Ursula Le Guin

A Wizard of Earthsea

loisesya

‘De Terrenon kent ieders geboorte en ieders dood, kent alle wezens voor en na hun dood, kent de ongeborenen en de onsterfelijken, de wereld van het licht en die van het duister; hij zal u die naam noemen.’

‘Slechts in zwijgen het woord, slechts in duisternis licht, slechts in sterven het leven: scherp staat de vlucht van de havik tegen de lege hemel.’ 

Phoemela Ballaran

“When you know the fourfoil in all its seasons root and leaf and flower, by sight and scent and seed, then you may learn its true name, knowing its being: which is more than its use. What, after all, is the use of you? Or of myself? Is Gont Mountain useful, or the Open Sea?” Ogion went on a half mile or so, and said at last, “To hear, one must be silent.”

“…Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light? This sorcery is not a game we play for pleasure or for praise.Think of this: that every word, every act of our Art is said and is done either for good, or for evil. Before you speak or do you must know the price that is to pay!”

Bilge Ince

But need alone is not enough to set power free: there must be knowledge.

Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light? This sorcery is not a game we play for pleasure or for praise. Think of this: that every word, every act of our Art is said and is done either for good, or for evil. Before you speak or do you must know the price that is to pay!’

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 …’

the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.

‘I have no strength against the thing,’ Ged answered. Ogion shook his head but said no more for a time. At length, ‘Strange,’ he said: ‘You had strength enough to outspell a sorcerer in his own domain, there in Osskil. You had strength enough to withstand the lures and fend off the attack of the servants of an Old Power of Earth. And at Pendor you had strength enough to stand up to a dragon.’ ‘It was luck I had in Osskil, not strength,’ Ged replied,

daniela

they are a savage people, white-skinned, yellow-haired, and fierce, liking the sight of blood and the smell of burning towns.

Ursula K. Le Guin

A boy grows to manhood while attempting to subdue the evil he unleashed on the world as an apprentice to the Master Wizard.

I didn’t expect that I would like Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing style but upon reading this book and an additional essay of hers related to it (The Child and the Shadow), you best believe I will explore more of her works in the days to come.

This is a required reading for one of my English courses.

A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book of the Earthsea series, is the—to use a term from gen z lingo—the OG wizard story, except it is a whole lot better than anything else you might be thinking of right now. There are no villains that must be slain and defeated here, only a version of the self that must be overcome. There are no bloody battles that leave nations and people scathed and scarred for life, only journeys to self-discovery and acceptance. It explored a lot of archetypes such as the mentor-mentee archetype, the self-proclaimed archetype, ride-or-die archetype, etc. But what it focused on mostly is the Shadow archetype which a. exposed the complexity of a character—how polarized categorization of things (e.g., good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, rich vs. poor, etc.) is not an effective element in story telling; b. examined a character’s default response to conflict (fight vs. flight) and its consequences, and c. exhibited that growth only happens in the uncomfortable: when you start turning to your shadows and running towards it, facing it, instead of letting it chase you.

I didn’t receive the grade I was aiming for on our final paper on this, but it is one of the most remarkable stories I’ve had the chance to dive into and discuss with other people and that is already a huge win.

frances

I didn’t expect that I would like Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing style but upon reading this book and an additional essay of hers related to it (The Child and the Shadow), you best believe I will explore more of her works in the days to come.

***

This is a required reading for one of my English courses.

A Wizard of Earthsea, the first book of the Earthsea series, is the—to use a term from gen z lingo—the OG wizard story, except it is a whole lot better than anything else you might be thinking of right now. There are no villains that must be slain and defeated here, only a version of the self that must be overcome. There are no bloody battles that leave nations and people scathed and scarred for life, only journeys to self-discovery and acceptance. It explored a lot of archetypes such as the mentor-mentee archetype, the self-proclaimed archetype, ride-or-die archetype, etc. But what it focused on mostly is the Shadow archetype which a. exposed the complexity of a character—how polarized categorization of things (e.g., good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, rich vs. poor, etc.) is not an effective element in story telling; b. examined a character’s default response to conflict (fight vs. flight) and its consequences, and c. exhibited that growth only happens in the uncomfortable: when you start turning to your shadows and running towards it, facing it, instead of letting it chase you.

I didn’t receive the grade I was aiming for on our final paper on this, but it is one of the most remarkable stories I’ve had the chance to dive into and discuss with other people and that is already a huge win.

Read the Persian translation. I am in awe of the world she has created. It’s unlike anything else I have read. love the cultural diversity she introduces in the first book of the series, leaves room for endless possibilities in the following texts. She also trusts readers to fill the gaps between the words themselves and never over explains. Immediately picked up the second book although there was never a cliffhanger to urge me to. 

Ghazal

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.

The First Book of Earthsea

A. D. Knapp

Very short, but well written and accomplishes a lot in 183 pages.

Maria

update 11/07/2020: 

upon reread i think i loved this even more. whereas i flew through this in a single day the first time around, i took my time absorbing every word this time. le guin’s world is so esquisite, her magic system though seemingly simplistic at first is, i think, all the more unique and fascinating in its simplicity. this time i also read an edition which included an afterword, and this particular passage stuck with me. i think it’s so central to the entire story and the perspective le guin tries to share through ged’s story: 

“But there are no wars in Earthsea. No soldiers, no armies, no battles. None of the militarism that came from the Arthurian saga and other sources and that by now, under the influence of fantasy war games, has become almost obligatory.

I didn’t and don’t think this way; my mind doesn’t work in terms of war. My imagination refuses to limit all the elements that make an adventure story and make it exciting—danger, risk, challenge, courage—to battlefields. A hero whose heroism consists of killing people is uninteresting to me, and I detest the hormonal war orgies of our visual media, the mechanical slaughter of endless battalions of black-clad, yellow-toothed, red-eyed demons.

War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to “a war against” whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to YesNo, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the “right” side and therefore will win. Right makes might.”

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what a lovely read. i understand why it’s so beloved, and it deserves its place as a classic of the genre. it’s such a light fast read yet so much is packed inside this little story. the world-building was great and so detailed without being tiring. i loved the magic, i loved how central the power of names and words is! and mostly i loved how kind and understanding the narrative is towards its characters, especially ged, who has a long way to go before he can become the legendary sparrowhawk. there’s also so many great quotes in this but one that stood out for me was this part:  “(...) he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.”  it’s such a lovely glimpse into ged’s character and who he grows to be, and also into what le guin’s story tries to teach.

Very simple. And honest. I loved reading it.

Terra Ganey

Having thoroughly enjoyed Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest, I eagerly dove into this one with high expectations. However, despite my best efforts, I couldn't quite connect with it. The protagonist, Ged, is a gifted child with the potential for wizardry. His journey into the world of sorcery begins when he captures the attention of a witch. Initially, everything seemed thrilling and effortless for him, but little did he know that a challenging and thorny path lay silently ahead, waiting to unfold.

This book didn't quite resonate with me!

Having thoroughly enjoyed Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest, I eagerly dove into this one with high expectations. However, despite my best efforts, I couldn't quite connect with it. The protagonist, Ged, is a gifted child with the potential for wizardry. His journey into the world of sorcery begins when he captures the attention of a witch. Initially, everything seemed thrilling and effortless for him, but little did he know that a challenging and thorny path lay silently ahead, waiting to unfold.

YA means adults who may have forgotten the joy of reading 

levipack

Louis Connaire

Winona 

A Wizard of Earthsea is so different from any other kind of fantasy book that I have read before, that it took me a while to mull it over before I decided to finally write a review about it. 

A bit of background before I get into the meat of this review, though. I read this book the middle of exam season: university life has made it very difficult for me to read for pleasure as my head is always buried in the works of Machiavelli, Aristotle, Marx, and Fanon for exams and assignments (weeps at the current status of my reading challenge). I picked up  A Wizard of Earthsea  because I had enjoyed Le Guin's other book,  The Left Hand of Darkness , and had seen the Ghibli adaptation of the entire Earthsea series a few years ago (don't watch it, it sucks), but mostly because the book is actually quite short. Especially for a fantasy book (and I needed a light read).

I was initially apprehensive about reading a fantasy book that was as short as this. I think my copy of the book is only about 160 pages long: I heard the praise around the book, but being so used to reading long, heavily plot-driven, fantasy books I was a bit puzzled as to how Le Guin would be able to convey Ged's coming-of-age journey with enough power and depth.

Oh boy, I was so wrong to make assumptions about this story on the basis of its genre.  A Wizard of Earthsea  is completely unlike any other book I have read in the fantasy genre before. There are no battles of epic proportions, no hard binaries between good and evil, no Messianic prophesies, and definitely no heroes that are blessed from the beginning and suffer no consequences because of their actions. I've gotten too used to reading stories where our protagonist is a prodigy of magic, and the bad things that happen in the story are due to some higher evil -- the bad things are happening to the protagonist, not because of the protagonist's own actions.

In A Wizard of Earthsea, we are taken through the journey of Ged's / Sparrowhawk's development from a child to a man. We are introduced to Ged as a young boy, on the island of Gont, with a keen knack for magic - the boy is essentially a prodigy of the magical kind. Not satisfied with the teachings of the Wizard he has been apprenticed to, Ged is sent to the magic school on the Island of Roke. 

Now, this is where  A Wizard of Earthsea  starts to differ quite drastically from other conventional fantasy novels that I have read previously whereby the hero is sent to some kind of magical school / camp, and we follow him through the routine, customs, and lessons of said school / camp before he's entrusted with some kind of special mission because he's such an amazing prodigy that the Headmaster let's him do some of the most dangerous things. You get the gist. Well, this doesn't happen here. We don't actually get much detail about Ged's school life in the conventional sense. What Le Guin does give us are valuable lessons from Ged's teachers: lessons that we see a young, intelligent, but  arrogant  Ged ignores in his pursuit for more knowledge about magic, equilibrium, and names, as well as for greater recognition of his immense talents (much to his own detriment).

What I love most about  A Wizard of Earthsea  is that Ged is both the villain and hero of the story. It is Ged's childish hot-headednesses and myopic arrogance that leads him to put not only his own life at risk, but potentially the lives of the entire population of Earthsea. We see Ged go from being a brash and arrogant boy, to a timid and recluse teenager afraid of his own power and abilities, to finally becoming a man who has literally chased his demon across the entire world in order to become a full man having learnt that it is the darkness within us that we should seek to come to terms with. 

It's such a beautiful coming-of-age story. One that weaves magic into a study of humanity, compassion, and guilt.

Erik Wallace

Found this book on a best of books gift list. Can't put my finger on what I didn't love about it, but I just didn't

Cannot wait to read the rest of this series. A classic fantasy novel that reads and feels like an epic poem or a transcribed storyteller. Ursula K Le Guin had such a kind touch to her work, honestly. 

Jacque

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.

rumbledethumps

I read this book as a kid and loved it. I think I love it even more after having read it again as an adult.

It was originally written as YA novel, and I can understand how. It has all those elements (finding your power, discovering your true self, etc), but what I enjoyed the most about it was LeGuin's writing and storytelling. She tells the story like a classic myth or legend, with just enough detail to immerse the reader in Earthsea. She hints at ancient stories, names lands that Ged passes, and talks of faraway peoples, all of which accumulate into a well-formed world. 

Perhaps the best example of her sparse descriptions that carry so much weight comes in the last chapter: "[They] seemed not to recognize the young wizards' staffs for what they were, admiring them only for the precious stuff they were made of, wood." This sentence says so much about the village, the villagers, and the island they inhabit, without having to go into any more detail. 

The whole book is a master-class in economical world-building. She has created a more realized world in under 200 pages than many authors do in over 1000 pages.

"To light a candle is to cast a shadow..."

As a milestone of fantasy literature, A Wizard of Earthsea delivers a rich plot, where the main character maintains the center of the story.

Ursula K. Le Guin masterfully lays the groundwork of an encapsulating fantasy world. Though Earthsea is nothing but ordinary. Beware not of the mighty warriors of the sword and the axe, but the people who know more than us about the veins of our lives: our names.

"Who knows a man's name, holds that man's life in his keeping."

Follow the adventures of a young wizard, whose hunger for knowledge and power delivers himself a great peril, but a greater realization. This peril is nothing less than the greatest enemy of a man: himself.

"Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky." 

Ahmet Emre Aslan

"To light a candle is to cast a shadow..."

As a milestone of fantasy literature, A Wizard of Earthsea delivers a rich plot, where the main character maintains the center of the story.

Ursula K. Le Guin masterfully lays the groundwork of an encapsulating fantasy world. Though Earthsea is nothing but ordinary. Beware not of the mighty warriors of the sword and the axe, but the people who know more than us about the veins of our lives: our names.

"Who knows a man's name, holds that man's life in his keeping."

Follow the adventures of a young wizard, whose hunger for knowledge and power delivers himself a great peril, but a greater realization. This peril is nothing less than the greatest enemy of a man: himself.

"Only in silence the word, only in dark the light, only in dying life: bright the hawk's flight on the empty sky." 

Ira Cummings

Boothby

Its legendary reputation is so well-deserved. What does it means for an adventure tale to reject the ready-made conquest plots that undergird so much of fantasy? LeGuin will show you

Don't skip the afterword! I swear to Ged. You aren't done until you hit the back cover.

Ed Kay

I love this book. One one level it's a simple - and simply written - story of a young magician battling against an evil force, but this is no wishy washy Harry Potter cartoon. Instead, we also get profound commentary on pride, ambition and self knowledge. The hero, Ged, is complicated, and flawed. His fight is not only external, but internal, and he is changed by his adventures.

Le Guin's world is beautifully drawn and cleverly imagined. There is an integrity to the magic here that is absent from many other fantasy novels. I find it incredibly frustrating reading about characters who use magic in certain circumstances but not others, with no real explanation as to why (Potter, Strange & Norrel), other than it suits the plot. There is none of that here. Magic is powerful, and consequential, and should not be deployed at a whim. This not only drives the plot but also provides a philosophical underpinning to the novel, akin to Spiderman's edict that with great power comes great responsibility.

Andrew Louis

I enjoyed the afterword so much more than the actual book..

Jeff James

I remember reading this book years and years ago and disliking it for whatever reason, even though Evan loved it and read the whole series. I wanted to give it another chance now because I was pretty sure I didn't give it a fair shake at the time, and I've been in the mood for period fantasy lately. Luckily, this was an excellent read, and I look forward to the next book in the series. Now I just need to re-read The Great Gatsby to undo the work of junior English class...

Ryan LaFerney

A Wizard of Earthsea is perhaps one of the most important works of fantasy in the latter half of the twentieth century. So many authors and artists, from J.K. Rowling, Nnedi Okorafor, to Hayao Miyazaki have been influenced by Le Guin's Earthsea cycle. It could also be credited as one of the first works of young adult fantasy (although I'd argue it is a ageless tale). And although frequently compared with Tolkien's Middle Earth or C.S. Lewis' Narnia, this magnificent work of fantasy remains wholly unique and enthralling and quite original yet it still seems to fly under the radar for general readers. Le Guin sadly has not received the same status as Lewis or Tolkien.

Influenced by Norse and Native American mythology as well as Taoist thought (the idea of cosmic balance), Le Guin's depiction of Earthsea is just as rich in ideas as Tolkien's Middle Earth. She was able to create entire preindustrial cultures for the islands of Earthsea (such as the white-skinned Kargish people, and darkskinned Hardic peoples) .Earthsea itself is an archipelago or group of islands. In the fictional history of this world, the islands were raised from the ocean by Segoy, an ancient deity or hero. The world is inhabited by both humans and dragons, and several among the humans are sorcerers or wizards, including our hero in the Wizard of Earthsea, Ged.

Ged is the protagonist of A Wizard of Earthsea. When we meet him he is reckless yet talented youth named Duny (or "Sparrowhawk"), who is gifted with the power of magic. When his village is attacked by Kargish raiders, Duny summons a fog to conceal the village and its inhabitants, enabling the residents to drive off the Kargs. Hearing of this, the powerful mage Ogion takes him as an apprentice, giving him his "true name"—Ged. Ogion tries to teach Ged about the "equilibrium", the concept that magic can upset the natural order of the world if used improperly. In an attempt to impress a girl, however, Ged searches Ogion's spell books and inadvertently summons a strange shadow, which has to be banished by Ogion. Sensing Ged's eagerness to act and impatience with his slow teaching methods, Ogion sends him to the renowned school for wizards on the island of Roke where Ged, in his proud nature, will casts a powerful spell intended to raise the spirit of a legendary dead woman, but the spell goes awry and instead releases a shadow creature, which attacks him and scars his face. He soon discovers that the shadow creature he released is haunting him and is destroying the world. 

The rest of the novel is focused on Ged's journey. It is focused on how he becomes a powerful and humble mage and how he journeyed to death's threshold in order to restore the balance within earthsea and to atone for his arrogant ways. Ged is a "superb creation", and in many ways is a more relatable wizard than those featured in prominent works of fantasy at the time. I mean, as much as I love Gandalf, he does really have a huge story arc in the LOTR. He is sort of fulfills a merlin archetype.

 A Wizard of Earthsea is about many things but ultimately I think it a coming of age tale. Ged transforms from a reckless youth into a responsible mage in less than two hundred pages.It is the story of Ged's testing and his restoration. It is also about the nature of evil (the misunderstanding of the balance of life), the nature of healing (to truly heal one has to endure much testing whether it be physical or emotional or both and suffer the way Ged does) and the power of words (spells can be harmful and release demonic shadows after all or they can restore and bring order to the universe). In short, words have power and Le Guin knew this.

A Wizard of Earthsea is a beautiful story—poetic, thrilling, and profound and one of the best fantasy novels ever written. Please pick it up.

andrea

it's the first time i read this fantasy bildungsroman and hero's journey, but i'm already aware of that quality of timelessness that characterises very few texts. it is a classic, comforting quest story full of magic based on the idea of true names, powerful words, and dragons.

it is one of the most linguistically effective books i've read. le guin's writing is efficient and pleasing; she chooses exactly the right words to make the story light and simple, while maintaining the balance between usefulness and aesthetic. le guin is a wonderful writer, packing so much in little space but never to the point it's overwhelming. the length and content go hand in hand.

one thing it lacked, and i'm hoping it gets more developed in the next books, is that of depth in characters and relationships. it's true that for such a short text le guin does a wonderful job at storytelling, but the characters came across as simply a sketch, simplified people. still, i think ged is a sweet character who has the potential of growing in me.

in the end, i enjoyed it a lot and i'm looking forward to the next books and how ged's story will continue.

The first book of Earthsea is a tale of wizards, dragons and terrifying shadows. The island of Gont is a land famous for wizards. Of these, some say the greatest - and surely the greatest voyager - is the man called Sparrowhawk. As a reckless, awkward boy, he discovered the great power that was in him - with terrifying consequences. Tempted by pride to try spells beyond his means, Sparrowhawk lets loose an evil shadow-beast in his land. Only he can destroy it, and the quest leads him to the farthest corner of Earthsea.

Briar Rose

*Review also posted at Briar Rose Reads

I cannot believe it took me this long to finally read this book. (I feel like I'm at risk of losing my credibility as a lifelong YA fantasy fan!) But now that I have read it, I definitely understand the hype.

A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA is the coming-of-age story. It is quiet and lush and intelligent. It is full of wonder, but does not flinch from the horrible.

Gifted with incredible magic, young Ged makes a mistake--a proud, thoughtless mistake, a child's mistake--which is magnified because of his power. He spends much of the rest of the book seeking to atone, and to track down the terrible, nameless thing unleashed by his actions.

The world-building is exquisite. Ged's journey, his search for atonement always interwoven with his discovery of the shape and nature and name of things, is deeply compelling.

I will confess to some surprise at the lack of female characters--the only one I recall being positively portrayed was a fourteen-year-old who seemed to know her place, who dutifully took care of her household--but I have hope that will be remedied in later books.

If, like me, you have managed to miss this classic, I advise giving it a read as soon as possible.

Ursula is masterful with her fantasy tales. Very quotable and filled with wisdom and dark imagination 

Mike M

Janice Hopper

So good. So very, very good.

There's a sense of mystery or myth around a lot of this story. And the writing is just astonishingly good. I love it. I've lost track of how many times I've read/listened to it.

There's a point to be made about how women are kinda dismissed here ("as weak as women's magic/as wicked as women's magic", and the somewhat problematic depiction of the few female characters, etc), but Le Guin came back to the story years later with Tehanu and made it better.

The narrator is quite good, though a little ponderous. But he's good if you want to listen slowly to the gorgeous writing.

It's the book my SFF book club is reading for September. I'm going to be out of town, though! #cries

Tilde C

A coming of age story, and all that entails.

I enjoyed the Le Guin's formal, heraldic voice, her little fantasy subversions, and especially her worldbuilding (that little island with the mute little man and woman? God, that'll haunt me), but after decades of recommendations, this didn't blow me away.

Subtle subversions are intriguing, but not mind-blowing. Ged's journey from arrogant, gifted child to humble yet unimaginably powerful wizard is fun, but not something that moved me in a lasting way.

I'm gonna keep reading, of course. I still believe the validity of the recommendations that were made to me, and the way people still talk about these books. I'm so aware that in a number of amazing literary genre series, the very first book might absolutely not be the best one (Take Pratchett's The Colour of Magic -- or don't, it's not very good). But now at least I know a little more of what I'm in for.

A Wizard of Earthsea

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