from innocent to ...Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 17 May 2018
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In my opinion, this is a pleasant story. It has some drama without reaching great heights. The wizard Ged swings from innocent to over proud and overbearing to withdrawn and awed by most people. I liked this story and gave it 4 stars.
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mcaldwell
5.0 out of 5 stars BrilliantReviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 15 October 2022
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An inspirational story about self discovery which is wrapped in language and story telling that is uncommon in a world of doom scrolling and fear mongering keeping minds closed.
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brian's thoughts
5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely classicReviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 6 November 2017
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Lovely classic book. A little long and hard to read in places but I think that is more a symptom of our current world than of the writing style. Thank you Ms Ursula - if only such things as these were true.
2 people found this helpful
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Claire
5.0 out of 5 stars Profound philosophy masking as a children’s bookReviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 26 September 2019
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I love the philosophy underpinning this book and the skill with which Le Guin brings it to the page. Her prose is beautiful and the story, while simple, will stay with me.
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Chris Holmes
5.0 out of 5 stars A Mature Author with a Great Surprise.Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 7 June 2018
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A real pleasure. A flight of fancy that captives; perhaps even enslaves.
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Max Speed
5.0 out of 5 stars I read this 40 years ago - a joy to rediscover itReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 23 February 2020
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This book, the first of a trilogy, has inspired so many other authors, from Neil Gaiman to Ian Banks, or even underpinning the world of Harry Potter. A must read of the magical fantasy coming of age genre, complete with a magical school.
I first read this when I was 11 or 12 years old, I’ve just now re-read it, and, nostalgia aside, it is an amazing work. I was struck now by the quality of the writing, beautifully formed sentences, built from unusual and evocative words. And in this book, words have real power, naming a creature or object is what gives magical power over it.
So if you enjoy fantasy, magic & self-discovery, this is a must read to discover the author who inspired so many after her.
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Randal
5.0 out of 5 stars and I like reading on kindle these daysReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 11 December 2017
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I still have my hardback copy of this bought back in 1971, but I wanted to read it again, and I like reading on kindle these days, hence I bought the electronic version. This is the first in a fabulous trilogy. (I'm less keen on the fourth book written some years later. Stick with the trilogy!) One of the best books/trilogies ever on the consequences of magic, and about taking responsibilities for our actions. Deep characterisation and a beautifully drawn world. Also a thrilling adventure. I can't recommend it highly enough.
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Peter James West
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting story told with great skillReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 12 May 2019
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This is the first Ursula K. Le Guin story I have read. It was written in 1968, pre-dating my birth. The story is about a young boy who becomes a mage, learns his trade and makes some pretty terrible mistakes along the way.
A large part of the book features the boy Ged searching for a mysterious entity that he has unwhittingly unleashed upon the world.
For a while I thought he might have been looking for a consistent point of view because it certainly wandered all over the place, roaming between multiple characters and the omnipresent voice often within the same scene. In a modern novel this would be frowned upon but I guess in 1968, authors were playing with a very different rule book.
Luckily this author handled the odd style well and enriched the story with many beautiful details about the characters and settings. Some of the description added real depth to the story. I enjoyed this story quite a bit.
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E. Hart
5.0 out of 5 stars Never heard of it but such a genReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 11 February 2022
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This is truly perfect book from towards the end of classics fantasy. This book he's written with an unusual style. Third person omnipotent. But this tells the story of how a young boy becomes a wizard and his growth as a person.
Open till halfway through the book actually hated the main character; proud and arrogant. But then halfway through the book something happened which changes and leads him on a quest to the rest of the novel. This book is like a meditation.
This is a story of a young boy who finds out he is a powerful wizard, who goes to a magical School goes on the quest to confront an enemy that is hunting him but has to die in order to defeat that enemy. This is not the story of Harry potter but the story of sparrow hawk. Was published in 1968. Although TH White introduce the idea of a wizard School, it's actually the author of this book that develops into a proper concrete idea. This is the progenitor of wizard school novels.
Although this book reads like an anthology there is a definite through line of learning of history one of the greatest wizards of earthsea.
Best fantasy book I have ever read.
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Elizabeth O
3.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating readReviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 16 July 2020
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This was interesting - it’s a classic coming of age story about an imperfect hero, Ged, who though he possesses great power and skill, has his own inner flaws. These flaws threaten to rule and consume him, and he finds out that his greatest battle is not against an outer force, but rather, against himself. Though this is written as a fantasy novel, this book holds a special message to the reader that we must know ourselves, understand our failings and weaknesses, and to quote the author know ‘the darkness within’ in order to truly defeat it. We must face our failings, walk towards them, address them, in order to conquer them.
I’m not a fan of the author’s writing style, so I will not be reading other books in this series, but this book was well worth a read!
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===
A Wizard of Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin
4.01
281,983 ratings12,795 reviews
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Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth.
Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.
Genres
Fantasy
Fiction
Young Adult
Classics
Science Fiction Fantasy
Magic
High Fantasy
...more
183 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
Book details & editions
10.2k people are currently reading
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About the author
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Ursula K. Le Guin
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Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon.
She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.
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Kat Kennedy
475 reviews · 15.9k followers
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January 17, 2011
If there were ever a time I'd curse my constant reading of Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance or YA lit, it would be now.
Because clearly, CLEARLY this is a fantastic book that deserved to be finished. Ursula K Le Guin is a phenomenal writer and whilst this book (up to what I read) wasn't absolutely perfect, it was enchanting. It was different, it was QUALITY.
Yet I didn't finish it because, thanks to the aforementioned reading habits, my ability to concentrate and enjoy quality literature has slipped to the point that I am unable to focus on a book unless one of the following is occurring or about to occur.
1) Somebody uses their super awesome powers to take down five bad guys with Kung Fu or a huge sword. Preferably a glowing sword. Preforably also throwing out witty one-liners while doing so.
2) Somebody is boning.
3) Somebody is thinking about boning but can't yet until the sexual tension is properly built.
4) There's some mysterious creature literally murdering someone in a sickeningly violent way.
What A Wizard of Earthsea has shown me is that if my rate of decline continues, then I will quickly morph from a semi-respectable, semi-intelligent, semi-quality individual into this:
snooki
Don't move! It can't see you if you don't move!
What's measurably worse is that I will be proud of my decay and revel in it like a pig wallows in mud.
mud wrestling
Like this only far less appealing to frat boys and those with strange mud fetishes...
Clearly, this descent must be stopped.
If it isn't, the worst could occur. We could all be sucked into a blackhole fuelled by fangirl squees and not nearly enough shame.
JS
Pictured: Not nearly enough shame...
So feel free to help me, Goodreaders. It's obvious I need help. A Wizard of Earthsea deserved a better run on my reading shelf than it got. Even if we have to shoot a Rocky-esque montage to get me back into reading shape, I'm sure it will be worth it.
Rocky
I can use big words again!
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Jeffrey Keeten
2 books · 247k followers
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October 19, 2019
”The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to sate.”
photo Earthsea20Dragon_zps6ietclom.jpg
The Folio Society edition is superbly illustrated by David Lupton.
The boy is born on the island of Gont in the archipelago of Earthsea. This is a world infused with magic. Not everyone can control this magic, but those who know the right words and have a wizard soul can learn to utilize the power of the Earth to manipulate objects and events. The boy’s name is Duny; I can tell you that name because the name has no power over him. His true name is something he can only reveal to those he trusts absolutely beyond question.
I know his true name, but fair reader, I’m not sure yet that I can share it with you.
His aunt knows a few things, a handful of words, that can be used to bind things or call animals to her. Duny is particularly adept at calling falcons and other birds of prey. His agile mind soon surpasses what his aunt can teach him. He burns to know more. He is assigned to a mage, Ogion, who tries to teach him about the balance of magic with the Earth. There is always a cost for using magic. Understanding the levy for sorcery is the difference between being just impulsively talented and being wise about what you know.
”You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard’s power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow….”
If the flap of a butterfly wing in the Amazon can cause a hurricane in Florida, imagine what a wizard can do with power over the weather.
It is kind of funny, but there is this one scene where wizards on different islands use spells to keep the clouds from raining on them. This storm bounces between them like a boiling stew pot. Now, a wizard like Ogion finds shelter under a tree and waits for the rain to stop. To Sparrowhawk, this type of restraint is ridiculous. If you have the power, why not use it?
Duny is Sparrowhawk, and you might think that is his real name, but just because you’ve read a few paragraphs of this review doesn’t mean you’ve endeared yourself to me enough to tell you his real name. Sparrowhawk will suffice for now.
Sparrowhawk becomes impatient with the restrained magic that Ogion teaches, so he is sent to magic school on the Island of Roke. There was a magic school in literature before Hogwarts?
Indeed there was.
The first time he goes to the dining hall to eat, there is only one table. The table, in a very Hogwarts’ fashion, expands to fit as many people who enter to eat. Sparrowhawk is soon recognized as one of the most gifted students. Spells and the names of things flow into his mind like lava, changing the landscape of his brain into something completely different.
He becomes powerful.
He becomes arrogant.
He becomes vengeful on those who don’t appreciate his power.
In a moment of hubris, he summons a dead woman from the distant past and, in the process, opens a rift that nearly kills him. It does kill the old mage who helps him close it.
Something came through.
Sparrowhawk is burned in mind, body, and spirit. He is guilty of a death. The shame and self-condemnation weigh heavily on him. He may become the great wizard he was intended to be, but the road will be much longer now.
The shadow from another world that pursues him becomes the devil on his heels for the rest of the novel. This chase from island to island reminded me of Frankenstein and his pursuit of his monster to the North Pole.
The interesting thing about this novel is that Ursula K. Le Guin’s publisher came to her and asked her to write a book for older kids. Young Adult wasn’t even a term yet in the late 1960s. She wasn’t sure she wanted to write such a book, but she was nagged by the idea of where do great wizards come from? We normally meet them when they are old sages in the vein of a Merlin or a Gandalf. She wanted G__ erhhh Sparrowhawk to be seen as more human, more fallible than how most wizards had been presented before. I liked the emphasis she puts on the importance of words in this novel and the power and magic that resides in knowing the names of things.
I had trepidations about reading this book. I was reassured that I was in the capable hands of a writer I’ve enjoyed before. I have a bit of a knee jerk reaction to the term Young Adult because I’m not a Young Adult. I’m an old fuddy duddy who has a hard time watching commercials on TV geared towards youth. I certainly wince at the idea of spending hours trapped in a book intended for a younger audience. I’m somewhat alarmed at the number of ADULTS who read nothing but Young Adult. The evolution of a reader is for that person to move from picture books, then ride the escalator to Young Adult, and eventually find the elevator that will take them onwards and upwards to adult literature.
I’m still pondering this. Is it an extended childhood? Why would someone always want to read about children or teenagers? Am I generationally challenged on this issue? I am happy that people are reading, and ultimately it is better that they read anything rather than nothing at all, but I do think that the more you read there should be some evolution in what you choose to read. I’m such an eclectic reader that it is difficult for me to understood people being so genre specific with their reading choices. Young Adult now dominates the publishing world. Writers are being encouraged to make changes to their novels so they can be marketed as YA. If I weren’t worried about this trend it would be fascinating.
photo Wizard20of20Earthsea_zpsrdax4ssf.jpg
There are dragon battles, alluring women who try to seduce G_d to their own uses. There are friendships made and lost; there are painful realizations, and there is growth and acceptance of our own limitations. Most importantly, there is a wizard as wise and as powerful as Gandolf or Merlin, who emerges like a Phoenix from the flames of his own childish conceit. His name is Ged, but you must only whisper it, or better yet refer to him as Sparrowhawk, and keep in the locked box at the center of your heart who he really is. ”He hunted, he followed, and fear ran before him.”
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Nataliya
683 reviews · 10.9k followers
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July 24, 2015
"It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul."
This seemingly simple statement actually says a lot about the human nature - just as all the Ursula Le Guin's books that I've read so far seem to do.
***
A Wizard of Earthsea is a simple but beautiful and magical coming-of-age story of a young wizard Ged, who starts out as a brash and cocky boy who in his arrogance unwittingly releases a terrible Shadow upon the world, but who eventually grows up and succeeds in embracing the darker part of himself. A word of caution if you are expecting a traditional fantasy adventure - it is, more than anything, an introspective book, so be warned.
"You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do.
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A 1968 book with a non-white hero! LOVE.
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There are the traditional coming-of-age fantasy elements - wizarding school, true friend, bitter rival, fighting a dragon, finding love. But there is something that sets this story apart from the newer variations on the similar theme, featuring Kvothe and Harry Potter and the like. Part of it, of course, is the narration. The story is told in the fairy tale tradition, with that particular strangely fascinating, lyrical and melodic fairy tale rhythm. But mostly is because instead of focusing on what is on the surface - the learning and the adventures - A Wizard of Earthsea goes straight for the deeper meaning, for what lies beneath the surface.
"You must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on that act. The world is in balance, in Equilibrium. A wizard's power of Changing and Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow.
In her amazing brilliance, Ursula Le Guin takes what could have been a straightforward tale of the fight of good versus evil, and turns it into something more - a lesson in self-discovery and acceptance of the darkness that lives inside all human beings. This is a story about the fascination with knowledge and the temptation of power and dangers of presuming too much and upsetting the natural balance. It is a story about getting to know your own self, including the darkest corners of your soul. And the resulting epic battle of good versus evil... well, let me tell you that the resolution was brilliant and poetic, and I did not see it coming AT ALL.
“He knew now, and the knowledge was hard, that his task had never been to undo what he had done, but to finish what he had begun.”
Ursula Le Guin takes the elements that would be a dangerous set-up for fail in the hands of most other writers and somehow unexpectedly turns them into the strengths of this book. Take the characters - except for Ged, they exist only as sketches to support the ideas in this story; it's not supposed to ever work but it does. She brushes over the years of Ged's life and training in just a few words, not detailing the tedium as many writers are prone to doing. Her worldbuilding is not very detailed, but manages to capture the essence of this world in a few brush pen typewriter strokes. We know Ged is in no danger as from the beginning the book refers to his subsequent adventures as a great mage, but this seeming lack of danger for the protagonist does not diminish neither the suspense nor the enjoyment of the story.
My one criticism goes to the some symbolism overkill (I passionately hated all the high-school teachers' neverending discussions about symbolism - yawn!), but hey - even Le Guin can't be always perfect.
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Wonderful, mesmerizing read that fully deserves 4.5 stars. Loved it dearly and highly recommend.
2012-reads
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Mark Lawrence
72 books · 50.1k followers
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October 2, 2022
I rated this 5* from memory of reading the trilogy (as it then was) back in the late 70s.
My wife has taken to reading to our very disabled daughter (now 13) while I make up her medicines before bedtime (it takes a while, there are 8 drugs that need to be counted out between a 1/3rd of a pill and 4 pills, crushed, mixed with water, sucked into a syringe and administered through a tube that goes through the wall of her stomach!).
Anyway, A Wizard of Earthsea was a recent read, and listening to my wife read it has allowed me to revise my rating to a 4* and review it!
I recall book 2, The Tombs of Atuan, being the one I liked most. I had actually forgotten all the 2nd half of A Wizard of Earthsea.
Ursula Le Guin is undoubtedly an excellent writer in terms of prose and imagination. She uses the language with powerful economy.
AWoE is a short book. 56,000 words compared to the 400,000 word bricks GRRM and Rothfuss put out. I mention Rothfuss as AWoE looks to be an influence, a magic school where our sole point-of-view character is educated from child to man in a form of magic where the true name of things gives power over them.
It is also a very summary book in many ways. Ged's years at the magic school (boys only) introduce us to only two other pupils by name (a friend and a rival), and I don't think we're shown any actual lessons. A lot of ground is covered in very few words which can leave a sense of shallowness and a lack of emotional engagement, which is offset by Le Guin's excellent prose, but not entirely.
The second half of the book, where Ged is variously pursued by or pursuing his nemesis, a magic he foolishly released as a student, was something of a grind for me. There is an awful lot of chasing a shadow across grey, rainy seas past bleak islands while Ged broods.
Obviously it's not as bad as I'm making out or I wouldn't have remembered it as a 5* book or be giving it 4* now. It's powerfully written and quite literary for all that it was written for children. The magic is mysterious, powerful, and used with restraint. The world is interesting and it's a classic for good reason.
I'm not sure what kind of reception if would get if it were released today, but that is an unfair test. We're still talking about this book 50 years after publication, and that's a vast achievement.
It's also interesting to see how the main character is whitewashed on many of the early covers. On the cover of my own copy his top half has conveniently turned into a hawk, sidestepping the 'problem'!
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Robin Hobb
244 books · 95.1k followers
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January 10, 2020
Do you ever re-read books that your long ago self loved? Do they stand up to time?
This one definitely does. I know it doesn't need another five star review from anyone, but if you are looking for a book to introduce a youngster to fantast, this is an excellent one. It has stood the test of time very well. The language is lovely, the challenges our young magic user must meet are solid ones, and while it hints of more adventures to come, it stands very well on its own.
Recommended.
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Manny
23 books · 13.2k followers
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November 20, 2008
How come Harry Potter is the publishing sensation of the century, and this is only a moderately popular cult novel? Life seems unfair sometimes, but I suppose that in a few hundred years it will all have sorted itself out. The ending is one of the best I know in any book.
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Lisa of Troy
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June 10, 2022
In A Wizard of Earthsea, Ged, a young boy, transforms from a young boy with a knack for spells into a full-fledged wizard. However, Ged makes some rookie mistakes and suffer the consequences. Will Ged ever be able to make things rights?
According to James Mustich’s 1,000 Books to Read, A Wizard of Earthsea has influenced writers such as Neil Gaiman, Junot Diaz, and Margaret Atwood. I am sure that these authors were influenced to write a book that was much better. This book was boring, so boring. I had to take breaks to keep from falling asleep.
This book could have used some additional dialogue; the paragraphs were far too long. When there is a lot of action, readers should be rapidly turning the pages. Ged makes a tremendous amount of errors, but each incident only lasts a page or two. When an event lasts such a short period of time, it is over before I had time to fully connect.
This book is one of James Mustich’s 1,000 Books to Read.
2022 Reading Schedule
Jan Animal Farm
Feb Lord of the Flies
Mar The Da Vinci Code
Apr Of Mice and Men
May Memoirs of a Geisha
Jun Little Women
Jul The Lovely Bones
Aug Charlotte's Web
Sep Life of Pi
Oct Dracula
Nov Gone with the Wind
Dec The Secret Garden
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Kara Babcock
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May 8, 2016
This what A Wizard of Earthsea taught me:
* To know a thing's true name is to know its nature.
* Don't fuck with dragons (unless you know their true names).
* Summoning the spirits of the dead is a bad idea, especially on a schoolboy dare.
* Truly changing your form is dangerous, because you can become lost in the aspect you assume.
* If you find yourself hunted, turn it around and become the hunter.
* Above all else, know yourself.
I don't know how I acquired this particular copy of A Wizard of Earthsea. It's an old, 1977 reprint that is, aside from its yellowing pages, in remarkably good condition for something that, in its day, cost $1.50 in Canada or 50 p in the UK. It bears no evidence of a previous owner, be that person, library, or used bookstore. Perhaps someone gave it to me. However I got it, I remember that I read A Wizard of Earthsea for a second time through this copy. I read it mostly in the backseat of my mom's van and then in a hair salon while waiting for her to get her hair done. So this book is firmly ensconced in my mind as a book I read "when I was younger," and I associate it with my childhood (even though I suspect I was probably in my early teens).
When I first came upon China Miéville a few years ago, I was an adult and approached his books with an adult's ideas about fantasy. I've only ever known Miéville's works through the eyes of adulthood, and that is something outside of my control, but it definitely affects how I view his works. In contrast, Ursula K. Le Guin has been with me my entire life, stalking me, if you will. Curiously enough, her books have never played the formative role in my reading, especially my fantasy reading, that others like The Belgariad, A Song of Ice and Fire, or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy have done. I don't have a pithy story about reading a Le Guin book as a child or adolescent that then opened my eyes and inspired me to read more fantasy. So it's all the more intriguing that I distinctly remember Le Guin being in my life ever since childhood. I don't remember when I first read one of her books, only that I did. And when I pick up A Wizard of Earthsea, I'm connected to my childhood, to that memory of this particular copy, as well as to memories of reading fantasy in general. This is a gateway book, and that's why it means so much to me.
If you don't have this type of connection to Le Guin or to A Wizard of Earthsea, I can understand how easy it is to dismiss this book as a 2- or 3-star endeavour. It's a condensed story with a small cast of characters who aren't necessarily the most intriguing bunch you'll ever meet. There's a lot of narration and exposition covering most of Ged's childhood and adolescent years. It's not exactly the big-budget, epic type of fantasy story that is so popular now. Nor is Ged your typical fantasy farm boy Called to be the Chosen One. He's a wizard of no small talent who, because he's a cocky adolescent boy, screws up and spends no small part of his adult life attempting to rectify the mistake.
There's a lot of darkness in this book. It reminds me, this time around, of Arthurian legends: well-meaning, valorous people struggling against their darker selves, and sometimes losing. Even the Knights of the Round Table had the advantage of knowing they were heroes though—Ged is not a hero; he's just this guy, you know? He's not preternaturally gifted with good sense, so like any inexperienced adolescent, he makes bad decisions and is full of flaws. He ditches his master on Gont, Ogion, to go learn wizardry at Roke because he's eager to learn "real magic." He feels like Ogion is holding him back (we readers, of course, recognize that Ogion is the wise sensei who teaches his student the value of wisdom and work first). At Roke, Ged allows himself to be manipulated into magical pissing contests by his rival, Jasper. The result is the escape of a "shadow" into the world of Earthsea, and its encounter with Ged leaves it with some of his power and a hunger to absorb the rest of his aspect. This would be bad, for Ged, and for the world. But A Wizard for Earthsea shares with Arthurian legend that underlying motif of temptation and the sin of pride: people and magic continually tempt Ged, and his successes are measured in the varying degrees by which he overcomes and rejects those temptations. Sometimes he fails miserably, resulting in the unleashing of a gebbeth into the world! Other times, he succeeds admirably, such as in the case of the dragon Yevaud.
Ged's encounter with the dragon of Pendor is nominally what turns him into a legendary "dragonlord." He manages to learn the dragon's true name, and with it he wrangles from the dragon a promise never to fly to the Archipelago. The safety of the islands of Earthsea thus secure, he departs Pendor to resume his life and his apparently-eternal flight from the gebbeth.
Ged's confrontation with Yevaud is right out of the classical "man versus beast battle of wits" canon. What stuck with me for the rest of the book, however, was how Ged deals with Yevaud's brood. He ruthlessly does battle with these dragonspawn, killing six of them. Dragons in Le Guin's Earthsea are predators but intelligent ones: their speech is the same Old Speech from which Earthsea wizards draw power. So I can't help but feel that in slaying these creatures, Ged is wreaking destruction on a much larger scale. He's destroying something unique and wonderful, even if it is dangerous to humans. And Ged is rather cavalier about it: he goes to Pendor because he's decided to leave the town he was protecting from possible dragon attacks, and before he goes he wants to ensure the town will be safe. This is his first act of major wizardry as a full-fledged wizard, and it is interesting that it is one of destruction, even if it benefits those he swore to protect.
After his encounter with Yevaud, Ged bums around Earthsea for a little while, faces another great trial, and almost doesn't survive. Fortunately he finds his way back to Ogion, who sets him straight and gives him the best possible advice:
If you go ahead, if you keep running, wherever you turn you will meet danger and evil, for it drives you, it chooses the way you go. You must choose. You must seek what seeks you. You must hunt the hunter.
If you read A Wizard of Earthsea as a straight fantasy story about good versus evil and wizards and dragons, you will probably be disappointed. Read this way, it's a good book, but it isn't great. It's too brief to be a satisfying epic meal. The strength of Wizard of Earthsea is neither its style nor its substance but its subtext. This book embodies "literary fiction" a lot better than much of what gets marketed under that term today.
The cover of my edition, aside from its regrettable whitewashing of the characters, seems to support the idea that this is a children's book. The brief description on the back of the book continues this illusion: "A tale of wizards, dragons and terrifying shadows, in which the young wizard Sparrowhawk strives to destroy the evil shadow-beast he has let loose on the world." This description does not do the book justice, nor do I think calling A Wizard of Earthsea a "children's book" does any favours for the book or for children. This is not a children's book any more than other books that children or adults might read are "adult books." This is a book, a book for children and for adults, and frankly one that people should read early and often.
I read A Wizard of Earthsea as a child, again as an adolescent, and now I've read it as an adult. Each time, I've read it slightly differently, and it has told me different things; my opinions of Le Guin and her works have changed as my perspective changes from childhood to adulthood. For me, A Wizard of Earthsea is memorable and magical because of what it teaches through its story. It deserves five stars because, for a fantastic tale at a slim 200 pages, this book seems to contain an inordinate amount of truth.
My Reviews of the Earthsea series:
The Tombs of Atuan →
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J.G. Keely
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February 10, 2017
As a reader of Fantasy, this book felt like a return home, even though I had never read it before. The tale of this young wizard and his hardships and coming to terms with his own darkness is one that has been redone again and again, from Rowling to Jordan to Goodkind, and so far, despite adding gobs of length and endless details, no one has managed to improve upon it.
Though she isn't the first to explore the Bildungsroman-as-Fantasy (Mervyn Peake precedes her), he was an author who eschewed symbolic magic, and so has been duly ignored by most authors and readers in the genre. Le Guin's approach is much more familiar, able comfortably to abide alongside Moorcock, Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis.
Yet her work has none of the condescension or moralizing that mark the last two, nor the wild pulp sentiment of the first. Her world unfolds before us, calmly and confidently, as we might expect from the daughter of noted anthropologists.
As is often the case in her work, we get poignant asides on human nature, but overall, her depiction here is less novel than in, for example, the Hainish cycle. There is something flat in the plot progression, and as has been the case with every Le Guin book I have read, I found myself longing for her to take things a little further, to expand and do something risky. Often she seems just on the cusp, but rarely takes the step.
Part of the flatness is the depiction of the characters, who fall victim to the 'show, don't tell' problem. Again and again, we are told of conversations characters had, of how they reacted, of whether they were clever or unsettling, but we never actually see these conversations take place. Many times, the conversations would not have taken any longer to read than the descriptions of them, so why Le Guin chose to leave so much of her story as an outline of action is puzzling and disappointing.
Fundamentally, what characters do is not interesting. What they do does not differentiate them. What is most important is how they do it--their emotional response, their choice of words, the little pauses and moments of doubt. At the end of the day, the four musketeers are all men in the same uniform, with mustaches, dueling and warring and seducing women, but they each go about these things in such distinct ways that we could never mistake one for the other.
The import of personality is also shown in Greek tragedy, where we know what is going to befall the character (the plot), but we have no idea how they will react when it happens. All the tension lies within the character's response, not with the various external events that inspire it.
So I found it very frustrating that, again and again, Le Guin didn't let the characters do their own talking, and so I often felt estranged from them, that I didn't know them or understand their motivations or interrelationships because the fundamental signs were missing. As we near the end of the story, more and more is revealed in conversation and interaction, but that's the reverse of the ideal: once you have established a character, we can take some of their actions for granted, but it's important in the beginning to let their idiosyncrasies reveal them.
As others have pointed out, Le Guin covers a lot of ground in a short span, and perhaps it was a desire to make things brief and straightforward that caused her to take the words from her characters' mouths, but again, it seems backwards to me. I would rather see a story shortened by taking out specifics and leaving promising implications instead of the other way around. A single, well-written action or turn of phrase can reveal more about a character than paragraphs of narration.
In her influential essay on fantasy From Elfland to Poughkeepsie, she talks about how Dunsany does not really use dialogue the way other authors do--that indeed, she finds it difficult to locate any sustained conversations in The King of Elfland's Daughter . Perhaps on some level, she was trying to imitate his style. But, while it works brilliantly for him, it does not serve her as well.
The main reason for this is that Le Guin is much more a modern, psychological, realist author than Dunsany. Her fantasy setting is sensible, physical--it feels like a different place, a world like our world. Her characters are inhabitants of that world, the product of its cultures and history. So, when she removes their discourse and means of expression, she closes the reader's window onto the character's inner life.
Dunsany, on the author hand, takes a different approach: his worlds are dreamlike, the worlds of fairy tale. His story takes place in the clash between the possible and the impossible, the real and the dream. His characters are not self-contained psychological portraits of individuals, but symbols, appendages of the dreamland he weaves. So it makes sense that they do not express themselves through the dialogue of psychoanalysis, but through the instinctual pre-knowledge of the dreamer.
Indeed, Le Guin herself (in that same essay) talks about the danger of imitating Dunsany's style, that it is so unique, and his pen a master's, so that any attempt to recreate what we has done is bound to end in embarrassing failure. Yet, she also remarks, it's a stage most fantasists seem to go through: attempting to produce that sort of natural, lovely false-archaism. She managed to leave that behind, but now I wonder whether she didn't simply end up imitating another of Dunsany's stylistic modes without realizing it--one just as problematic to a thoroughly modern, anthropological writer.
What is most interesting about her story is how small and personal the central conflict is. Many authors in fantasy have tried to tackle the conflict of the 'Shadow Self', from Tolkien's Gollum to the twin alter-egos of Anderson's The Broken Sword , but none have used it as a representation of the internal conflict of the adolescent which must be overcome in order to transition to adulthood.
By so perfectly aligning the symbolic magical conflict in her story with the central theme, Le Guin creates a rare example of narrative unity in fantasy. Most authors would have made it a subplot of the grand, overblown good vs. evil story, and thus buried its importance beneath a massive conflict that is symbolic only of the fact that books have climaxes. Once again I am struck with the notion that modern authors of fantasy epics have added nothing to the genre but details and length.
If only Le Guin had given her lovely little story the strong characters and interrelationships it deserved, it would have been truly transformative. As it is, it is sweet, and thoughtful, and sometimes haunting--the scenes of stranding on the little island had a particularly unearthly tone--and it lays out an intriguing picture of a young Merlin, but in the end, it felt like an incomplete vision.
My List of Suggested Fantasy Books
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Lyn
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July 6, 2019
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin is a beautiful fantasy.
First published in 1968, it has clearly influenced many fantasy novels since. Orson Scott Card, with his 1980s era Alvin Maker series, stated that he wanted to make an American fantasy, and escape or at least distinguish his work from the inherently English Tolkien sub-genre of fantasies. This is not quite such a departure from the Tolkienesque fantasies, but a difference can be seen and enjoyed.
Another Goodreads reviewer made the observation that the Harry Potter series has been wildly successful while Earthsea has achieved only a cult following and peer respect. I can wholly agree with this finding and think it too bad that so many young readers have not discovered this gem of the genre.
My admiration for Le Guin continues to grow, she is an amazing writer.
**** 2018 Re-read
Second time around I was not as entranced by the story itself but still amazed and inspired by her timelessness, her forward vision and for what this book has meant to the genre.
I wondered again about the influence this may have had over J.K. Rowling, perhaps has the book itself, or just a foundation on our modern fantasy literature.
I also compared the long voyage sequences here to the long walk across the glacier in her Hainish book The Left Hand of Darkness and see that a journey tale may be a ubiquitous theme in her writing, a metaphor for growth and spiritual evolution.
A good book by itself and a wonderful work for fantasy writing as a whole.
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