A Wizard of Earthsea

I love almost everything ABOUT this book — a non-white hero, an emphasis on introspection instead of battle, a non-traditional hero quest, a novel and coherent take on how magic “works” and the power of names — but I just didn't enjoy the book itself. The pacing was odd, with long sections of build-up to resolutions that just suddenly happen, because magic. I'm happy that this book exists and is such a highly-regarded classic; I just didn't get anything out of it, and I doubt I would have even if I'd read it when I was the target age.

Rich, tactile, earthy goodness. I read somewhere (LeGuin's wiki?) that she read and deeply absorbed Tolkien and the Grimm brothers. I would say she outdoes them here. Controversial statement!?! Maybe. I stand by it!

She does mythical and folksy as well as Tolkien, but for about half the cost - airtight exposition and pacing, 100s of less pages (oof), and with none of that awkward “those dirty, swarthy Southrons” stuff (I raise my Social Justice Javelin and strike!)... Similarly, she does Grimm Brothers-style moral ambiguities driving moral fables where, hey kid, the world is ugly and brutal and tricksy. Watch out for wolves!

This is also, of course, a much better version of Harry Potter, but more on that later.

So, basic plot: Ged lives in Earthsea, mapped - like Middle Earth - on a FLAT 2D PLANE, NOT A GLOBE. i.e. What is north/south/east/west of Earthsea is left as an exercise to the reader. It is a land of many isles. Ged is a kid with strong magical power; when he protects his village from invading Vikings? hordes using magical mist, everyone is like, “you should become a wizard!” So, first, Ged spends some time in Zen wizard bootcamp (a la Yoda/a la Old Luke Skywalker) with Ogion, a gnarly old wizard. Ged is impatient (one of his many flaws) and so Ogion suggests he might get his jollies at the local Hogwarts Fast-paced Industrial Wizard Academy (sorry, er, forgot the name). Anyway, Ged does - BUT THE JOLLIES TURN PRETTY SOUR PRETTY FAST. He's a super fast learn. Really proud. SO PROUD. He also meets a couple student wizard bros - Jasper (an asshole, or maybe a righteous dude! another exercise to the reader) and Vetch (definitely a great dude).

I dunno if it's a spoiler but Ged's story is also very ancient/classical Greek, in that he has a TRAGIC FLAW (well, many): hubris, pride, young man dickishness. This leads to one major disaster which unspools the rest of the plot: Ged trying to fix said disaster. A metaphor for maturing/growing up? Maybe.

OKAY! SO STUFF I LIKED! I liked a lot of the stuff here.

First, allow me to don my Social Justice Helmet. So, I appreciated that Ged's world is dark-skinned. This jars, obviously, with High Fantasy's tendency to be basically Romanticized Celtic Stuff + Magic! When I googled Earthsea fanart vs. Wizard of Earthsea cover art, it looks like the fans got it but, uhhh, the marketers/publishers didn't. Amazing. Depressing. I mean, IT'S MENTIONED OVER AND OVER IN THE BOOK. He ain't a Celtic white dude - no matter how much you sell it like so! ARGHHHHHHHH

Anyway:

Second, I loved the world. I loved stuff like how it's a world of islands, every island gets their local wizard, and the wizard's job is to take care of mundane tasks like making “binding-spells” to keep the ships together. I loved that there was a strong culture of your “given name” (which is deeply private, tenderly protected, and rarely shared) versus your “use name” (which is what everyone calls you, your nickname). I loved the general power that naming and language had - like, literal magical power. And I love that Vetch worried (seemingly with reason!) that their magic doesn't work so well in other languages and other lands. Ha! I recognized a lot of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth worldbuilding in here; I'm assuming she was inspired by this?

Third, I loved Vetch - big crush. What a great dude!!!

Fourth, ON GED. So Ged is a Grimm-style/ancient Greek-style Flawed Hero. But instead of being nominally flawed, he is deeply, annoyingly flawed. And he is kinda flawed without reason. Like, Harry Potter is also flawed: remember all those ALL CAPS DIALOGUES from the later Potterbooks? Ugh, yeah. I know, right. But you're all like, well, Harry lived 11 years in a closet because of his abusive uncle and aunt. Of course he's gonna come out angry! Ged, on the other hand. GED! I think Ged had no problems in the village. I imagine he had a comfortable and loving childhood. He just is one cocky little bastard since he can magic so well! WELL. This book is all about his humbling.

Anyway. This was great. I loved it. LOVED IT. Wish I had found it when I was ~13. Wish I had been recommended it back in 2003 when I asked my LOTR fanfic friends for “more fantasy” recommendations and they recommended stupid Game of Thrones. PHOOEY. This is great. Could Ursula Le Guin do no wrong?!?! Anyway. Definitely reading the next 3 (4?) in the series.

This was a reread and rediscovery, in that I read this the first time so long ago that my memory of it was hazy at best. I'm glad I refreshed my memory. I'll be rereading the rest this year as well, though I don't think I'll blow through the whole series at once.

Short first entry in the Earthsea series. Haven't read any others. Reads like a YA novel, though LeGuin talks about a lack of specific audience in the Afterword; it reads a lot like mythology, a very different feeling from most other fantasy. The story is pretty standard, and it helps to remember that a lot of what seems derivative is itself derived from LeGuin and other then-contemporary works.

This is about the third time re-reading this series and my first review of it online. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, very well written and with a brilliant writing style.

I felt real emotions and could really empathise with the fall of Ged on Roke Island and his emotional state leading towards the end of the book - brilliant finish!

A very by-the-book fantasy novel but in the very best way. I was hooked on the great character development and fantastic writing style that was both blunt and descriptive at the same time. Definitely going to read more of Le Guin.

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.

Rating: 2.5/5

I'm more than a little conflicted about this book. I understand how important it was (and still is) to the genre of fantasy, but it is difficult to enjoy.

The plot is consistently interesting throughout the story and moves very quickly. However, it reads less like a novel and more like a friend summarizing their favorite novel they read a year ago. There is very little dialogue (sometimes 10 pages at a time without it), and you rarely get insight into the main character's thoughts.

The main character has little personality. We are told he grows from being young and arrogant to being older and wiser. The side characters have even less depth.

My favorite part was the setting. Earthsea seems to be dominated by water, with the main habitable lands being chains of islands. I also really liked how the magic tied together with the land, though the explanation behind that was a little shaky.

All in all, this was a quick and enjoyable read, though I do not plan on continuing the series.

I may very well be missing something, but I feel like most of the story just went over my head.

The style in the book is more descriptive than dialogue-heavy, but even then things moved very fast and were not given time to settle (so. much. travelling.). At times I didn't even know where we were or who certain characters were. Ged also seemed to be very accepting of everything that happened to him and I had trouble relating to him as a character.

I did like the story, in theory, and the last few pages were beautiful, but also abrupt, and I was surprised to see it was over already. I find the prose also very good, but maybe not for me personally.

On a sidenote, I have no idea where the Harry Potter comparisons are coming from? The wizard school is featured in maybe 2-3 chapters and not even very similar? The world and characters are also totally different? But alas.

This is one of the kind of books that people shudder when they think of fantasy. To be fair, it is one of the precursors of this kind of stories.

It is a children's book and offers nothing worthwhile reading, just some standard young magic boy tropes.

Read 0:58 of 7:09 / 14%

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.

I still own my 1979 copy of this book (first published in 1968) and needing another read-aloud book for my daughter, decided to revisit this one. This marks the third time I've read it. My daughter enjoyed it but then again she enjoys being read to, period. She's been reading plenty on her own these days too, a lot of reading in fact. When I mentioned to her that she's been busy reading to herself and maybe I would stop reading to her, she said no, I need to continue reading to her. So I've been reading to my kids for over thirteen years now. (You didn't really expect an actual review of this, did you? It's not exactly fresh material. It stands up to the test of time though. That's all you need to know.)

pride before fall, balance of life (and magic), you cannot run from your fears. delightful.

The fact that it took me 11 days to read a 183 page book should tell you something.

Sword and Laser picked this book this month, and it's the first time since I joined that the choice was a book I had already read and loved. Instead of reading it again, I opted for the audiobook, a very different experience from reading it, but a pleasant one nonetheless. The reader is brilliant and does his best to capture the oral storytelling tradition in which the story is meant to be told.

Earthsea is one of my favorite series of all time, and while the first installment is not my favorite, it nevertheless remains a brilliant introduction to the world. I've been hearing a lot of people compare this work to Harry Potter and the like, but for me the comparison doesn't stand. LeGuin's prose is elevated far above Rowling's and most every other book classified as “children's” or “YA.” A Wizard of Earthsea is the type of story people used to tell their children, an uncluttered parable about the follies of youth, the truth of Self, and the dangers of shadows and dragons. It's a story children should be told and adults should be reminded of.

I really enjoyed this book. The narrative has this very epic, very mythical feel to it. Almost as if you're sitting by the warmth of a fireside listening to a storyteller describing the experiences of Ged, a young man destined to become the Great Wizard of Earthsea. It's a great bedtime story, and, in fact, I've been reading this novel every night before bed. It is not a long book–my copy is just shy of two hundred pages. Because it is such a short book covering many adventures, it can be a bit lacking in character development and world building compared to more modern fantasy novels. However, that is one of the things I admired most about this book. It really shows the skills of the author–how she can strip down the story to just the basic elements, yet still have a solid narrative that is both interesting and entertaining. Furthermore, this book is timeless. I didn't feel like I was reading a novel written in the sixties, yet that was when this novel was published! That fact alone amazes me, so I guess my expectations for this book were not very high... I would have given this a 5 out of 5 stars; however, I hated the patriarchal society of Earthsea. I heard many people argue over the representation of women in this book, and while I agree that women were under represented–two of the four female characters were not even named!–the very male-oriented culture was more off-putting than anything else for me. Obviously, women could use magic just as well as the men in this fantasy world, yet the women were witches and enchantresses not of the same caliber as the Wizards of Earthsea. And, in fact, women were not even allowed to study at the wizardry school on Roke Island! I just don't understand why!? Why do witches not get the same respect and admiration as the wizards? Why were they all portrayed as selfish and shrewd? Why couldn't they just be allowed to study and become wise as their male counterparts? I honestly don't get it. I mean, it is one thing to under represent a population of people. But to make them inferior is another thing. Even Tolkien, who didn't have many female characters in his books, still managed to show women with power and respect and wisdom–just look at Lady Galadriel, Lady of Lothlorien and Eowyn, the Shield Maiden of Rohan. The fact that this book had none of that was just really upsetting to me...But despite all this, I am planning to read the next in the series [b:The Tombs of Atuan 13662 The Tombs of Atuan (Earthsea Cycle, #2) Ursula K. Le Guin https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1166571534s/13662.jpg 1322146].4 out of 5 stars from me...maybe even 3.5 out of 5 stars (because I am that upset).

Great prose, good world building, poor character building.

It was okay. Didn't love it but didn't hate it.

This book (the first of a quartet) tells the story of Ged, a young boy who grows up to learn he has magical abilities. His talent is identified by his aunt, who teaches his simple magics, until he is taken on as apprentice to a stronger magician on his home island of Gont. Eventually he decides to leave his home and attend a wizarding school on the island of Roke. He shows great aptitude with magical abilities, and is quick to learn. He makes both friends and enemies, which shape his destiny. One he has completed his time at school he ventures out into the world to act as a wizard. He faces dragons and demons as he learns about his own powers during his adventures and travels through the archipelago of Earthsea.

I have to say I actually really enjoyed reading this book, though it took me a little while to get used to the writing style. The prose is absolutely lovely to read, but it has a very different feel from most of the stories I have been reading lately. The tale of Ged almost feels a bit like The Odyssey - a long string of events being told by a narrator. We aren't told what Ged is thinking or feeling during the course of the story, we are just allowed to view his actions. The writing gives the reader enough clues to project their emotional experiences onto Ged, without having to sit through pages of teen angst and drama. I found that I was able to understand Ged and his actions without needing every nuance of his behavior or personality explained to me in detail.

I ponder if I would have appreciated reading this story more as a child - it has a sense of childlike wonder about it, and at times the writing almost feels like something you would read to a child at bedtime. Another part of me wonders if I would have really appreciated it at a younger age - would I have had the experienced to connect with Ged? Or would I have thought his story to be really boring? I suppose it doesn't really matter at this point - I read it and I enjoyed it, which is the more important thing. I don't know if I am going to jump into the sequels right away, as I have a stack of half-finished books I sort of want to power through before starting another, but I do intend to read them at some point in the future. I find the story to be quite refreshing - it deals with serious topics that are covered in many fantasy books, but in a subtle way that allows the reader to explore their own thoughts and feelings about issues like friendship, honor, and death.

Overall I have to say I highly recommend this book. I don't know if I would call it one of my favorite fantasy novels - I tend to prefer the really heavy books with detailed magic systems - but I do think it is an important foundation in the genre. I think the prose is beautiful and well worth reading, and I think the content is appropriate for a wide audience. I expect some people will find it too simplistic, but there is an elegance to that simplicity that I can really appreciate. It is a lovely book, definitely worth the read.

Executive Summary: A fun story that I probably would have liked even more as a teenager, but I can still appreciate as an adult.Full ReviewSo books published before say the 90's (or maybe 80's for certain authors) and I don't tend to see eye to eye. Whether it's one of those “well they are just a product of their times” type of books, or just something so different from what modern SFF writers do, I just don't like most of it.So I was a little bit concerned coming into this book. I needn't have been. Yes it's different than what I normally read. It's much shorter. There isn't a ton of depth or world building here. But it's a fun story that sets up some interesting ideas that I hope to find time to continue exploring.The prose are something I don't usually spend much time, but I'd be remiss not to mention it. They are absolutely beautiful. Some people have said it distracts from the story, but that wasn't the case for me.This books reminds me a lot of [b:The Name of the Wind 186074 The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1) Patrick Rothfuss https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1270352123s/186074.jpg 2502879]. I'd be shocked if [a:Patrick Rothfuss 108424 Patrick Rothfuss https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1351307341p2/108424.jpg] doesn't cite this series/Ms. Le Guin as one of his influences.In fact now that I've read it, I see how this series has likely influenced many series that have come after it. I wish I had first read this as a teenager rather than as an adult. I think I would appreciate it more. However, as a fantasy fan I can certainly appreciate and enjoy what is here.The story moves along at a pretty good pace for most of the book, but does slow down a bit in the last third or so.My only other complaint is less a complaint more than a puzzlement. Ms. Le Guin decided to break from the norm and have most of her characters be people of color. Yet she has almost no women, and the ones that are there are thin stereotypes. It doesn't ruin the book by any means, but as a female author it is a bit surprising to me.Overall I found this enjoyable, and now I need to find time to read the rest of the series.3.5 Stars rounded up because I really enjoyed most of it.

i love this book it is grate

I think I am enjoying her Hainish Cycle SciFi books more than this fantasy novel, but that is probably purely a matter of personal preference. What spoke to me beyond the story was the world she builds, made up of many islands and dominated by the sea that connects them.

If I didn't know better, it would be possible to think that Eressea (the strategy PBEM) was influenced by this book, and it's made me want to start another game in a setting like this, with more magic and better rules for ships.

An amazing book, indeed. All that issues regarding the power of naming people, animals and things were just amazing, hiding a powerful message about the language and Linguistics. In a land where the real or true names are so precious, the “magic power” only can be the power of... naming the world around us, giving meaning to our surroundings from the moment we are born until we die! That's awesome, somehow and indirectly a beautiful homage to the Levi Strauss' Structuralism or, perhaps more important, a beautiful homage to the Language itself.

This book was wasted on me as a youth. Which is to say, while I liked the story, I had no idea just how good it was. And Harlan Ellison was an absolute delight narrating the story.

Ged's amazing potential as a wizard is recognized and he is plucked from a remote village by a master wizard, destined to become one of the greatest wizards of all.

And then that terrible human frailty, pride, gets the upper hand, and Ged makes a mistake that seemingly ruins his life.

And Ged is off on a quest to restore the world.

Le Guin writes with the rhythm of a poet and with the wisdom of a philosopher in this beautiful classic fantasy novel.