The Farthest Shore

Lovely, as the previous Earthsea books have been. As all Le Guin is.

In Book 3, Ged/Sparrowhawk is now Archmage of, er, Earthsea - whatever the main map is about - and is summoned, by Handsome Young Prince Arren, to look into a general problem that people are observing: a great sickness is eating away at the outer lands. Wizards are losing their mojo. Crops are dying. People are being weird. SICK LAND.

Ged has kind of an inkling of what's up and, after Arren is moved to bow down and pledge himself (“MY LIEGE!”) to him, enlists Arren as his squire in what is essentially a long road movie. They pass through a variety of islands in this island world. There's the sad, shitty island where everyone's addicted to a type of opium, the market sucks, and Ged + Arren meet a messed-up, wild-eyed wizard who speaks in riddles. There's the sad, aggro town where they can't dye their silks very well anymore, everyone gets sort of pathetically mad, and they meet a messed-up, wild-eyed wizard who speaks in riddles (yes, another one). There's lots of sea travel. There's an awesome boat society interlude. There are dragons. I won't spoil anymore.

Anyway, the magic of Le Guin's fantasy is how richly tactile it is, and how ponderously wise. As I've said before, it's better Tolkien than Tolkien. This one felt a bit like T.H. White's Once and Future King, in that it combined a genuine feeling of Legend with a genuine feeling of mundane, quotidian humanity. Good values!

Lovely and lovely. I read it also with a parental eye, thinking what age might be appropriate to introduce Earthsea to a kid. There's some deep meditations on mortality, human folly, and one very gross (and scary) scene of violence, so maybe tweens.