Ratings145
Average rating3.9
Me ha defraudado mucho.
Mientras que los otros libros tienen una historia que fluye de una forma muy natural, sobre todo el primer y el segundo libro, en este tenemos una historia que no.
El final es evidente para todos pero por alguna razón los protagonistas que deberían saber como hacer las cosas mejor, en este caso no tienen ni idea de lo que esta pasando.
Los protagonistas están demasiado disminuidos, entiendo el concepto, pero ese es el problema, es mas un concepto al que se le ha unido una historia que una historia encapsulando un concepto.
A strong entry in the Earthsea cycle.
Pros:
Return of my favorite character in the series.
More characters than previous books.
Great vibes throughout the whole book.
Exciting conclusion to tie things together.
Cons:
The plot is a little weaker but it doesn't rely on it.
Less overall magic than previous books.
A little slower than past entries.
4.5 stars!
I think my love for this one stems from how similar Ged is to Fitzchivalry Farseer in the later Realm of the Elderlings books
3.5 stars
very heavy and sobering and different from the last three books. but i enjoyed it.
“Tehanu” est le quatrième tome du cycle Earthsea d'Ursula K. Le Guin, également connu en français sous le nom de cycle de Terremer.
Publié en 1990, près de vingt ans après le tome précédent, le roman reprend cependant le récit directement après l'épilogue de The Farthest Shore. Le vieux mage Ged et le jeune prince Arren sont de retour de leur terrible voyage : Arren va monter sur le trône sous son nom véritable, Lebannen, tandis que Ged, privé de sa magie, va s'exiler. Dans le même temps, Tenar, l'héroïne du deuxième tome The Tombs of Atuan, désormais veuve d'un fermier, recueille Therru, une fillette gravement brûlée et maltraitée par sa « famille ».
Le roman met en scène les retrouvailles entre Ged et Tenar, des années après leurs aventures dans The Tombs of Atuan. Tenar n'est plus la grande prêtresse de sombres divinités, et Ged n'est plus mage, même s'il conserve encore le titre honorifique d'archimage, le temps que les maîtres de Roke désignent son successeur. D'une certaine façon, le roman nous parle du temps qui passe, des vies qui avancent pour le meilleur et pour le pire, de la nostalgie d'une époque révolue.
Surtout, Ursula K. Le Guin propose un récit profondément féministe qui aborde les questions de la place des femmes dans la famille et dans la société, du rapport au pouvoir et de la domination masculine. Elle le fait avec talent, finesse, mais sans concession. Elle offre ainsi de la fantasy engagée, à la fois intelligente et divertissante.
J'ai l'impression que chaque tome de ce cycle est meilleur que le précédent, c'est en tout cas le cas pour l'instant. Il ne me reste désormais plus que deux livres à lire dans ce cycle, un recueil de nouvelles puis le roman final de la série. Je vais m'y mettre très vite !
Very good book. While a break in theme and pacing from the other Earthsea books, Tehanu is still steeped in Le Guin's signature writing style that says so much using such simple, elegant language. It's a thoughtful book dripping with insight, wisdom, and philosophy. It wrestles with questions of gender and identity, while rounding out the world of Earthsea, giving the perspective of the ‘ordinary folk'.
Don't expect a page turner. But do expect gentle, kind wisdom and thoughtfulness.
I enjoyed it. Slow burn but I enjoyed the second book of the series more than the first and third so I was more than happy to see Tenar again. And to see a relationship that should have happened in the first place...but it wasn't the right time, I will admit. I read this by ebook, as my library had the first three by audio book. I will take a break from this series for now.
Sad how alot is revealed only at the end, instead of a bit of reveal around two-thirds so you could see the exploration of a particular reveal. Plus so many things were going on I had to backtrack at times to see where the point of view changed. I feel a bit of a traitor for saying such about Ms Le Guin's work.
I do feel that the overall presentation was much the same as the previous three books so it seems to be a good match for the series.
2.5 stars, rounded up. Kind of a drag, and not up to usual Ursula benchmark. A heavy-handed, unimaginative conclusion to an otherwise excellent Earthsea series.
So the previous Earthsea books were meditative, nature-soaked high fantasy tales that out-Tolkiened Tolkien. They followed Ged, your usual talented but proud hero wizard, as he (in the first book) learned his wizarding ways and accidentally unleashed a hell-demon in his teens, (in the second book) freed a creepy girl-queen from her crypt kingdom in his ~20s (?), and (in the third book) made friends with an awesome noble prince and dealt with a widespread magickal problem in his ~50s (as Archmage, by then, even!).
So book 4 picks up days after book 3 - Ged is JUUUST back from his Hades excursion - and 25 years after book 2 - so the girl-queen is now an older lady. OLDER LADY. Do you hear me? OLDER WOMAN, THE PROTAGONIST OF THIS BOOK IS AN OLDER WOMAN DO YOU HEAR ME DAMMIT. Is that clear enough!?! Because Ursula Le Guin wants you to be damn sure that you are aware that THIS IS A FEMINIST BOOK WITH AN OLDER WOMAN PROTAGONIST DID YOU KNOW THAT “WOMEN'S WORK” IS UNPAID EVEN IN AGRARIAN SOCIETIES IT'S NOT JUST CAPITALISM THAT CREATES THE PATRIARCHY YOU KNOW –
Oh? Too overt for you? Yeah, me too.
I don't know why Le Guin wrote it like this - especially given how subtle and nuanced her handling of gender was in one of her masterpieces, The Left Hand of Darkness - but here it is sledgehammer obvious. While I started the book pleased and refreshed by Goha AKA Tenar AKA the girl-queen from Tombs of Atuan AKA AN OLDER WOMAN YOU DON'T SEE MANY OF THOSE AS PROTAGONISTS EH INDEED THEY ARE INVISIBLE DAMN YOU PATRIARCHY DAMN YOU. But, really, I was pleased, because Le Guin was making excellent points - through Tenar's thoughts - about how, indeed, invisible older women are in men's eyes, how being a mom both incredibly limits you in your freedoms but adds richness and how dudes are BLIND I TELL YOU BLIND re: picking up the damn dishes.
But then Le Guin's hand becomes quite heavy and Tenar - who already felt like an authorial stand-in - began to feel like a Mary Sue, what with Ged coming back all busted up and handsome with his handsome hair and handsome aquiline nose and HANDSOME I GET IT URSULA HE'S HOT - and wtf there are romantic feelings between Tenar and Ged?! I thought Tenar was a CHILD when Ged saved her from that crypt kingdom place?! Whaaat.
So yeah, basically this last book felt like indulgent fanfiction ABOUT the Earthsea universe. While the previous books featured ponderous, ominous villains in the style of Hayao Miyazaki villains - it's all gray! - this book featured two main villains, a rapist (!) and a mediocre mid-level wizard who - AND I AM NOT SHITTING YOU - puts a (literal) hex on Tenar because he just damn hates uppity women. What? WHAT?! This was all so absurd that I was like, really?
Oh yeah, that reminds me - there's another character: a young girl who was terribly victimized by her family and gets terribly burned. Tenar adopts her. It is implied she has magical powers too.
But mostly the book is Tenar thinking angry thoughts about how shitty the patriarchy is, and how none of these damn men do their dishes or realize that women live in fear etc etc. I was honestly bummed by how blunt - and even limited! - it all was. Ursula! This is not how you usually do your thing!
Indeed, her afterword immediately begins on the defensive - and she basically accuses the people who were disappointed by this book as being crypto-sexists that can't handle an old woman protagonist and so on. Which is a bummer cuz I (a) am a lady, (b) and thus am super on board with how the patriarchy sucks and yes, “women's work” has always been constricted to unpaid labor - LABOR - throughout the ages, but (c) indeed probably arising sometime around the agricultural revolution, but (d) I CAN STILL FIND THIS HEAVY-HANDED. Oof.
In other news, Ged was described with such loving affection - such a handsome man! - that I decided to cast David Strathairn as him in my head. You're welcome.
Some days, we're just happy being around the house, in the yard, simply enjoying the beingness of being. the joys of being ourselves, the pleasure of being in our lives. Such was most of the experience of reading Tehanu for me. Simple joys, the delight of existence. yes, there is story, drama and excitement, the usual, but somehow it wasn't overly important. The mere existing within the book was enough. A relaxed casual joy. Soothing in its simplicity. A different enjoyment, one less pressured. perhaps it is me, but I found such simple pleasure sustaining, comforting, and relaxing.
My only complaint is with foolish publishers who insist on not marking the book's place in the overall series. Had I known it was book 4, I might have made the effort to acquire books 1 to 3 in order to read the series in sequence. Now I am unlikely to do that, or read the rest of the series, as I don't care to read what I already know something about, know how it turns out, nor to read incomplete series. Why publishers do this is an amazing mystery.
TEHANU is a masterful read, perhaps the best of the Earthsea cycle. Le Guin does away with power, or the mythical Ged and strong Tenar of the first book, revealing instead their much more human and frail lives. It's a dark booked filled with loss and grief, but also an incredibly angry book; attacking gender roles, attacking power. This book is a complete stunner and easily one of my favorite Le Guins.