Water And Wizards

You know those books you know you should read, the ones by the authors you are pretty sure you are gonna love, the ones that you see on the shelves of your local bookstore, reviewed favorably by all your trusted sources and raved about by all your closest reading buddies, the ones that will probably become one of your favorites...if you could just pick it up an read it. So then finally one day you do pick it up and read it and then you beat yourself up for taking so long to pick up one of your new favorite books, WHY WHY WHY you groan to yourself, why did I take so long to read this, I could have read the rest of the series by now, I could have reread this by now, I could have gushed to everybody who would listen to this by now...why why why?!? That folks is how I felt about A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, yep it has taken me more years then I care to admit to finally read this gem and I will tell you why shortly, but first as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

A young boy dwelling in a northern island called Gont is found to have great wizarding potential.  He is taught by the local witch and saves his village from eastern Kargard raiders who have crossed on of the many oceans and seas to raid the boys little village.  He calls down a fog so thick that the villagers can escape and the many of the invaders are killed in the confusion.  The boy (who calls himself Sparrowhawk) is then taken to be taught by the hermit wizard Ogion who gives him his true name which is Ged.  Ged learns quickly and soon chafes under the slow pace that Ogion appears to be teaching him, culminating in him showing off to a local girl by summoning a spirit for the world beyond.  Ogion tells Ged that he has a choice, he can stay and continue to learn from Ogion at a slow pace, but will learn great control along the way, or he can leave and sail for Roke, where wizards are trained under the Archmage and his associates.  As much as Ged loves his master, he is young and hungry for power and chooses to leave.  Ged gets to Roke and is accepted as a pupil, and there he meets two people who will play two very different roles in his life.  The first is Jasper an older boy who seems to always be not quit mocking Ged, always challenging him, making him feel young and stupid, but not in an obvious way.  The other is Vetch, the big man from Iffish who is becomes Ged's

steadfast friend.  Ged learns quickly, always hungry for more knowledge and more power.  This all comes out when Jasper who has been awarded the title of sorcerer challenges Ged, resulting in Ged summoning what he ends up calling the Shadow, a twisted, deformed monster that hungers to take over Ged's body and use his powers for evil and destruction.  Ged is severely wounded and the Archmage dies protecting him.  A new Archmage is chosen, telling the finally recovered Ged that he must stay of Roke as that is the only place the Shadow cannot get to him. Ged stays and returns to his learning, but at a much slower, much more cautious pace.  He eventually earns his wizard staff and goes out into the world to earn his keep.  He ends up being the wizard to a small fishing village in the west of the world, very close to the island of Pendor which houses a dragon and his spawn.  The village is worried that when the dragons spawn get older, they will sate their voracious appetites by eating the villagers.  Ged works and lives among the people, until he starts to sense his Shadow, he knows he cannot stay and endanger the villagers, yet he cannot leave them defenseless against the dragons either. He decides to go to the island of Pendor and take care of the problem head on.  He defeats several of the young dragons and confronts the father dragon with his true name (in this world any who know a person or things true name has mastery over it, this is the real study of wizards).  The dragon tries to bargain with Ged, offering to tell him the Shadows true name, but Ged refuses and instead exacts an oath that the dragon or his offspring will never harm the villagers.  Ged then sails hither and yon, attempting to flee the Shadow.  He ends up in Osskill, a frozen island to the north where he has a run in with the Shadow, who uses Ged's name and saps him of all power.  He ends up in the care of Serret and her old husband the lord of the castle.  Serret shows him a stone that appears to be all powerful and tells him that it can tell him the name of his Shadow.  Ged realizes that the stone is actually a
prison for a malevolent spirit that has already taken in Serret and her husband for its own uses.  Ged refuses the offer of power and flees.  He sails to various islands, learning and processing life, eventually ending up on his old home island of Gont where his old master shows him that he will need to confront his Shadow if he is to ever have any sort of life.  Ged takes this to heart and instead of running starts pursuing his shadow.  After chasing it hither and yon (I love that phrase) Ged ends up on the island of Iffrish and meets up with his old friend Vetch. Together they set sail past the last known island to the south east and into the open ocean. Eventually Ged finds his Shadow and names it using his own name, finally figuring out that the Shadow he called up so long ago is actually part of him, and by naming it his true name he assumes mastery over himself.  The two friends sail home, thus starting the Earthsea Cycle and the adventures of Ged a wizard of Earthsea.

Obviously there is a whole lot of rich detail that has been left out of the synopsis.  This book is actually not all that long, but the story and the words and the imagery are just packed in like a delicious box full of chocolates.  There are a couple of reasons that it took me so long to pick this book up, the first being I had read a couple short stories of hers and while I enjoyed them, they seemed a bit dense and hard to get into and I have read "classics" that are no more then pretty words that do not add up to anything special.  This was not the case for this book.  In this case I think the full novel length of this book is much more suited to the style of prose that Ms. Le Guin employs, it is like the world of Earthsea itself a prose that swells and ebbs just like the ocean, and having enough pages for this full cycle of words to be expressed works much better then in a short story (in my own little opinion).  I will however go back and read some of the short stories now that I have a handle of the rhythem of the authors prose and see if it comes across differently. The second reason it took me a while is that there was no "hook" to get me excited to read it, I knew I should for all the reasons in the opening paragraph, but there was nothing that I had heard about that made me go "oh I have to read that right now!".  Of course now that I have read it, well I still feel the same way.  See this book is very subtle and not a really in your face type of work.  To me it is more of a story, or a piece of a long saga, and less of a book, which I love!  In some ways it reminds me of what Tolkien was trying to do with his Middle Earth saga and that is create a whole mythos for a world.  This wizard Ged we are told right away is a great and mighty epic wizard of fame and awesomeness, but the story we read is his personal journey to become the eventual legend. There is also a taste of C.S. Lewis in her prose, in the
actual traveling and interactions of Ged. This is not in any way to say that she is copying these authors, or that she has no style of her own, quit the opposite Ms. Le Guin has a very unique and beautiful writing style that is all her own, any references I make are just points of good writing that I think any good author needs to hit to be considered a writer worthy of praise. I loved that the struggle of the main character was not an epic violent battle of good vs. evil with a whole war to tear the world of Earthsea apart.  In fact the author purposely did not have her world at war, or any major world wide struggle, which is so prevalent in high fantasy.  The story however did not lag, it was still a battle of sorts, and the out come of the struggle was still as dire as any war, it was just more about a powerful man knowing himself and using that knowledge to defeat the dark parts of himself. This book is one of those where the setting is almost a character itself.  This world of Earthsea is just that, a place that is mostly water, where the land is all of these islands, there are no major landmasses like we think of, just greater and lesser islands. This influences a lot of the story in a very positive way (also keep the map in the front of the book handy to help keep all the places straight).  I also loved that nobody was white (Ok the barbarian invaders where white in a Viking sort of way, but that is it).  The hero's, the women, the men, the children, everybody was some shade of brown or black 'cause that is just how it is and especially in the era these were written, in the hey day of epic fantasy, non-white hero' were not (and sadly still are not) the norm. This point of her world is not pounded into our heads, this is not a "hey look I'm being awesome by writing about brown people" type of book, this is just how it is and I love it.  Ok so this post is getting to be as long as the book so I will attempt to wrap it up.  As I am sure you can tell, I really enjoyed this book.  It is powerful, yet subtle, epic, yet personal, involves a whole world, but is about the individual, there is magic, friendship, oceans, sailing, learning, jealousy, dragons, family, enemies, everything you could want in a book without it feeling crowded or stuffed. It is beautiful and sticks in your head and will go on my favorites shelf along with the rest of the series that I am now on my way to the book store to pick up.  I give it 9 out of 10 islands in an endless sea.

What books do you know you should read that you haven't?  What is stopping you from reading those books? Do I know how to ramble or what?